Weeks after investors slammed Tesla for a splashy robotaxi event that was light on details, Tesla executives divulged key details Wednesday about the planned autonomous ride hailing service—including revealing that the company is already testing the service with its employees in the San Francisco area.
“For Tesla employees in the Bay Area, we already are offering a ride hailing capability,” Musk said on the company’s third quarter earnings call on Wednesday. “With the development app, you can request a ride, and it’ll take you anywhere in the Bay Area,” he said, noting that these employee test rides include safety drivers.
Until now, the public has gotten few details on what exactly Tesla’s robotaxi service would entail over the five years that Musk has been talking about it. While autonomous cars operated by rival Waymo are on the streets, driving paying passengers around in multiple cities, Tesla’s robotaxi plans are still a work in progress . Two weeks ago, at the long-awaited robotaxi launch event, Musk didn’t go into many specifics about the timeline or even whether Tesla planned to manage the service itself, sending shares of the company down more than 7%.