For Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin, nothing looks cooler than the car driving along with nobody in the driver’s seat (except for maybe playing the “Knight Rider” theme as it cruises along). Unfortunately, it also puts people in danger, particularly the official safety monitor in the front passenger seat, reports Electrek. When something goes wrong, which it often does, this monitor must exit the vehicle, often with the car stopped in the middle of the road, to move to the driver’s seat and take manual control of the vehicle. Not that Tesla has a great track record on employee safety, either.
In Austin, a Robotaxi’s safety monitor allows the car to operate autonomously, but can press a kill switch at any time to stop the vehicle in a dangerous situation or if it starts behaving erratically, which happens somewhat regularly. This is safer than a car with no human monitor, but all that the monitor can do from the front passenger seat is shut it down. If only they had additional controls, like a steering wheel, accelerator, and brake, the monitor would be able to immediately assume manual control to get the car out of whatever sticky situation it was in. Those controls exist in the driver’s seat, but Austin’s Robotaxi deployment leaves this seat empty because it looks better that way, according to Electrek.
Playing in traffic
A video by ARK Invest, one of Tesla’s biggest stock promoters, shows a Robotaxi ride where the safety monitor had to exit the car in the middle of the road, get into the driver’s seat, and manually turn left from a turning lane into a parking lot, a simple task that apparently stumped the autonomous system. Traffic was light in this case, making the move less risky for the monitor-turned-driver, but it shows the unnecessary danger involved in not having the monitor already in the driver’s seat.
Tesla is able to operate Robotaxis this way thanks to few rules governing autonomous vehicles in Texas, The Verge reports, including no laws regulating the removal of human drivers. In contrast, Robotaxi service in California is really just a regular taxi service because it doesn’t have the necessary permits for autonomous operation. The Bay Area Robotaxi drivers may well be using the same “Full Self-Driving” software as in Austin, but it doesn’t look as cool as the empty driver’s seats in Austin. On the plus side, the driver can respond to any issues that may arise far more effectively than a monitor in the passenger seat with only a kill switch at their disposal. It’s far from the first time Tesla has overpromised and underdelivered. Haven’t we been just one year away from full autonomy for almost 10 years now?
