Tesla is in talks for a Robotaxi test program in Palo Alto, according to a local official, but the scale is a bit disappointing.

Local Palo Alto news reports that the city has confirmed it has held discussions with Tesla to use its recently unveiled Robotaxi in its ride-sharing program (via Palo Alto Online):

The city recently had a preliminary discussion with Tesla to discuss a possible partnership, according to Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, the city’s spokeswoman. If approved, the deal could complement existing taxi service that serves the Palo Alto community, including Palo Alto Link, a ride-sharing program that debuted last year.

Board member Greg Tanaka attended Tesla’s We, Robot event earlier this month and at a board meeting on October 21, he spoke about the partnership between Palo Alto and Tesla:

Tesla has the technology, the hardware, but it is considering test areas. This is where Palo Alto comes in.

The city has its own carpooling program called Palo Alto Link, and Tanaka thinks using Tesla’s Robotaxi could help sustain it:

I think everyone in the community loves it, but the big question we’re all discussing is, “How can we fund it?”

Palo Alto Link is extremely small, with only 3.1 users per service hour, which is limited.

After launching the service last year, thanks to a grant from the county, the city must now support the program itself. The city is expected to vote to extend the program, apparently hoping to reach a deal with Tesla.

Tesla’s official timeline, according to CEO Elon Musk, is to achieve “unsupervised autonomous driving” in California and Texas next year and its Robotaxi, which has no steering wheel, will arrive in 2026.

There are serious doubts about this timeline since Musk has said Tesla will achieve unattended autonomous driving by the end of every year for the past 5 years.

Electrek’s point of view

I have serious doubts about this reality. First of all, I don’t think Tesla is technologically ready for this since Robotaxi relies on FSD, which is not ready for unsupervised autonomous driving and probably won’t be for some time.

This is also happening in California, and it would require Tesla to report its data to the CA DMV, and the automaker has been doing everything possible to avoid this for years.

This is also a very small rideshare service which would not be the best example for Tesla since rideshare services are primarily about the logistics of getting drivers and connecting them with passengers, but at 3 users per hour, the sample size is very small to achieve. that.