How Texas’ hands-off approach to autonomous vehicles gave Tesla an opening

Last week, a Tesla Model Y with the connection "ROBOTAXI" scratched into its broadside and nary 1 successful the operator spot made a crook disconnected Austin's bustling South Congress Avenue. Another Tesla, described by autonomous conveyance experts arsenic a "chase vehicle," followed intimately behind.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented connected the clip, seemingly confirming that the pb car was one of astir 10 vehicles comprising the company's robotaxi fleet, expected to marque their authoritative debut sometime adjacent week. If that does occur, it volition travel astir nine years aft Musk archetypal pitched the idea of a "Tesla Network" successful which Tesla owners could adhd their vehicles to an autonomous ridehail fleet. And it volition besides beryllium made possible, successful nary tiny part, by the authorities of Texas' laissez-faire, AV-friendly regulatory environment.

"In Texas, beauteous overmuch anyone tin get a [autonomous vehicles] licence who shows up and does a fewer administrative things," Carnegie Mellon prof and autonomous conveyance adept Phil Koopman tells The Verge. "If you amusement up and you archer the authorities you're operating and you person insurance, you're bully to go. That's astir it."

That AV-friendly scenery - accelerated by a 2017 law that openly tribunal …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.