Tesla is prepping a Cybercab onslaught

Not every Tesla executive agreed on this during Wednesday’s call.

Asked about the remaining bottlenecks for a wider robotaxi rollout, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president overseeing autonomy, said they are “not purely regulatory.”

“It’s technology driven,” he said. “We had initially had the robotaxi service from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and then expanded to 10 p.m. to 11 p.m, now it’s going to be pretty soon, 2 a.m. So we’re slowly expanding the availability of robotaxi, and that is driven by the capability of the AI software.”

That could be why Tesla’s service still doesn’t operate on highways, and in certain conditions, although it has been spotted operating in heavy rain many times in Austin — something Waymo’s robotaxis have largely avoided. Elluswamy said Wednesday that Tesla plans to tackle more of these challenging driving scenarios by the end of this year, before scaling further.

“We just want to make sure that there’s not a single safety incident. That is our operating principle. And even if there’s the slightest possible risk at all, we don’t like take on that risk,” he said.