Tesla is planning to follow up on its extremely limited and technical-issues-plagued robotaxi service in Austin, Texas — with an even more limited rollout in San Francisco.
According to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider, Elon Musk's EV maker is looking to accelerate its timeline by rolling out a robotaxi service across a large swathe of the Bay Area, as soon as this week.
But there's a Gigafactory-sized caveat: a human safety operator will be sitting in the robotaxi's driver seat, a bizarre concession that shows Tesla is far from feeling confident enough to have its robotaxis actually operate by themselves — or secure the necessary regulatory approvals.
During Wednesday's earnings call, Tesla's head of AI software, Ashok Elluswamy, stated that "we are working with the government to get approval" in the San Francisco Bay Area. But he admitted that "we will launch the service with a person in the driver's seat just to expedite while we wait for regulatory approval."
The stakes for the carmaker are incredibly high. As revenues continue to plummet thanks to cratering sales worldwide, Musk is looking to make up for the company's less-than-stellar performance by selling "millions" of humanoid robots and a robotaxi service.
But getting anywhere near the point where Tesla "will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the US by the end of the year," as Musk vaguely promised during Wednesday's call, could prove incredibly difficult.
Even its handful of robotaxis in Austin have already been plagued with technical issues, from running stop signs and swerving into the wrong lane to driving twice the speed limit and dropping off passengers in the middle of busy intersections.
Alternatively, Tesla may attempt to fudge the numbers by having most of its robotaxis staffed by human operators — a bizarre reality, considering that's exactly the opposite of what the company's presumably trying to achieve with a driverless taxi service.
While the California DMV has met with Tesla, the company has yet to apply for a permit to launch a robotaxi service in the state. The agency did not respond to BI's request for comment on how a human operator in the driver's seat would affect the situation.
While it hasn't applied for a commercial robotaxi service permit in California, the California Public Utilities Commission did grant Tesla a permit to transport employees, according to the publication.
In Texas, a state that has far looser restrictions in place when it comes to self-driving cars than California, Tesla's robotaxis have had a remote operator sitting in the passenger seat, tasked with stepping in — sometimes literally, by clambering over to the driver's seat — if anything goes awry.
It remains to be seen how long it will take for Tesla to get regulatory approval in California. The company is also seeking to expand its services in Florida and Arizona.
More on Tesla's robotaxis: Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing Because Elon Musk Made a Foolish Decision Years Ago