Robotaxis and the advent of transport as a service

The development of all-purpose, self-driving vehicles, would be a giant leap in transport and could be considered Tesla’s phase 2 after the huge success of its electric vehicles.

Although these ride-hailing autonomous services already exist via companies such as Waymo and Cruise, Tesla’s plans are a lot more ambitious.

Existing cars have a limited working area which has to be mapped in detail and continuously monitored for changes. Also, the vehicles are equipped with expensive gadgets such as LIDARs, which are high-resolution laser-based machines to map the surroundings in real time. These, along with radar, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors provide as much information as possible to the onboard system to be able to take the right driving decisions.

Instead, Tesla’s Full Self Driving software is designed to work anywhere, in any weather condition, and only relies on cameras to feed the system which simplifies both, hardware and software, in a great manner.

This translates into a cheaper, easier-to-run vehicle that can be deployed at a lower cost anywhere and that cannot only make short rides but also provide customers with intercity connections.