Tesla is training first responders for tricky Cybercab encounters on public roads

Tesla will decide if and how to launch its autonomous Robotaxi on public roads in select cities after it analyzes its training sessions with local first responder teams.

According to Tesla's official email communication, it has been in touch with city authorities in Austin since May, asking for a place at the table of its local autonomous driving regulation task force as an interested stakeholder.

Texas doesn't have a statewide regulatory framework as California does, but rather considers self-driving cars as just another vehicle on the road that has to comply with general traffic safety rules, and leaves any specific legislation to the city administrations.

This is why Elon Musk said that Tesla is planning to launch its unsupervised FSD in Texas and California first. The first state because it doesn't have any regulation, and the other because it already has established autonomous vehicle legislation in place. Unsupervised FSD will allow existing Tesla vehicles to be used on the Cybercab ride-share platform, and pave the way for the Robotaxi launch on public streets afterward.

Since Austin has become somewhat of a hotbed for autonomous vehicle testing, with Waymo, Zoox, and VW all having a presence there, the city assembled a task force that aims to craft safety rules and train first responders for self-driving car encounters.

Tesla wants to be in on that action, and has already done its first autonomous vehicle training session with Austin's first responder teams on December 5. The goal is to "collect feedback and incident data, and to establish safety training and procedures" should a situation occur with Tesla's Robotaxi that doesn't have a steering wheel, or with, say, a Model Y used with the Cybercab ride-share service in unsupervised FSD mode.

Based on the training success and task force feedback, Tesla will decide how and where to deploy its first unsupervised FSD fleet of cars. Those it will initially own and operate, before it rolls the Cybercab platform to the general Tesla-owning public to allow them to earn some cash from their cars when not in use, as Elon Musk has been promising for a good while now.

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