Tesla's Self-Driving Taxis Unlikely to Launch Next Year: Zoox Co-founder

Tesla's Self-Driving Taxis Unlikely to Launch Next Year: Zoox Co-founder Despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk's recent claims of launching a self-driving taxi service next year, Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Amazon-owned self-driving car company Zoox, believes it's unlikely to happen in California or anywhere else. "The major issue is they lack reliable technology," Levinson said on Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 conference

Tesla's Self-Driving Taxis Unlikely to Launch Next Year: Zoox Co-founder

Despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk's recent claims of launching a self-driving taxi service next year, Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO of Amazon-owned self-driving car company Zoox, believes it's unlikely to happen in California or anywhere else. "The major issue is they lack reliable technology," Levinson said on Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 conference.

Levinson emphasized what he meant by "reliable technology," stating that it requires a system that's sufficiently reliable to not require human intervention in the vehicle, rather than a driver assistance system that can drive autonomously most of the time, but still requires human intervention in specific situations. Levinson also specifically highlighted Tesla's reliance on cameras to support its driver assistance system. "We believe that to build a self-driving taxi that is safer than a human driver, you actually need more hardware than what Tesla has equipped their cars with," he said.

Just weeks before Levinson's comments, Musk unveiled the prototype for Tesla's robot taxi, dubbed the Cybercab. Musk also announced at the Cybercab launch that Tesla wants to have Model 3 and Model Y vehicles operating as robot taxis in California and Texas by the end of 2025.

Levinson said he uses Tesla's Full Self-Driving system (FSD) "every couple of weeks." While he acknowledged the software has "impressive" performance, he admitted to feeling "a little bit nervous" when using it. "Usually, it's making good decisions, and then it gives you this false sense of security, and then it makes a bad decision," he said. "You're like, oh my god!"

Levinson went on to say that, based on publicly available metrics, he believes FSD is "about 1% as safe as a human driver." Tesla releases safety reports quarterly, claiming its driver assistance systems have a lower accident rate than vehicles without the system, but some critics have accused the company of cherry-picking data in its favor.

Levinson's comments came as Zoox announced it would be launching its custom-built self-driving taxis in San Francisco and Las Vegas in the coming weeks. The company also plans to make these taxis available to early riders by 2025.

Levinson's skepticism towards Tesla's self-driving technology reignites the ongoing debate about the safety of self-driving technology. While companies like Tesla have made progress in the field, achieving truly driverless vehicles still requires overcoming numerous technical and safety challenges.

Levinson's comments also highlight the intense competition within the autonomous vehicle industry, with companies actively developing their own technology and vying for market dominance. In the future, the company that manages to first offer a truly reliable, safe, and scalable self-driving taxi service will be a key factor in determining the direction of autonomous vehicle technology.