Tesla Has Started Testing Its Ride-Hailing Service With Employees

Employees in the Bay Area can already use a beta version of the ride-hailing service Tesla plans to launch next year.

Tesla Model Y Taxi

Photo by: Tesla

Rob Stumpf

By: Rob Stumpf

Oct 23, 2024 at 6:51pm ET

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Tesla is now offering ride-hailing services to its employees.
Current permitting only allows Tesla to do this with a safety driver in California, so they all still have humans behind the wheel.
The automaker plans to expand this to a limited beta to the public in 2025, Musk says. His timelines are famously fungible, however.

While volume production of the Robotaxi might be two years away, it turns out that Tesla is already taking steps to prepare its platform to handle ride-hailing requests today.

In its quarterly earnings call, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla hasn't just begun the development of its ride-hailing services, but it's already offering the service in the Bay Area today. But there's a catch—it's only available for Tesla employees... for now.

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"For Tesla employees in the Bay Area, we are already offering ride-hailing capabilities," said Musk during the call. "With the development app, you can request a ride and it will take you anywhere in the Bay Area."

Now, like we said yesterday, Tesla doesn't actually have a permit in California to offer true driverless testing or autonomous deployments. What it does hold is a permit for testing with a safety driver behind the wheel, and that's exactly what Tesla is doing.

This means that Tesla is sending out its existing fleet of cars (not the robotaxi) with a safety driver behind the wheel. An employee can use the development version of the Tesla app, "Summon" a ride and then hop in and navigate anywhere they want in the region.

Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to offer an autonomous ride-hailing service to the public sometime in 2025, beginning in Texas, which doesn't require permits for AV testing, and California, which does require additional permits that Tesla does not currently hold and will need regulatory approval for. Musk says that Tesla is also eyeing up "some other states" that could also get the service in the near future.

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Tesla seems to be using this closed employee-only beta to test out new features in its app, which includes ride-hailing, ride progress and profile syncing. But as David Lau, Tesla's VP of Software Engineering, points out—Tesla has been preparing by building an app-centric approach to its cars from the start.

"It's not like we're just starting to think about this stuff right now while we're building out the early stages of our ride-hailing network," said David. "We've been thinking about this for quite a long time."

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Musk and Lau confirmed that the rider's Tesla profile will sync across ride-hailing cars. This means that media, navigation and even HVAC settings are immediately available in the car once the rider opens the door—just as if they were jumping into the driver's seat of their own car. However, rather than use the infotainment screen to control the car like you were driving it, all of these same comfort features can be controlled directly from the Tesla app.

As for a timeline, Musk & Co plans to roll out the public-facing beta of the ride-hailing service sometime in 2025. It's important to point out that Tesla's timelines can often be overly ambitious, so keep in mind that Tesla actually has to solve self-driving first, otherwise, it'll just be a safety driver ushering folks around towns like the Vegas Loop.