Elon Musk’s Tesla took a significant step toward becoming a ridesharing service by applying for a transportation permit in California.
Newly obtained documents reveal Tesla’s application for a transportation charter-party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, Bloomberg reports. This classification would allow Tesla to own and control a fleet of vehicles to offer ride-hailing services and compete with Uber, Lyft, and Waymo.
The permit application comes months after Musk announced that Tesla would launch driverless ride-hailing in Austin in June, with plans to expand to California by the end of the year. The application also comes as the electric vehicle (EV) company experiences a decline in sales, posting its first annual sales drop in over a decade.
The first quarter shows signs of lag in sales in key markets like the U.S. and Europe. As Tesla’s core EV business faces challenges, Musk has heavily invested in autonomous driving, robotics, and artificial intelligence as key drivers of future growth.
In January, Musk told investors that the company would be moving into the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in the near future.
“I’m confident that we will release unsupervised FSD in California this year,” he said. “We’re just putting our toe in the water, then a few toes, then a foot, then leg. We’re looking for a safety level that is significantly above the average human driver.”
Autonomous vehicles are gaining momentum, with Uber preparing to launch autonomous ride-hailing services in partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta later this year. Tesla is applying for the same type of permit used by Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s robotaxi business.
While Tesla has approval to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver in California, it has neither applied for nor received a permit for driverless testing or deployment from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. However, in its communications with California officials, Tesla mentioned driver’s license information and drug-testing coordination, indicating that the company plans to use human drivers at least in the beginning.
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