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Comment by ArtTimeInvestor | Hacker News Reader

Why would it?

Tesla FSD is already being used for on a billion miles per year. Search for "Cumulative miles driven with FSD":

https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...

Usage will continue to grow as it gets better. And it got a lot better over the last months.

And then there is Waymo which proves that with geo-fencing, high resolution maps, additional sensors and remote operators on standby, robotaxis are already possible today. Tesla could add some of these too, if it wants to accelerate meeting regulatory requirements.

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> Tesla FSD is already being used for on a billion miles per year. Search for "Cumulative miles driven with FSD" [...] Usage will continue to grow as it gets better. And it got a lot better over the last months.

There is a big, hell a gigantic, difference between that and robotaxi. You need the car to be able to handle from start to finish, the entire trip, not parts of it, not even just 99% of it.

Also, the car cannot stop or be unable to deal with some situation and require help. If owners randomly have to go help their car miles away because the "taxi" got into a unknown situation, they're quickly going to get out of that deal.

And then you have all the regulatory and insurance issues. Is Tesla or the owner insuring the commercial part ? Are they required to get commercial license ? What happens if the car hit and kill someone during a robotaxi trip, who is responsable ?

Waymo and Cruise already solved the issues you mention.

Each issue Tesla can't solve in a more efficient way, they can solve by copying the competition.

Waymo has employees watching their cars and resolving issues when they come up. So in order for Tesla to do robotaxis like that, you will now need to pay Tesla do to the monitoring and issue resolving as well. And then of course you will need your own special business insurance without the bulk purchasing power of Waymo/Cruise. When your car gets into an accident, you don't get to replace it with one from Tesla's fleet like Waymo does, you are just SOL.

1: Tesla can use their own cars. They dont't need to base the service on the cars owned by individuals.

2: If they want to rent cars from individual owners, they can make the conditions as comfortable as needed. Monitoring and insurance for example would most likely handled by Tesla and not be paid by the individual owner. The owner would just get a fee for every hour Tesla uses their car.

But Waymo can't yet offer commercial service on freeways.

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