Tesla is looking to roll out the latest self-driving taxi service, but critics are already pushing back.
In the Bay Area, autonomous driving vehicles have had mixed results. Waymo functions day to day, while Cruise pulled out of the local market due to several incidents.
Tesla first showcased its Cyber Van during an October event, and CEO Elon Musk said the company plans to launch operations in Texas in June.
"I would take any of these predictions or promises Elon makes with a huge, beefy grain of salt," said Jason Torchinsky, co-founder of Autopian.com and author of an autonomous driving book.
Torchinsky added that even as Waymo cars roll "relatively " smoothly through cities like San Francisco, Tesla remains behind when it comes to true driverless technology.
"So we have yet to see how they deal with something that doesn't require the driver to pay attention," he said. "We don't [know] anything about how it deals with situations where the driver is required. Where it has to stop, or the sensor is compromised."
Musk said he expects driverless, unsupervised software to be available in California later this year.
Tech
Tesla shares jumped after the announcement of the driverless plan, even as the company's quarterly earnings and revenues fell short of analysts' expectations.
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