Tesla
Tesla gets ride-sharing license in California
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) officially cleared a way for Tesla to get its Robotaxi project on the road starting with a ride-sharing license.
The license was applied in November 2024 under the transporter charter-party (TCP) carrier vehicle permit. This permit regulates passenger carriers that provide transportation services for compensation in the state.
It applies to businesses who charter their vehicles for the exclusive use of an individual or group, such as chartering a bus for a group event.
Tesla will use the license to transport employees with its own vehicles. Then it will broaden the perspective to transport public passengers on a pre-arranged basis. However, the company will require further permission to move passengers from one place to another.
However, Tesla has not applied for a Transportation Network Company (TNC), which usually refers to as ride-sharing or ride hailing. These are pre-arranged transportation services for online-enabled application or platforms to connect drivers using their personal vehicles with passengers.
The EV maker is also not seeking instant participation in CPUC’s autonomous vehicle passenger program in either for driverless or driver controlled systems.
So, Tesla must assume all relevant licenses from the state authority to conduct autonomous vehicle ride-sharing. And it must have to go through ride-sharing and fall into certain criteria to move its application through autonomous robotaxis.
The current license allows a ride-sharing on regular Tesla vehicles instead of unsupervised full self driving. Still, It’s a good start for the company, as it will have time to cope up with an autonomous vehicle licenses somewhere this year.
Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions were announced at the autonomous event in August last year. It has plans to introduce paid ride-sharing with robotaxis in Texas in the Summer, but a license is also pending.