Austin, Texas, is rising to prominence as a major candidate to test Tesla’s robotaxi technology as the firm actively pursues its goals of developing autonomous vehicles.
Emails that Bloomberg was able to obtain show that since May 2024, Tesla has been in discussions with Austin officials to create safety protocols and provide first responders with training on how to use its autonomous vehicles.
A prototype driverless car without a steering wheel or pedals, the Cybercab, was unveiled by Tesla at its We, Robot event in October. Ahead of the 2026 or 2027 manufacturing of Cybercabs, CEO Elon Musk revealed plans to implement FSD Unsupervised in California and Texas by the following year in Model 3 and Model Y.
These emails demonstrate Tesla’s proactive involvement with Austin’s autonomous car task group and were acquired through requests for public documents. Founded in 2023, the task force collaborates with businesses to create safety procedures, collect incident information, and provide first responder training. Regarding safety standards and a planned training session for first responders on its autonomous vehicle technology on December 5, Tesla had contacted the city.
Tesla is testing the Cybercab extensively on the private roads on the premises of Giga Texas, even though the company hasn’t started testing the vehicle on Austin’s public roadways yet.
Texas provides a rather loose regulatory framework for self-driving cars. Texas, in contrast to many states, merely requires minimum adherence to traffic laws and insurance requirements, and also forbids localities from enforcing further regulations on autonomous vehicles. Because of this, the Lone Star State is a desirable location for Tesla’s technology testing.
