Cathie Wood’s Tesla Robotaxi Dream is Still Alive

In February 2017, Cathie Wood appeared on Bloomberg Television. She argued that networks of autonomous taxis and electric vehicles will significantly upset the $10 trillion global mobility business. According to her, Tesla was championing EVs and had its sights set on robotaxis.

This erroneous judgment aided in making Cathie Wood and her company, Ark Invest, well-known. The car industry has been severely disrupted by the switch from internal combustion engines to batteries. Tesla continues to dominate the world in EV sales.

On the other hand, establishing networks of autonomous taxis has proven to be far more challenging than anticipated by Elon Musk and others. The handful of autonomous car fleets that General Motors-owned Cruise and Alphabet offshoot Waymo have established in a few places are still lacking, though, despite what Tesla’s CEO had previously pledged.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s FSD Beta faces concerns as NHTSA investigates a fatal crash with a first-responder vehicle

Musk has certainly given autonomy a lot of thought, but Tesla isn’t at the forefront of the industry. Even after using a product the business has advertised as Full Self-Driving Beta, or FSD Beta, human drivers are always in charge of running their cars. While announcing a recall of what it dubbed a driver-support function last week, Tesla made that point clear.

Tesla, in their recall report, rejected the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s research. It raised issues with how FSD Beta handled specific traffic settings.

According to the business, Teslas may also be driving too fast through some areas. This is either due to speed limit signs detection or a “speed offset setting” that the driver alters. Whether Tesla’s speed limit sign-detecting system has a bug or if it will no longer permit drivers to exceed speed restrictions when using FSD Beta is unclear from the recall notice. In the upcoming weeks, the business plans to roll out another over-the-air upgrade.

NHTSA was requesting further information from Tesla on a deadly accident. It involved one of its vehicles in California days after the firm issued the recall. The Tesla struck a Contra Costa County fire truck, which is consistent with an 18-month inquiry into whether the company’s Autopilot technology is flawed in how it manages accidents with first-responder vehicles. Hence, it is obvious why the event was of interest to the agency. It’s unknown if the driver who caused the collision was using Autopilot.