Latest news with #Autopilot
See - Sada Elbalad
6 hours ago
- Automotive
- See - Sada Elbalad
Tesla's Robotaxi Gets Green Light in Texas
Taarek Refaat Tesla has officially secured regulatory approval to operate its autonomous Robotaxi service across the state of Texas, marking a critical step in CEO Elon Musk's long-promised vision of driverless urban transport. According to a listing published this week on the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) website, Tesla has been granted a 'Transportation Network Company' (TNC) license valid until August 6, 2026. The license allows the company to legally provide ride-hailing services statewide, including through autonomous vehicles, without the requirement of a human driver or onboard safety operator. Tesla had already begun a limited pilot service in Austin in late June 2025, operating a small fleet of Model Y vehicles equipped with its latest version of Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. While the company described the program as "early-stage," it targeted select riders, mainly social media influencers and Tesla content creators, who documented their trips on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. These early rides were monitored by a safety supervisor in the passenger seat and backed by remote oversight teams in Tesla's operations center. Now, with official licensing in hand, Tesla is poised to scale its service beyond Austin, and potentially across major urban centers in Texas. "We're on track to serve half the U.S. population with self-driving ride-hailing by the end of 2025," Musk said in Tesla's most recent earnings call, reiterating his bold, and often controversial, ambitions. This marks the first time Tesla has been licensed as a TNC in any U.S. state, putting it in direct competition with ride-hailing giants like Uber and Lyft. Notably, the Texas license permits Tesla to operate autonomous vehicles without requiring a safety driver, a major differentiator from stricter regulatory environments like California or New York. Texas has long been considered one of the most permissive U.S. states regarding autonomous vehicle testing and deployment. A new law signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott earlier this year further cements that stance, requiring AV manufacturers to register with the state, but also empowering state authorities to revoke licenses if safety standards are violated. Despite regulatory approval, Tesla's Robotaxi program is not without controversy. Footage captured by local residents and reported by CNBC showed Tesla's autonomous cars committing traffic violations in and around Austin, raising questions about the maturity and safety of the technology. While no major injuries or damages have been reported so far, the incidents have prompted federal scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which continues to monitor Tesla's driver-assist and autonomous systems closely. read more CBE: Deposits in Local Currency Hit EGP 5.25 Trillion Morocco Plans to Spend $1 Billion to Mitigate Drought Effect Gov't Approves Final Version of State Ownership Policy Document Egypt's Economy Expected to Grow 5% by the end of 2022/23- Minister Qatar Agrees to Supply Germany with LNG for 15 Years Business Oil Prices Descend amid Anticipation of Additional US Strategic Petroleum Reserves Business Suez Canal Records $704 Million, Historically Highest Monthly Revenue Business Egypt's Stock Exchange Earns EGP 4.9 Billion on Tuesday Business Wheat delivery season commences on April 15 Videos & Features Story behind Trending Jessica Radcliffe Death Video News Israeli-Linked Hadassah Clinic in Moscow Treats Wounded Iranian IRGC Fighters Arts & Culture "Jurassic World Rebirth" Gets Streaming Date News China Launches Largest Ever Aircraft Carrier News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia Business Egyptian Pound Undervalued by 30%, Says Goldman Sachs Videos & Features Tragedy Overshadows MC Alger Championship Celebration: One Fan Dead, 11 Injured After Stadium Fall Lifestyle Get to Know 2025 Eid Al Adha Prayer Times in Egypt Arts & Culture South Korean Actress Kang Seo-ha Dies at 31 after Cancer Battle Arts & Culture Lebanese Media: Fayrouz Collapses after Death of Ziad Rahbani
India.com
7 hours ago
- Automotive
- India.com
Meet G Venkataraman who forced Elon Musk to shut down his shop, Musk will never forget this Indian genius due to...
Ganesh Venkataraman left Elon Musk's Tesla and co-founded DestinyAI. (File) In a major setback for Elon Musk, Tesla has shuttered its Dojo supercomputer unit, reportedly after Ganesh Venkataramanan, an Indian-origin former Tesla executive, left the company and co-founded AI startup DestinyAI, along with other former top executives who quit Musk's auto firm. Why Elon Musk shut down Tesla Dojo? According to a Bloomberg report, Tesla is dissolving the team that was tasked with developing its Dojo supercomputer, after several top executives who worked on the project left the company and flocked to DestinyAI– an AI startup co-founded by former Tesla Dojo head honchos– Ganesh Venkataramanan, Bill Chang and Ben Floering. As per the report, Tesla's Dojo head Peter Bannon has also left the company, and is likely to join Venkataraman's DestinyAI. Earlier this month, Tesla took a major hit when around 20 members of its Dojo team left the company to establish DensityAI, an AI startup 'focused on data center services for industries from automotive to robotics.' Following the mass exodus, Tesla shifted the remaining Dojo employees to other areas within the company, Bloomberg reported. What did Tesla Dojo do? First introduced by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2019, the Dojo was described as a 'super powerful training computer', which would be capable of training AI chips by processing huge amounts of vehicle video data. These AI chips would be then used to power Tesla's patented 'Autopilot' technology that are installed in its self-driving cars. At the time, Tesla's Dojo was touted as the next big thing by market analysts, and was predicted to give the company a major lead in the sector, with Morgan Stanley estimating in 2023 that the project would increase the market cap of the Elon Musk-led automaker by a whopping $500 billion. How Tesla plans to proceed? However, after the recent turn of events, Tesla is planning to partner with chipmaking giants Nvidia and AMD for computing power, while a deal with Samsung is in the pipeline for chip manufacturing. 'It is not right for Tesla to spend its resources on two different AI chip designs. Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be very good for inference and also for training,' Elon Musk wrote on X, hinting that Tesla will now focus on AI chips that can run AI systems used in cars with more precision and accuracy. Notably, Tesla has witnessed declining sales in recent times due to increased competition, and Elon Musk's political affiliations.
Korea Herald
18 hours ago
- Automotive
- Korea Herald
Samsung-Tesla partnership likely to deepen as Dojo project ends
Samsung Electronics' $16.5 billion contract to manufacture Tesla's next-generation AI6 processors has taken on greater significance after the US electric vehicle-maker dismantled its Dojo supercomputing team, a move that signals a deeper reliance on external chip partners. Additionally, Samsung Electronics Chair Lee Jae-yong is currently staying in the US, fueling speculation that he could meet with top Tesla executives to discuss expanding cooperation. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Friday that the company will focus on developing its AI5 and AI6 chips, custom processors designed to power Tesla's self-driving technology and AI workloads, rather than 'divide its resources' to pursue different AI chip designs. His comments back a recent Bloomberg report that Tesla is winding down the Dojo supercomputer project, which centered on in-house D1 chips. 'It doesn't make sense for Tesla to divide its sources and scale two quite different AI chip designs,' Musk said in a post on X. 'The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training. All effort is focused on that.' Bloomberg reported that Musk ordered the Dojo team to shut down, and the engineers in the group have been reassigned to other initiatives, including data centers. The news outlet also said Tesla was planning to increase its reliance on external technology partners, including Nvidia and AMD for computer and Samsung Electronics for chip manufacturing, citing sources familiar with the matter. Tesla first launched Dojo and unveiled the D1 chip in August 2021. The multi-billion-dollar project was aimed at building a custom supercomputer for training machine-learning models behind its Autopilot, Full Self-Driving systems and Optimus humanoid robot. Against this backdrop, Samsung's role as a supplier to Tesla's key AI chips is expected to grow. Last month, Samsung announced a record $16.5 billion deal to produce Tesla's next-generation AI6 chips for Full Self-Driving technology at its plant in Taylor, Texas, through 2033. Musk described the disclosed amount as "just the bare minimum," suggesting the actual value of the deal could be even higher. He added that he had held a video call with Samsung's Lee "to go over what a real partnership would be like." Meanwhile, Lee has remained in the US since traveling to Washington on July 29, continuing meetings with major business leaders. Speculations are growing that he may also meet with Tesla's top executives during his stay. 'While Tesla will be designing its own AI chips, Samsung is likely to expand its role as foundries do more than just manufacturing, working closely with customers' design teams to jointly develop products,' an industry official said. 'In the past, foundries only shared processes and manufacturing, but they are now evolving to also share design. Samsung has long-standing capabilities in design, so there are many areas where it could collaborate with Tesla.' Musk also hinted at a strategic pivot during Tesla's most recent quarterly earnings call on July 23, suggesting future iterations of the company's in-house technology could converge with that of its partners. 'Thinking about Dojo 3 and the AI6 inference chip, it seems like intuitively, we want to try to find convergence there, where it's basically the same chip,' Musk said during the earnings call.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
"This Will Open the Floodgates": Tesla In Trouble as Jury Orders It to Pay $329 Million After Autopilot Death
Tesla just got handed one of its biggest legal blows yet — one that could have seismic implications for its future operations. On Friday, a Miami jury ruled that the Elon Musk-owned automaker's Autopilot driver assistance software was partially at fault for a horrendous collision that killed a 22-year-old woman in 2019 and severely injured her boyfriend. In total, the jury ordered Tesla to pay $329 million to the surviving family of the victims, Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo, including $200 million in punitive damages and $129 million in compensatory damages. It was not considered to be primarily at fault: the driver of the Tesla Model S involved in the crash, George McGee, was found to bear 66 percent of the blame for the crash. Tesla shoulders the remaining 33 percent. "Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans," Brett Schreiber, counsel for the plaintiffs, said in statement on Friday, as quoted by CNBC. "Tesla's lies turned our roads into test tracks for their fundamentally flawed technology, putting everyday Americans like Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo in harm's way." The tragic incident took place while McGee was driving his Tesla while Enhanced Autopilot was enabled. When he bent down to pick up his phone after dropping it, the Model S careened through an intersection at nearly 60 miles per hour and smashed into a parked SUV, which Benavides and Angulo were standing behind. Benavides died at the scene, and Angulo survived with horrific injuries. While on the witness stand, McGee said he believed Autopilot would protect him and brake on its own to prevent a crash. Schreiber accused Tesla of running a "misinformation campaign" that vastly overstated Autopilot's capabilities, per the New York Times. "I feel like we were experimented on," Angulo told NBC6 South Florida in 2023, "and this technology was out on the road before it was safe." The ruling could drastically impact Tesla's autonomous vehicle efforts — which it's been increasingly leaning into as its sales falter — and perhaps reshape the self-driving landscape at large. These are enormous damages, and the prospect of being on the hook anytime the experimental software kills or injures a bystander could dampen investor enthusiasm for the tech. It also comes at a critical moment for Tesla, which launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, and expanded its driverless fleet this week to San Francisco. Musk is hoping that a pivot to robotaxis could rake in the company trillions of dollars. Prior to the launch, he estimated that Tesla could have a million robotaxis on American roads by the end of 2026. In light of the ruling, that's a lot expensive legal liabilities waiting to happen. "This will open the floodgates," Miguel Custodio, a car crash lawyer not involved in the lawsuit, told the Associated Press after the ruling. "It will embolden a lot of people to come to court." This may have been a long time coming for Tesla. Its self-driving software — which are actually driver assistance features, regardless of their overconfident brand names — have been involved in multiple deadly crashes. The automaker has frequently been criticized for exaggerating how autonomously its cars can operate and has been repeatedly investigated by federal regulators and sued by state authorities. Tesla says it will be appealing the decision. "Today's verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology," the company said in a statement. More on Tesla: Tesla Rolling Out Robotaxis With Human Drivers in the Driver's Seat, Defeating the Purpose of a Robotaxi Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
A Tesla killed a man in the Keys, and a Miami jury sent a $243 million message
On Aug. 1, 2025, a federal jury in Miami sent a resounding message — not only to Tesla, but to the entire automotive industry. In a landmark verdict, the jury awarded over $243 million in damages after finding Tesla partially liable for a 2019 crash in Key Largo that killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and seriously injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, now 33, both of Miami-Dade. We are the attorneys who brought the case against Tesla on behalf of Angulo and the Benavides family. Our case showed that the Tesla Model S that hit our clients had detected the couple's parked Chevrolet Tahoe directly in its path on Card Sound Road, yet failed to brake or even warn its driver before striking the Tahoe at high speed. This Miami case marked the first time a federal jury weighed in on a fatal crash involving Autopilot and a third party. While the driver admitted fault, the jury determined that Tesla's system — and how it was marketed — shared responsibility. The outcome should represent a turning point in how we approach vehicle automation, corporate accountability and public safety. The verdict sends several clear messages to Tesla and the industry at large: Branding carries consequences: Tesla marketed its driver-assist system as 'Autopilot,' a term that implies self-sufficiency and full autonomy. That choice, and numerous other misrepresentations of the system's capabilities made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, created a false sense of security for Tesla customers. The jury recognized that words matter when they lead to behavioral risk. Marketing should follow engineering reality — not ambition. Withholding critical data is not acceptable: Tesla initially claimed that no data from the crash had been preserved. But our experts recovered video and performance logs showing the vehicle registered impending danger and did nothing. Jurors saw this as clear and convincing evidence that the car was defective. Technology does not absolve manufacturers of responsibility: Tesla's defense hinged on the driver's admitted distraction and carelessness. But the jury still found Tesla responsible for not building adequate safeguards into its system. A responsible automaker anticipates foreseeable misuse, and acts expeditiously to counter widespread misuse when it leads to injuries and fatalities. Punitive damages reflect societal concern: The $200 million in punitive damages is a signal that jurors believe Tesla needs to change. This level of award reflects the view that the company's approach to safety and disclosure failed a basic moral standard. When jurors respond with this level of force, they're speaking for more than the courtroom. Regulators and competitors are watching: We suspect this verdict will ripple far beyond one case in Miami. It invites deeper scrutiny from federal safety regulators and may prompt competing automakers to rethink their own driver-assist strategies. Future lawsuits will take a harder look at automation: Until now, many Autopilot-related cases were settled quietly or dismissed. This federal verdict sets a powerful precedent: juries are willing to hold tech companies accountable for systems that overpromise and underperform. The public expects more than innovation — it demands safety: Flashy tech, futuristic promises and rapid releases have long defined Tesla's brand. But this case reminded everyone that innovation without responsibility is dangerous. Companies must be honest about their limitations. Tesla is expected to appeal. Regardless, the message is out: 'Autopilot' isn't just a brand — it's a duty. And when that duty is breached, the consequences are both human and financial. The pain of that night will never be undone. But this verdict offers a path toward safer roads, better regulation and smarter technology. It is not a finish line, but it is a turning point — one that demands the auto industry match its innovation with accountability. Todd Poses, Adam Boumel and Doug Eaton are Miami attorneys who brought the case against Tesla on behalf of Dillon Angulo and the Benavides family.
