1,000People are also trading
All indications say Tesla intended to do this but ended up moving away from it. But they still hired for "teleoperators" so it's unclear. I'm going to remove this from the mod queue and leave it in limbo until someone can come up with evidence either way
@Stralor All indications? Really?
"Yes, the term teleoperator can be used for someone who answers support questions. In this context, it is a synonym for job titles such as customer service representative (CSR), call handler, or telephone operator.
A teleoperator is typically the first point of contact between a company and its customers and handles various tasks"
There were videos showing people 'calling support' from the robotaxis. Is there any evidence whatsoever to indicate that the hiring of teleoperators was for anything other than this support call answering? That the media might jump on this as evidence of intention to do teledriving to make a story does not surprise me in the least. Surely this doesn't indicate anything other than it is a media hit piece? If teledriving was going on then I think there would be leaks about the extent of it.
@ChristopherRandles fair argument! but I have to go based on reporting and the reporting was too murky for me to make a call
@Stralor There are now more than one accident reports where the teledriver appears to be at fault causing a collision. The ineptness of this and indications from other incidents where support was called makes me think that Tesla is barely using this, i.e. only where the car gets stuck similar to Waymo.
Not sure whether such low speed, only when stuck, use should count for this question. My preference would be no but I hold a no position.
Given these reports, should a decision on above be made. If such use should count then I think it can resolve yes.
https://robotaxitracker.com/nhtsa?provider=tesla&area=austin
2 examples I found descriptions:
"The teleoperator took over vehicle control when the ADS was stopped and proceeded straight on the street. The Tesla vehicle made contact with a temporary barricade for a construction site at approximately 9MPH, scraping the front-left fender and tire. Safety monitor was present and no passengers were inside the vehicle."
"The Tesla ADS was stopped on the right side of the street. Safety monitor requested support to assist with the Tesla ADS not proceeding forward. The teleoperator took over vehicle control and gradually increased vehicle speed and turned the Tesla ADS left toward the left side of the street. The Tesla vehicle was driven up the curb and made contact with a metal fence. The safety monitor was present and no passengers were inside the vehicle.."
Both with no passengers if that makes any difference.
@ChristopherRandles interesting. on the face of it this seems to mean "yes, they're using teleoperation." but the caveat is whether it's only while testing? or do they do it regularly but the crashes only happened to occur when no passengers were preset?
@Stralor If they sometimes get confused when stopped and are not keen on starting but this rarely happens when driving or when stopped at a selected/approved pick up points, then 2 out of 2 with no passengers could quite easily occur. 2 out of 17 accidents with tele-driver operating may well indicate it isn't exceedingly rare usage. We can see that both were stopped before tele-driver took control and this might be indicative that it is being used in a similar way to what Waymo does, i.e. only when the car has stopped and requests help or refuses to start driving and only moved at slow speed. .
@Jimmy7 Let us know your thinking. I unresolved this in the meantime. Maybe the close date should also be extended? I'm agonizing like crazy about this and related questions as part of my own market on whether Tesla's robotaxis count as level 4 autonomous, which this question is a key piece of.