"Tesla secured a series of approvals from California required for a promised robotaxi service.
The California Public Utilities Commission said it approved Tesla’s application for a transportation charter-party carrier permit, a license typically associated with chauffeur-operated services, allowing the company to own and control a fleet of vehicles and transport employees on pre-arranged trips.
The permit is a prerequisite for applying to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service in California, but a CPUC spokesperson said the current permit “does not authorize them to provide rides” in autonomous vehicles, and does not allow Tesla to operate a ride-hailing service to the public."
I would not trust a robo-taxi that relies entirely on cameras. It really does need lidar/radar and other sensors to work well.
It helps, but humans function without LIDAR (though it can be helpful to them too). I am confident that it is technically possible to drive with just a camera, given sufficient image processing. Is our image processing in 2025 sufficient for the task? That I don’t know.
humans function without LIDAR
The point of a self-driving car is to be better than a human, and see things that humans don’t see (like obstacles that are obscured by fog or rain)
