| For at least a decade, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised his company would soon launch a fully autonomous vehicle. Now the stakes are higher than ever for the billionaire, after his electric vehicle company reported a disastrous 71 percent drop in earnings Tuesday, as his political profile has become increasingly divisive. During a call with investors and analysts Tuesday, Musk said he is “laser focused” on deploying fully autonomous paid taxi rides in Austin this June, followed by “other cities” by the end of the year. Musk has uttered versions of that statement for years — we previously compiled a list of such unfulfilled promises. But there are some signs that the public may actually see these vehicles soon. Austin city officials confirmed Wednesday that Tesla has been in touch with the city’s Autonomous Vehicle Task Force, which includes staff from several city agencies such as the police and fire departments. The task force has provided Tesla with maps of schools and school zones, information about traffic control for special events, and details on fire and police vehicles and procedures, officials said. Tesla also received a permit in California last month to provide fully autonomous taxi rides to employees and, eventually, the public, on a “prearranged” basis with a safety driver in the front seat. “Although cities in Texas cannot regulate AVs, Austin has worked with autonomous-vehicle companies as they enter the market to offer staff’s knowledge on the local transportation network to help AVs operate more safely,” said Brad Cesak, a spokesperson for the City of Austin Transportation and Public Works. When asked whether the department is confident about the vehicles’ safety, Cesak said as the city is not in a position to regulate them, “it wouldn’t be appropriate for staff to offer opinions.” These fully autonomous rides would be in Tesla’s midsize Model Y cars, Musk said Tuesday. That’s a more familiar and less flashy model than the company’s Cybercab, a new vehicle unveiled last year without a steering wheel and pedals. Musk described it as a $30,000 lounge on wheels and said it would launch sometime in the next few years. Teslas currently have assisted-driving features that must be supervised by a fully alert human and have been the subject of numerous recalls, lawsuits and investigations. Sean Rushton, a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said in a statement that any vehicle operating on public roads in the U.S. must comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards “unless they are subject to a statutory exception or have received an exemption from NHTSA.” Investors have been eager for Tesla to finally unveil a fully self-driving vehicle, as Musk has said “the value of Tesla, overwhelmingly, is autonomy.” Musk’s alliance with President Donald Trump was widely expected to deliver a significant boost to his bet on autonomous vehicles, with hopes that the president’s support would ease regulation and lessen the scrutiny on the evolving technology — despite a spotty safety record and multiple investigations. But so far, Musk’s ties to Trump appear to have only harmed Tesla. Musk has diverted his attention in recent months almost entirely to his work at the U.S. DOGE Service, raising questions about whether the company can succeed in its autonomous goals without its CEO’s full focus. Yet a new impulse seems imperative for the company’s future. On Tuesday, Tesla reported a 9 percent decline in revenue for the first three months of the year compared with a year earlier. Sales also slipped dramatically in the first three months of the year, falling 13 percent compared with the same period last year. The company’s stock is down 34 percent since the beginning of the year. Amid the backlash to his company, Musk told investors Tuesday that his “time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly” starting next month, while saying he would probably maintain some involvement through the remainder of Trump’s term with DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency. Regardless of when Tesla deploys it fully autonomous vehicles, it will have a lot of catching up to do, as its competitors are already far ahead. Alphabet-owned Waymo has been shuttling paid passengers in major cities around the country since 2023, and Amazon-backed Zoox has a small pilot fleet on the roads in California and Nevada. “Tesla is a very consequential company, and the choices that its leadership makes could make a huge difference to the automated driving industry,” said Matthew Wansley, a professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in New York who specializes in emerging automotive technologies. “But it doesn’t seem like it has been getting Musk’s full attention.” | 
