Palo Alto has a problem with it’s popular rideshare service and it’s costing the city a lot of money. Audrey Asistio reports.
It turned a lot of heads when Elon Musk showed it off for the first time earlier this month. Now, Tesla's new cybercab could soon turn heads on the streets of Palo Alto.
The city recently met with Tesla about the possible plan. Palo Alto councilman Greg Lin Tanaka said he came up with the partnership idea with Tesla about six months ago.
“The idea basically is that Tesla has this robotaxi and they need a place to test it,” he said. “And in Palo Alto, we have 'Link.' We’re trying to provide rides for our kids, we don’t have bussing for our kids. We use our Link program and so, we need this and we’re out of money, and so, it seemed like a really good partnership."
Tanaka said that right now, there really isn’t another alternative. Its Palo Alto Link shuttle service is losing about $30 to $40 per ride. The popular program only has eight months of funding left.
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Tesla just unveiled it’s robotaxi less than two weeks ago, promising to start building fully autonomous Cybercabs by 2026. Tesla’s biggest hurdle to testing the vehicles in Palo Alto is that still needs a license to pick up passengers.
The city’s looking into if the company can be added onto its own “Link” license to speed things up.
Audrey Asistio has more in the video above.
