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Tesla will introduce a paid autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin, Elon Musk said during an earnings call discussing the automaker's financial results for 2024. As TechCrunch reports, he said the company will use cars with no human driver behind the wheel and with the unsupervised version of its Full Self-Driving software, which Tesla has yet to release. The service will launch with the company's internal fleet in Austin this June before expanding to other locations in the US. And then next year, Tesla owners will be able to add their cars to the fleet whenever they want, kind of like how people can list and unlist their properties on Airbnb, Musk said. He explained that the automaker wants to iron out any kinks first, such as making sure billing works well and that the robotaxis will stop at the right spot when they're ordered. Since the plan is to allow vehicle owners to add their Teslas to the company's robotaxi fleet, the automaker is also planning to release its unsupervised FSD software in California and other regions in the US before the year ends. Knowing Musk's tendency to overpromise on timelines, though we'd take that announcement with a (huge) grain of salt. Musk has been talking about robotaxis for a while now and said back in 2019 that Tesla will "have over a million robotaxis on the road" within a year. When he launched the Cybercab in 2024, he said he envisions a future wherein people own several robotaxis that they can then earn money from through a ridesharing network. It's worth noting that Waymo started offering fully autonomous rides to select users in Austin in late 2024 and will be launching the service fully in the city sometime this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-launch-a-robotaxi-service-in-austin-this-june-044745591.html?src=rss
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Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has only been in his post for a day and already making it clear that the agency will be ignoring the role vehicle pollution plays in worsening climate change. Duffy sent a memo to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calling for a review of fuel economy standards to align with President Donald Trump's goals of promoting the use of oil, natural gas and biofuels. The memo claims that "artificially high" fuel economy standards have made new cars prohibitively expensive for US buyers and could negatively impact the US auto industry. It's the latest swing of the pendulum as the country's leadership changes hands once again. Trump's first presidency saw a rollback of fuel efficiency standards that had been enacted by Barack Obama, followed by the EPA introducing its strictest standards to date when Joe Biden assumed office. President Donald Trump's transition team had already signaled in December that he would walk back moves by previous administration to strengthen fuel efficiency standards and promote electric vehicle adoption. Today's development isn't a surprise, but it's still bad news considering multiple international reports have demonstrated that the planet's rising temperature will cause extreme and catastrophic weather events. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/us-department-of-transportation-moves-to-cut-fuel-efficiency-standards-235205073.html?src=rss
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Meta has agreed to pay President Donald Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit stemming from the social networks decision to suspend Trump's Facebook account following the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to The Wall Street Journal, there had been little activity surrounding the lawsuit until Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg flew to Mar-a-Lago following the election. Toward the end of the November dinner, Trump raised the matter of the lawsuit, The Journal reports. The president signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be brought into the tent. Much of the settlement will reportedly go toward funding Trump's presidential library. Settling the lawsuit is the latest step Zuckerberg and Meta have taken to appease Trump, who at one point during the campaign threatened to imprison the Facebook founder for plotting against him. Following the election, Zuckerberg ended Metas longtime fact-checking program and rolled back content moderation standards that prohibited dehumanizing language and slurs targeting immigrants and LGBTQ people. He also ended corporate diversity programs and added Trump backer and UFC CEO Dana White to Metas board. Zuckerberg had a prominent seat at Trumps inauguration, alongside other tech CEOs. News of Metas settlement broke just as the company released its latest earnings results. During a call with analysts, Zuckerberg said that 2025 was going to be a big year for redefining our relationship with governments. Though he didnt mention Trump by name, he said that we now have a US Administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad. Zuckerberg, who earlier this week said the company would spend as much as $65 billion on AI investments this year, predicted that Meta AI would reach 1 billion users in 2025. He also commented on the rise of DeepSeek, an open-source AI assistant from China, saying that its strengthened our conviction about open source AI. One of the things that we're talking about, is there's going to be an open source standard globally, he said. And I think for own national advantage, it's important that it's an American standard.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-pay-25-million-to-settle-a-lawsuit-with-donald-trump-over-his-2021-facebook-suspension-234046291.html?src=rss
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