It appears that Tesla is laying the groundwork for some serious real-world testing of its robotaxi and Optimus programs. This was hinted at in a recent job listing that was posted on the company’s Careers website, which focused on a C++ software engineer for the teleoperation of the Tesla bot and robotaxi.
As per the job description, Tesla’s AI Teleoperation team is tasked with providing remote access to the Cybercab and Optimus. The electric vehicle maker also provided some initial details as to how the Cybercab and Optimus’ teleoperators would work. Tesla explains the rationale behind the post in the following section below.
“As we iterate on the AI that powers them, we need the ability to access and control them remotely. This requires building highly optimized low latency reliable data streaming over unreliable transports in the real world.
$TSLA
— Tsla Chan (@Tslachan) November 24, 2024
Tesla is looking for a person in charge of remote access to RoboTaxi and humanoid robots from its remote operations team!
The backbone of Tesla vehicles and Optimus has the same logic, so this will be an efficient operation and can be seen as an outpost symptom of the… pic.twitter.com/HFJ0zcrmFM
“Our remote operators are transported into the device’s world using a state-of-the-art VR rig that allows them to remotely perform complex and intricate tasks. Working with hardware teams, you will drive requirements, make design decisions and implement software integration for this custom teleoperation system,” Tesla wrote.
Considering the nature of the job, the listing for the Tesla AI Teleoperation team’s C++ software engineer has resulted in speculations among Tesla watchers that the electric vehicle maker is indeed putting a lot of effort into launching a robotaxi service next year. Such a service was teased as much by Elon Musk during the Q3 2024 earnings call.
“We do expect to roll out ride-hailing in California and Texas next year to the public… Maybe some other states actually next year as well, but at least California and Texas. So, I think that would be very exciting. That’s really a profound change. Tesla becomes more than a sort of vehicle and a battery manufacturing company at that point,” Musk stated.
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