Tesla is taking a significant step towards launching its robotaxi service by building a teleoperations team, a move that marks a departure from the company's previous rhetoric of achieving full autonomy without human intervention. According to a recent job listing, Tesla is seeking a software engineer to develop a teleoperations system that will enable human operators to remotely access and control its upcoming robotaxis and humanoid robots.

The software engineer will be responsible for "driving requirements, making design decisions, and implementing software integration for this custom teleoperation system." While the job posting does not clarify whether Tesla is expanding an existing teleops team or building one from scratch, the existence of such a team is notable for two reasons. Firstly, it signals that Tesla is getting serious about deploying its robotaxis on public roads. Secondly, it deviates from Tesla's previous stance on self-sufficiency, which emphasized achieving full autonomy through advanced neural network training and camera-based perception.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly stressed that the company can achieve full autonomy without relying on human intervention. However, the autonomous vehicle industry regards teleoperations as a crucial building block for rolling out self-driving cars on public roads. Companies like Waymo, which operates a commercial autonomous ride-hail service in several US cities, already have teleoperations systems in place to handle edge cases like construction zones, collisions, and hardware failures.

The decisions made by remote operators are also a valuable source of training data for Level 4 autonomous operations, as defined by the SAE. This development is significant, as it indicates that Tesla is acknowledging the importance of human oversight in achieving safe and efficient autonomous driving.

Tesla is not new to teleoperations, having relied on remote operators to control its Optimus bots during the "We, Robot" event in October. However, the requirements for remotely operating robotaxis would be different, necessitating a user interface and controls that mimic driving controls, with features like real-time mapping and decision-making support for complex situations.

Tesla revealed its robotaxi prototype last month, a Cybercab built without a steering wheel or pedals that can carry two passengers. Musk stated that Tesla would begin production on the vehicle in 2026 or 2027, with plans to launch a service that will let people hail self-driving Teslas in California and Texas sometime in 2025. The company is already testing the service in the Bay Area with employees.

It remains unclear whether Tesla's burgeoning teleoperations team will be responsible for assisting only purpose-built robotaxis or also Tesla vehicles owned by regular people on the roads today. Musk has previously claimed that Tesla vehicles with existing hardware would one day be able to drive fully autonomously with just an over-the-air software update, but he has since walked back on those claims.

Tesla did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for more information about the teleoperations team. As the company continues to develop its robotaxi service, it will be interesting to see how its teleoperations team evolves and contributes to the growth of autonomous driving technology.

In the broader context, Tesla's shift towards teleoperations underscores the complexity and challenges of achieving full autonomy in the autonomous vehicle industry. As companies like Waymo and Tesla continue to develop and refine their autonomous driving technologies, the importance of human oversight and intervention will likely become increasingly clear. The development of teleoperations teams will play a critical role in ensuring the safety and efficiency of autonomous vehicles on public roads.