Tesla Says It's Building a Wheelchair-Accessible Robotaxi

Tesla is developing a purpose-built wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle, a company representative told Washington, D.C., lawmakers on Monday. Tesla senior policy advisor India Herdman told members of the D.C. City Council during a hearing on a bill that could allow robotaxi services to operate in the district that the vehicle is an active product being built in Texas. She said the company knows paratransit can be very difficult and people who are confined to wheelchairs permanently should still be able to move around freely. Herdman provided no further details about when the wheelchair-accessible product might be available. Tesla currently operates a small fleet of autonomous vehicles in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Miami using Model Y SUVs that are not wheelchair accessible. The company has started to manufacture and test a purpose-built Cybercab without steering wheels or pedals, but those vehicles are also not wheelchair accessible. No U.S. robotaxi company currently offers fleetwide driverless wheelchair-accessible rides. Waymo regional head of state and local policy Matt Walsh told the same hearing the company has not been able to identify a platform that is fully wheelchair-accessible while meeting specifications to retrofit the vehicle with its technology.