Later in the thread, another poster claimed to be the same safety driver who fell asleep this time on a traffic-filled drive from Temescal to San Francisco.
Becoming a human safety driver in an autonomous car is a relatively difficult job, and Waymo insists on a lot of training before releasing its employees on the road in their cars. It’s possible that Tesla is being a little less diligent in this regard.
Tesla’s robotaxi experiment is proving to be more sinister than Waymo’s. There have been at least seven crashes since its Austin test launch in July, although Tesla has continued to revise data provided to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Its operations in California may become even more volatile. Although Tesla Robotaxi LLC has a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test autonomous cars on public roads with a safety driver, it does not have a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission for autonomous vehicles. A CPUC permit is required to test or deploy an autonomous vehicle, with or without a safety driver. (In March, Tesla received a permit to operate a traditional ride-hailing service with human drivers.)
Arc has contacted Tesla about the sleeping driver and the situation at its California ride-hailing operation and will update this article if we hear back.