Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor focused on autonomous driving, said Texas requires no "pre-market approval" before Tesla can deploy driverless vehicles. Yet he doubted Tesla would attempt any broad deployment of autonomous technology – in Texas or anywhere – after what he called its underwhelming demonstration of a robotaxi concept, the Cybercab, last October on a Los Angeles-area movie-studio lot.
"Tesla is not going to flip a switch and suddenly make all of their cars capable of driving by themselves, anywhere, under any conditions," he said.
Smith said the company might more likely attempt a small-scale test of its technology, possibly in limited areas of Austin in good weather, or with humans able to intervene by remote control to prevent crashes.