Tesla has been awfully cagey with its self-driving data this week. that Tesla is trying to stop the city of Austin from handing over public records involving its robotaxi operations in the city, which are set to expand this month. This comes just a few days after the automaker to prevent the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from releasing certain data related to crashes that involved its cars with self-driving features.
Reuters says that it requested two years’ worth of communications between Tesla and Austin officials in February, shortly after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that to the robotaxi experiment.
Dan Davis, an Austin public information officer, told Reuters in April that “third parties” were asking the city to withhold these records in the interest of protecting “privacy or property.” After the publication escalated the matter to the , an attorney for Tesla wrote opposing the release of what it called “confidential, proprietary, competitively sensitive commercial and/or trade secret information.”
Reuters also spoke with Neal Falgoust, an Austin Law Department official overseeing public records issues about the matter. Falgoust that the city of Austin doesn’t take any particular position on the confidentiality of the materials involved. When Reuters pressed further, asking if the people of Austin have a right to information about the driverless cars that would be traversing their streets, Falgoust did not respond.
Tesla said just last week that it had been for several days, which Elon Musk . This would not be the first fleet of autonomous taxis on the streets of the Texas capital, with since 2023 within a specific geofenced area. Waymo has also in Austin since March.
By Texas law, the Attorney General’s office has 45 business days to decide whether the city of Austin is required to make these records public, which would be next week.
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