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Title: Tesla is reportedly blocking the city of Austin from releasing
Robotaxi records

Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2025 15:56:44 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/t...

Tesla has been awfully cagey with its self-driving data this week. Reuters is
now reporting 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
asked a judge 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 Austin would play home to the robotaxi experiment.

Dan Davis, an Austin public information officer, told Reuters in April that
ΓÇ£third partiesΓÇ¥ were asking the city to withhold these records in the
interest of protecting ΓÇ£privacy or property.ΓÇ¥ After the publication
escalated the matter to the Texas Attorney GeneralΓÇÖs office, an attorney
for Tesla wrote Ken Paxton opposing the release of what it called
ΓÇ£confidential, proprietary, competitively sensitive commercial and/or trade
secret information.ΓÇ¥

Reuters also spoke with Neal Falgoust, an Austin Law Department official
overseeing public records issues about the matter. Falgoust told reporters
that the city of Austin doesnΓÇÖt 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 testing driverless Model Ys in
Austin for several days, which Elon Musk said was a month ahead of schedule.
This would not be the first fleet of autonomous taxis on the streets of the
Texas capital, with Waymo operating there since 2023 within a specific
geofenced area. Waymo has also partnered with Uber 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.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/t...
city-of-austin-from-releasing-robotaxi-records-155643815.html?src=rss

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