A new Texas law allows companies with SAE Level 4 or higher autonomous vehicles to offer commercial driverless transportation.

Tesla wasted no time in self-certifying their vehicles. On the same day the law went into effect, Tesla officially self-certified their FSD software on their robotaxi vehicles as Level 4 compliant.

For years, Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD software, even in Texas, has navigated the consumer market under the constraints imposed by a Level 2 driver-assist system. And while Tesla now operates in Texas as a level-4 system, this does not change the level-2 designation for consumer vehicles. Taking Responsibility

While many of Tesla’s robotaxi rides in Austin were already driverless, there’s an important distinction in level 4 autonomy.

By certifying its software as Level 4 for commercial operations, Tesla is willfully absorbing a substantial portion of the operational liability. It’s legally stating that its vehicles can operate themselves without any human supervision or intervention under certain conditions.

These conditions are typically based on weather, region (geofense), or speed.

This willingness to take on legal accountability is a major turning point for Tesla, as it is the first time the company has been certified as a level 4 system.

SAE International defines a Level-4 autonomous vehicle as:

Entire dynamic driving task (DDT): The system does all steering, braking, accelerating, lane changes, signaling, and monitoring of the driving environment.

Dynamic driving task fallback: If something goes wrong (sensor failure, road closure, etc.), the system itself must handle the situation and achieve a safe outcome. It cannot depend on a human taking over.

Operational Design Domain (ODD): The specific conditions under which the system is designed to operate (certain roads, cities, weather conditions, speeds, etc.).

Consumer Vehicles Still Level 2

This new ruling for Tesla only covers its Robotaxi vehicles. Regular consumer cars, although they use a similar FSD version, are still considered Level 2 by law, and drivers will be fully held responsible.

Vehicles in Austin have advantages over consumer vehicles, even when they run the same FSD software. In addition to being geofenced, these areas have also received additional FSD training, which has improved FSD performance.

Tesla also offers remote assistance to help these vehicles when they encounter situations where their confidence threshold is low.

Ultimately, this is another milestone for Tesla and its Robotaxi network, but it won’t affect consumer vehicles, at least not yet.