WEDNESDAY: Musk leans into autonomy after Tesla reports 16% profit drop That timeline has been moved up to as early as Friday, Business Insider reported, and some Tesla owners will receive invitations to use the service. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Musk is trying to shift Tesla’s focus toward robots and autonomous vehicles to counter declining sales for the electric automaker’s mostly aging vehicle lineup. Speaking to investors Wednesday after the company released the latest in a string of disappointing earnings reports, he said Tesla was seeking regulatory permission to launch robotaxis in states including California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. For the April-June period, Tesla sales were down more than 13% from a year ago. It reported a 16% drop in profit and 12% decline in revenue as its sales continue to fall. In a July 10 thread on X, he said the San Francisco launch would hinge on regulatory approvals. At the time, Tesla had secured two of the six state permits the company needs to offer commercial rides in fully self-driving cars. In March, Tesla obtained a transportation charter party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, which allows passenger service to customers but only with a human driver. On Thursday, Tesla notified the commission it intends to offer service to “friends and family” of Tesla employees and “select members of the public,” a commission spokesperson said. Tesla is still barred from transporting the public in an autonomous vehicle, with or without a driver. Even if Musk intends to launch quasi-self-driving rides with an employee chaperone in the front seat, which is the current model in Austin, it’s unclear what additional approvals he needs, Brad Templeton, a self-driving car consultant based in Sunnyvale, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “That’s not a lot worse than when you send your teenager out with a driving instructor” who has a brake pedal and can take over the wheel, Templeton said. In contrast to competitors such as Waymo, which has invested heavily in sophisticated hardware and safety, Tesla has tried a less expensive and simpler approach: Take its most recent suburban utility vehicle model, upgrade the software and slap a “robotaxi” logo on the side. Thus, when the company premiered its autonomous ride-hailing service last month in Austin, the vehicles relied on “computer vision,” combining cameras with machine-learning. They lack the intricate LiDAR sensors and high-precision maps on which Waymo robotaxis are trained. Tesla’s method has spurred debate among experts, regulators and lawmakers and many are skeptical it would fly in California’s more tightly regulated environment. Its Bay Area rollout would come as Tesla is facing enforcement action from the California Department of Motor Vehicles over claims it oversold its autopilot and self-driving features, misleading customers to think the cars could drive themselves. State attorneys are seeking to freeze Tesla’s licenses to manufacture and sell cars in California for at least 30 days, but attorneys for Tesla argue it has always made clear that its cars need a human at the wheel. This month in Austin, Tesla increased the per-ride cost from $4.20 to $6.90. The company also expanded its geofence service area to include downtown Austin, giving the map a phallic shape that Musk and his supporters celebrated on social media. Still, it’s far behind Waymo, the market leader in autonomous ride hailing. Two days after Tesla’s expansion, Waymo expanded its own service area to include a much bigger swath of the city. Its service is already available to paying customers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta. In Friday trading, Tesla shares regained about a third of the value they lost after this week’s earnings report. The stock was up about 3.5% to close at $316.06. Rachel Swan and Karoline Leonard contributed to this report.