Driverless cars are no longer restricted to the realm of sci-fi thanks to companies like Waymo deploying commercial robotaxi services in multiple cities. And a number of automakers, big and small, are trying to bring that same level of autonomy to personally-owned vehicles over the next few years.
If that happens, what kinds of things could you do with a personal AV? Maybe you’ll be able to send it to pick up food or run errands — the hope of a company called Autolane. Or, if you’re Tesla CEO Elon Musk, you think owners will want to deploy their cars into the world to offer rides to other people, creating a tidy, nearly effortless side-hustle.
Hebron Sher, co-founder of Dallas-based Zevo, is eager to capitalize on all of the above. The company has been operating an EV-only, car-share fleet for a little over a year, and it’s now adding robotaxis, starting with a new company called Tensor.
Tensor is kind of an odd duck. The startup sort of emerged earlier this year from a previous China-based company called AutoX, and boldly claims that it will be the first to sell a fully autonomous car to regular consumers — in 2026, no less. Zevo says it will purchase up to 100 of Tensor’s cars and add them to its network.
There aren’t a lot of details on timing, and Tensor still needs to show that it can build cars at any kind of scale and reliability, which are massive hurdles that have tripped up many other newcomers in recent years. If it works, Zevo customers would essentially be able to borrow the Tensor AVs in what amounts to a sort of decentralized robotaxi service.
The announcement resembles the many heady-yet-ultimately-unmet promises that were made a decade ago, when the self-driving car hype first peaked. But with real robotaxis on the roads now, the idea seems a little more tangible this time.
“Tensor’s vision is to build a future where everyone owns their own Artificial General Intelligence — a personal AGI that enables more time, free …