Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company, has abandoned plans to operate an autonomous-vehicle-fleet-charging station in Jackson Square, a rare sign of AV encroachment being rebuffed in San Francisco.
A few months ago, the project looked likely to happen. On Nov. 13, the San Francisco Planning Commission granted Tesla conditional use authorization to convert a public parking garage at 825 Sansome St. into a part-public, part-private structure that would house electric vehicle charging stations.
The plans included chargers for a fleet of autonomous vehicles.
Shortly thereafter, the Teamsters Local 665, one of the city’s largest unions, appealed the commission’s decision.
Eight supervisors, a supermajority on the board, signed on to the Teamsters’ appeal submitted in December, granting a public hearing. This provided a strong indication that eight or more supervisors would vote the Teamsters’ way and rescind the authorization granted to Tesla by the city.
At today’s hearing, Tesla representatives stated they had dropped the project without specifying a reason.
“Please be advised that Tesla will no longer be pursuing this project,” a company representative wrote in an email to the Board of Supervisors last week.
A Tesla rep who attended Tuesday’s hearing provided no additional details as to why the company pumped the brakes on the project. The company, in another email reviewed by Mission Local, attributed its abrupt U-turn on the garage to “significant building constraints unrelated to the appeal.”
Tesla did not provide further comment when asked for more information by email. The Teamsters’ appeal was granted unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, with minimal discussion.
“Companies like Waymo, Zoox (which is Amazon) and, today, Tesla have decided they don’t just want humans out of the driver’s seat,” wrote Tony Delorio, Principal Officer of Teamsters Local Union No. 665. “They want them out of the garages like 825 Sansome, where our members have worked for 100 years.”
This is not the first time the Teamsters have fought back against tech companies and automation. Last December, another appeal filed by the union led to extra permitting requirements for a proposed delivery-drone-testing site operated by DoorDash, the food-delivery app.
Tesla began operating an invite-only taxi service in the Bay Area last summer, but all of the cars in the fleet are, so far, driven by humans. Despite Musk’s promises of launching a robotaxi fleet, the company does not have the required license to do so in California, a spokesperson for the California Public Utilities Commission confirmed.
The Teamsters and Tesla had been working toward an agreement for the site, according to Mark Gleason, a spokesperson for the Teamsters. The Teamsters were seeking that any workers at the charging station, and any other in the city, be unionized employees.
“There was a path forward,” said Gleason. “And they decided to just leave.”
There’s another reason Tesla abandoned this project, which was intended to charge their Robotaxi fleet: The Robotaxis don’t work, and so there will be no such fleet in the foreseeable future.
Tesla is owned by a fascist oligarch, period end of story.