Tesla is developing a wheelchair-accessible autonomous vehicle, at least according to a Tesla lobbyist. India Herdman, a Tesla senior policy adviser, made the claim on Monday while addressing the D.C. City Council on a proposal to legalize robotaxis in the nation’s capital. Herdman said the wheelchair-carrying vehicle is being developed in Texas, where Tesla is headquartered, but no timetable for production was announced, according to a report in Wired.
Currently, no autonomous vehicle companies, including industry leader Waymo, offer wheelchair-accessible vehicles. During the same D.C. City Council meeting, Matt Walsh, Waymo's regional head of state and local policy, said the Google-owned company is also working on developing such a vehicle, but has been bedeviled by the challenge of identifying "a platform that is fully wheelchair-accessible while also meeting the unique specifications to retrofit that vehicle with our technology."
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Waymo’s newest autonomous car, the Ojai, has accessibility features like grab bars and a flat floor that’s lower to the ground than its typical Jaguar I-Pace cars. Still, the Ojai cannot accommodate a wheelchair. Riders in wheelchairs can access vehicles via traditional, human-driven rideshare companies like Lyft and Uber, though the latter company is currently facing a lawsuit from the Justice Department, which accuses it of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not doing enough to accommodate disabled riders.
