The Tantalizing Tale of the ‘Tensor Robocar’
Andrew J. Hawkins wrote for The Verge this week about a mysterious Bay Area-based autonomous vehicle company called Tensor. The startup, which is headquartered in San Jose, is a self-described “leading agentic AI company” that this week announced what it hails as “the world’s first personally owned autonomous vehicle” in its Tensor Robocar. The company’s conceit is apt in an accessibility context, as Tensor said its overarching goal is to “[empower] individuals to truly own your autonomy.”
“When the world shifts… how will you move?” Amy Luca, Tensor’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement included in the company’s press release. “We are building a world where individuals own their personal AGI agents, enhancing freedom, privacy and autonomy. With Tensor, we’re introducing the world’s first personal Robocar, ushering in the era of AI defined vehicles. This isn’t a car as we know it. It’s an embodied personal agent that moves you. It’s time to own your autonomy.”
According to Hawkins, Tensor is affiliated with autonomous vehicle maker AutoX, which operates both in China and here in the United States. Moreover, Hawkins notes Tensor claims to have offices in Barcelona, Dubai, and Singapore. AutoX has been testing autonomous vehicles in San Jose and the surrounding area since 2016. Tensor is looking to launch in America, Europe, and the Middle East starting sometime next year.
After his story ran, Tensor spokesperson Lena Allen sent Hawkins a statement.
“Since its founding in 2016 in San Jose, AutoX has been an American company. Its new consumer brand, Tensor, is also headquartered in San Jose, California, with satellite offices in Spain, the UAE, and Singapore. Tensor focuses on the US, EU, and the GCC markets. As an independent private California startup, they’re controlled by their U.S. employees, with significant majority investment/ownership from the UK, Japan, Korea and US. In 2018, Auto X launched their autonomous delivery service in San Jose for over 1000 self-driving delivery orders, operating until Covid lockdown. In 2020, AutoX received the second-ever driverless AV testing permit in California,” Allen said in response. “In 2019, AutoX entered the China market as a foreign company in China. We managed to obtain local self-driving test permits alongside with other foreign companies, such as BMW, Tesla, and VW. During the pandemic lockdowns in the U.S., we launched a fully driverless robotaxi fleet in China. However, starting several years ago, AutoX began winding down its China operations; all operations under the AutoX brand in China have been divested, with all offices closed and operations shut down.”
She added: “The AutoX brand and its China operations have been fully discontinued. We have evolved into the Tensor brand to better reflect our renewed focus on delivering personalized, private, and autonomous technology for individual ownership.”
Hawkins’ report caught my attention because of what Tensor is seemingly trying to do: extend ownership of autonomous vehicles to Average Janes and Joes. This is tantalizing in an accessibility sense because, as I’ve argued in the past, autonomous vehicles represent both accessibility’s apex and artificial intelligence’s profound powers. More pointedly, however great services like Waymo, et al, are today, a tomorrow in which a Blind and low vision person (like yours truly) could actually purchase a autonomous vehicle from, say, Tensor, would be literally life-changing. Granted, Waymo operates 24/7, but it isn’t available everywhere just yet; to have my own self-driving car would mean my transportation options wouldn’t rest on the mercies of availability because I could just get in my car and go wherever I wanted, whenever. The reason autonomous vehicles reflect accessibility’s zenith is because the technology empowers disabled people who are precluded from driving regular cars with greater feelings of agency and autonomy. It instills grander feelings of self-esteem and self-worth by giving us the independence so many of us crave in a society where the disability community is more often than not looked down upon with patronizing, paternalistic, and infantilizing attitudes. I can’t sum it up any better than Lana Nieves, executive director of San Francisco’s Independent Living Resource Center, who told me in 2023 she’s bullish on driverless cars because, as an adult, “why shouldn’t I be able to go where I want to go?”
Of course, all is not rosy in this situation. Indeed, there will come a reckoning sooner or later involving legislation, costs, and the notion that people like Nieves and myself should be able to “drive” cars if we can’t see. Nonetheless, it’s heartening to notice fledgling companies like Tensor acknowledge the value of people actually owning the robots-on-wheels they ride in. It gives me hope for a much brighter future in this space.
