Tesla Inc. is in early discussions with the city of Austin about its autonomous vehicle technology it hopes to roll out on Texas roads as early as next year. Emails acquired by Bloomberg through public records requests show a Tesla employee has been communicating with the city of Austin’s autonomous vehicle task force since at least May to establish safety expectations for the vehicles as the company decides if Austin will be the first Texas city where Tesla deploys driverless fleets. “Tesla is still working to strategically find a city within Texas to deploy… The city of Austin is obviously on our roadmap, but has not yet been decided where we will deploy first as we have many options available,” a November email from the employee said. A successful rollout is key to Tesla as Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has increasingly bet the company’s future on autonomous technology and robotaxis, but the needed approvals could be years away. A number of competitors have already deployed driverless cars on public roads in select cities.

Full report : Tesla in talks with city of Austin over autonomous vehicle technology.