{"id":940,"date":"2025-08-13T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/tensor-wants-to-be-the-first-company-to-sell-you-a-robocar-but-who-are-they\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:00:00","slug":"tensor-wants-to-be-the-first-company-to-sell-you-a-robocar-but-who-are-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/tensor-wants-to-be-the-first-company-to-sell-you-a-robocar-but-who-are-they\/","title":{"rendered":"Tensor wants to be the first company to sell you a \u2018robocar\u2019 \u2014\u00a0but who are they?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Tensor

\n\t\t<\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n

A new company is launching today that claims to have developed \u201cthe first volume-produced, consumer-ready autonomous vehicle \u2014 designed from the ground up for private ownership at scale.\u201d The company is called Tensor, and it describes itself as a \u201cleading AI agentic company\u201d that\u2019s based in San Jose, California \u2014 but little information exists online about who or what may be behind this new effort.<\/p>\n

But according to a trademark application filed last April<\/a>, Tensor is affiliated with AutoX, an autonomous vehicle developer with operations in the US as well as China.<\/p>\n

In its announcement, Tensor makes no mention of AutoX or China. The company says it\u2019s \u201cdedicated to building agentic products that empower individual consumers\u201d and that the Tensor robocar is its flagship product. It also claims to have offices in Barcelona, Singapore, and Dubai. It\u2019s likely that AutoX spunoff its US-based team as Tensor to get around government restrictions on Chinese software in vehicles<\/a>. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions about its affiliation with AutoX. <\/p>\n

\n
\n

According to a trademark application filed last April, Tensor is affiliated with AutoX, a Chinese autonomous vehicle developer with operations in the US as well as its home country. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

AutoX has been testing its vehicles in and around San Jose since 2016. It\u2019s not as well-known as some of the other autonomous vehicle startups in the US and China. The company was founded in 2016 by former Princeton professor Jianxiong Xiao, a specialist in 3D learning, computer vision, and robotics (who also apparently goes by \u201cProfessor X,\u201d according to LinkedIn<\/a>). Since then, AutoX has nabbed several high-profile investors, including China\u2019s Dongfeng Motor Group and e-commerce giant Alibaba.<\/p>\n

In 2020, it partnered with Fiat Chrysler<\/a> (now Stellantis) to launch a robotaxi service in China. In 2022, it opened a robotaxi operation center in San Francisco<\/a> with the goal of launching a commercial service \u2014\u00a0though it has yet to obtain the appropriate permits to do so. For the permits it does have, the company appears to have filed<\/a> its rebranded name with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Tensor is one of only six companies, along with Waymo and Zoox, with a permit to test fully driverless vehicles on public roads in California.<\/p>\n

Now it appears to be pivoting from robotaxis to \u201crobocars.\u201d Tensor says its vehicle is \u201cthe first and only L4 autonomous vehicle available for personal ownership.\u201d It says it will launch in the US, Europe, and the Middle East starting in 2026. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the world shifts\u2026 how will you move?\u201d said Amy Luca, chief marketing officer at Tensor, in a press release. \u201cWe are building a world where individuals own their personal AGI agents, enhancing freedom, privacy and autonomy. With Tensor, we\u2019re introducing the world\u2019s first personal Robocar, ushering in the era of AI defined vehicles. This isn\u2019t a car as we know it. It\u2019s an embodied personal agent that moves you.\u201d (Luca is the former executive vice president and head of social at Monks, a marketing firm based in London, according to her LinkedIn<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cWhen the world shifts\u2026 how will you move?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

In using buzz words associated with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, Tensor appears to be trying to insert itself into the hype-strewn world of chatbots and artificial general intelligence. After all, autonomous vehicles are so last decade.<\/p>\n

Tensor\u2019s robocar appears to be no slouch, either. It comes with an array of high-tech sensors, including \u201c37 cameras, 5 lidars, 11 radars, 22 microphones, 10 ultrasonic sensors, 3 IMUs, GNSS, 16 collision detectors, 8 water-level detectors, 4 tire-pressure sensors, 1 smoke detector, and triple-channel 5G.\u201d Of course, those sensors won\u2019t be cheap, though Tensor did not put a price on its future robocar. <\/p>\n

Several companies have designs to sell privately owned autonomous vehicles, but none have achieved that milestone. Tesla CEO Elon Musk keeps promising that the \u201cunsupervised\u201d version of the company\u2019s Full Self-Driving feature is just around the corner, but he has yet to deliver. GM has also said<\/a> that it will eventually sell fully driverless cars to customers. But there remains a thicket of cost and liability concerns that will need to be ironed out before any company can take that next step.<\/p>\n

Update August 13th:<\/strong> After the publication of this article, Tensor spokesperson Lena Allen responded with a statement about the brand\u2019s relationship to AutoX, and AutoX\u2019s relationship to China:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Since its founding in 2016 in San Jose, Auto X 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\u2019re 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, Auto X received the second-ever driverless AV testing permit in California.<\/p>\n

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. The AutoX brand and its China operations have been fully discontinued.<\/p>\n

We have evolved into the Tensor brand to better reflect our renewed focus on delivering personalized, private, and autonomous technology for individual ownership.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new company is launching today that claims to have developed \u201cthe first volume-produced, consumer-ready autonomous vehicle \u2014 designed from […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}