Tensor wants to be the first company to sell you a ‘robocar’ — but who are they?

A new company is launching today that claims to have developed “the first volume-produced, consumer-ready autonomous vehicle — designed from the ground up for private ownership at scale.” The company is called Tensor, and it describes itself as a “leading AI agentic company” that’s based in San Jose, California — but little information exists online about who or what may be behind this new effort. But according to a trademark application filed last April, Tensor is affiliated with AutoX, an autonomous vehicle developer with operations in the US as well as China. In its announcement, Tensor makes no mention of AutoX or China. The company says it’s “dedicated to building agentic products that empower individual consumers” and that the Tensor robocar is its flagship product. It also claims to have offices in Barcelona, Singapore, and Dubai. It’s likely that AutoX spunoff its US-based team as Tensor to get around government restrictions on Chinese software in vehicles. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions about its affiliation with AutoX. AutoX has been testing its vehicles in and around San Jose since 2016. It’s 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 “Professor X,” according to LinkedIn). Since then, AutoX has nabbed several high-profile investors, including China’s Dongfeng Motor Group and e-commerce giant Alibaba. In 2020, it partnered with Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) to launch a robotaxi service in China. In 2022, it opened a robotaxi operation center in San Francisco with the goal of launching a commercial service — though it has yet to obtain the appropriate permits to do so. For the permits it does have, the company appears to have filed 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. Now it appears to be pivoting from robotaxis to “robocars.” Tensor says its vehicle is “the first and only L4 autonomous vehicle available for personal ownership.” It says it will launch in the US, Europe, and the Middle East starting in 2026. “When the world shifts… how will you move?” said Amy Luca, chief marketing officer at Tensor, in a 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.” (Luca is the former executive vice president and head of social at Monks, a marketing firm based in London, according to her LinkedIn.) 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. Tensor’s robocar appears to be no slouch, either. It comes with an array of high-tech sensors, including “37 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.” Of course, those sensors won’t be cheap, though Tensor did not put a price on its future robocar. Several companies have designs to sell privately owned autonomous vehicles, but none have achieved that milestone. Tesla CEO Elon Musk keeps promising that the “unsupervised” version of the company’s Full Self-Driving feature is just around the corner, but he has yet to deliver. GM has also said 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. Update August 13th: After the publication of this article, Tensor spokesperson Lena Allen responded with a statement about the brand’s relationship to AutoX, and AutoX’s relationship to China: > 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’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, Auto X received the second-ever driverless AV testing permit in California. > 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. > We have evolved into the Tensor brand to better reflect our renewed focus on delivering personalized, private, and autonomous technology for individual ownership.