By the end of the year, Tesla hopes to have its self-driving technology ready, with plans to introduce it in the US and maybe in Europe.
Elon Musk, the ‘s CEO, said that enabling Tesla cars “to be able to do self-driving” by the end of the year was one of his current objectives at an energy conference.
While Tesla’s “Autopilot” technology has been in use since 2015, its “full self-driving” (FSD) mode has been under testing since 2020.
The capabilities of autopilot include autonomous parking, traffic-aware cruise control, and autosteer when in lanes that are clearly defined.
Full self-driving mode consists of Autopilot’s functions as well as the capability for the vehicle to navigate city streets while recognizing stop signs and traffic lights, “under your active supervision.”
While Musk sees this as the direction of Tesla, his goals must contend with escalating public and governmental scrutiny of the vehicles’ technology for fully or partially automated driving systems.
The US Department of Transportation provided preliminary information on the safety performance of “Advanced Vehicle Technologies” in June of this year. Tesla found the report on “Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver-assistance system) equipped vehicles” to be sobering.
When the driver assistance system is engaged, these sorts of vehicles offer speed and steering feedback, but the driver must stay completely focused on operating the vehicle.
Tesla automobiles were involved in 273 of the 392 crashes that were reported as of May 15, 2022.
The report does emphasize that these data “cannot be used to compare the safety of manufacturers against one another” because they do not account for the total number of vehicles on the road or vehicle kilometers traveled.
Musk claimed he was concentrating on his self-driving Tesla electric cars and SpaceX Starship spacecraft when he spoke at the conference in Norway on Monday.
Getting our Starship into orbit and making Tesla cars capable of self-driving are the two technologies that I am concentrating on and hoping to complete before the end of the year, he said.
He said that he intended self-driving to be “widely released at least in the US” and, possibly, “depending on regulatory approval” in Europe.
The update comes as Tesla’s critics and supporters, who have been testing the ‘s self-driving technology privately, are engaged in a sort of conflict.
Technology entrepreneur and former US Senate candidate Dan O’Dowd heads the Dawn Project campaign group, which says it is “campaigning to remove dangerous software from safety critical systems.”
The claims to be testing Tesla’s FSD software in a number of films that show a Tesla in autopilot running over kid-sized dummies on a test track and on a Californian public road.
The Dawn Project has started a national TV ad campaign alerting viewers to the purported risks associated with Tesla’s FSD software.
In response, some Tesla devotees conducted their own testing. One shows a driver using the FSD in a Tesla Model X that slows down when it approaches cyclists on the road in a YouTube video.
The video is titled “Tesla Model X FSD Beta & AutoPilot Avoids Cyclists on Road without Issue Dummy Dan O’Dowd” in response to O’Dowd. Worked.”
With a cease and desist letter dated August 11—which was made public by the Dawn Project—Tesla responded to the Dawn Project.
The Dawn Project and O’Dowd, according to the letter, “have been denigrating Tesla’s business interests and publishing false information to the public.”
The tests in the videos are “likely fake,” according to Tesla, and “misrepresent the capabilities of Tesla’s technology,” which is why the threatened legal action.
When used appropriately, Tesla’s FSD Beta “does recognize pedestrians, children, and the system reacts to prevent or lessen an accident,” according to Tesla.
The Dawn Project referred to Tesla’s letter as “commercial hype” and asserted that their testing “are entirely legal and not deceiving.”
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