Elon Musk was very confident about self-dring car technology when presenting the future of Tesla but the company confesses that they will not be ready at the end of this year. Tesla is probably the most groundbreaking car brand in modern history, however, it also has a controversial track record, especially when it comes to the promises made.
Even though Tesla launched the fully autonomous driving feature last year, and Elon Musk himself claimed that his cars were going to drive themselves in 2021, the reality is very different.
Full self-driving Test cars will not be ready for this year
The company has had to make that startling admission when questioned by the transportation agency of the state of California, USA. CJ Moore, director of development of “Autopilot”, the function that allows you to let the car drive, had a virtual conference with representatives of California last May 9, and now the content of this call has been made public.
Moore confessed that it was just a marketing strategy of Tesla, at least for now; specifically, he responded to Elon Musk‘s messages posted on Twitter. “Elon’s tweet does not match engineering reality,” he said. Last January, Musk told Tesla investors that he was very confident that the cars would be able to drive themselves reliably this year.
Autonomous car levels
Autonomous cars are divided into five levels, and only at the fifth level a car can be left to drive itself; at all other levels, driver attention or action is required.
However, Musk has rejected the very concept of autonomy levels, instead, he constantly talked about “full autonomy” by using terms like “Autopilot.” At the virtual conference, Moore was more specific, admitting that Tesla is at level 2 autonomy right now.
Level 2 autonomy is designated for “semi-autonomous” cars, with advanced aids such as cruise control or lane-keeping. However, they require the driver to always be in control. This is far from being a self-driving car.
How far? Moore claims that with Tesla’s machine learning system, it would be necessary to obtain much more data from real drivers.
