Tesla is mostly known for its electric vehicles and involvement in Bitcoin. A memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) showed that Tesla informed a California regulator that its full self-driving technology for its electric vehicles might not be achieved this year.
Earlier this year, Technoking and CEO of Tesla; Elon Musk during an earnings conference call informed the general public that he “was confident that the cars will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year”. Starting October of last year, Tesla released test versions of its self-driving cars to a closed group of employees and customers in what is being called a ‘full self-driving’ (FSD) program. The company’s CEO has also taken to Twitter to speak constantly on the abilities of these cars.
Tesla’s full self-driving cars were expected to be released by at most the end of this year, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen anymore. The memo by the California DMV while referring to Tesla’s self-driving cars and Level 5 full autonomous technology read “Tesla indicated that Elon is extrapolating on the rates of improvement when speaking about L5 capacities. Tesla couldn’t say if the rate of improvement would make it to L5 by the end of the calendar year”
“Tesla indicated that they are still firmly in L2. As Tesla is aware, the public’s misunderstanding about the limits of the technology and its misuse can have tragic consequences”, the memo added.
Tesla’s self-driving technology is still in its early stage (as indicated by Tesla in the memo) and this has left so many unanswered questions. On Wednesday, a Tesla vehicle crashed into an overturned truck on a highway close to Fontana, California and sadly the driver lost his life. The California Highway Patrol has still not revealed if the car was on autopilot or not. This joins the list of other accidents involving Tesla vehicles that The California Highway Patrol is investigating.
As the memo suggests, Tesla vehicles might not be ready for Level 5 self-driving abilities, at least for now but that doesn’t stop the vehicles from being game changers that contribute to environmental sustainability.
