Tesla: “Full Self-Driving Beta” Isn't Designed for Full Self-Driving

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Tesla: "Full self-driving beta" isn't designed for full self-driving:

The transparency site PlainSite recently published a pair of letters Tesla wrote to the California Department of Motor Vehicles in late 2020. The letters cast doubt on Elon Musk's optimistic timeline for the development of fully driverless technology.

[...] In October, Tesla released what it called its "full self-driving beta" software to a few dozen Tesla owners. A few days ago, Musk announced plans to expand the program to more customers.

Given that the product is called "full self-driving," this might seem like the first step in Musk's three-step progression. After a few more months of testing, perhaps it will become reliable enough to operate without human supervision. That could allow Musk to make good on his latest optimistic timeline for Autopilot: in a December 2020 interview, Musk said he was "extremely confident" that Tesla vehicles would reach level 5 by the end of 2021.

But a letter Tesla sent to California regulators the same month had a different tone. Despite the "full self-driving" name, Tesla admitted it doesn't consider the current beta software suitable for fully driverless operation. The company said it wouldn't start testing "true autonomous features" until some unspecified point in the future.

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