Look how Tesla autonomy and FSD have improved in recent times. While Tesla has made great advances in Autopilot, the current autonomy is not Level 3 yet.
Kevin Davidson, who holds M.S. in mathematics, writes on Quora about Tesla's autonomous driving improvements and says particularly the following:
"Tesla Full Self-Driving is now available to a limited number of owners as a pre-release test version, and there are quite a few videos published by owners using the feature. As someone who hopes to have this capability in my own car by the end of the year, I watch these videos and pay close attention to them. The car now understands its environment better, including roads with no lines and residential streets with cars parked sporadically on the street. The car also handles lane changes and intersections on city streets. I haven’t seen a video, but comments say it handles traffic circles. I’m anxiously awaiting the opportunity to try this all out myself, after which I can give a far more expert opinion.
"This is is what Tesla is calling “feature complete”; however, even if the car will take you from home to work and park itself without intervention, it’s still Level 2 autonomy so long as the driver has to keep their hands on the wheel or their eyes on the road. The next step towards autonomy will be taken in terms of reliability. When Tesla decides it’s safe to remove the hands on the wheel requirement, then the car is instantly Level 3 or 4."
Here is what Wikipedia reports on Tesla's Full Self Driving improvements.
"In April 2019, Tesla started releasing an update to Navigate on Autopilot, which does not require lane change confirmation but does require the driver to have hands on the steering wheel. The car will navigate freeway interchanges on its own, but the driver needs to supervise. The ability is available to those who have purchased Enhanced Autopilot or Full Self Driving Capability.
"In May 2019, Tesla provided an updated Autopilot in Europe, to comply with new UN/ECE R79 regulation related to Automatically commanded steering function.
"In September 2019, Tesla released software version 10 to early access users, featuring improvements in driving visualization and automatic lane changes.
"In February 2019, Musk stated that Tesla's Full Self Driving capability would be "feature complete" by the end of 2019."
Quote from Elon:
"I think we will be feature complete, full self-driving, this year. Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention. This year. I would say I am of certain of that, that is not a question mark. However, people sometimes will extrapolate that to mean now it works with 100% certainty, requiring no observation, perfectly, this is not the case."
Armen Hareyan is the founder and the Editor in Chief of Torque News. He founded TorqueNews.com in 2010, which since then has been publishing expert news and analysis about the automotive industry. He can be reached at Torque News Twitter, Facebok, Linkedin and Youtube.
