Re:California’s AV testing rules apply to Tesla’s “FSD”
by ajross on Friday December 17, 2021 @06:47PM
(#29599738)
This is just a semantic argument about what "capability" and "autonomous" means. The system is obviously capable of autonomously navigating in an engineering sense, because that's what it does.
The system as deployed ("FSD beta") also requires a human driver, and actively monitors for driver attention. So it is not actually operating autonomously.
It seems that the spirit of the law is to disallow unregulated testing of cars that are actually operating autonomously. Cars with a human in the loop don't really seem to be what the regulations were thinking of.
The letter-of-the-law argument would seem to disallow any sort of uncommanded control by the vehicle, including lane assist and 1970's cruise control. And that's not right either.
The system as deployed ("FSD beta") also requires a human driver, and actively monitors for driver attention. So it is not actually operating autonomously.
It seems that the spirit of the law is to disallow unregulated testing of cars that are actually operating autonomously. Cars with a human in the loop don't really seem to be what the regulations were thinking of.
The letter-of-the-law argument would seem to disallow any sort of uncommanded control by the vehicle, including lane assist and 1970's cruise control. And that's not right either.