Right. Tesla has avoided getting the California DMV's autonomous driving licenses. They have a "learner's permit" for testing with a safety driver. California DMV's regulations for self-driving vehicles mirror those for drivers. There's the "learner's permit", (with safety driver), which has much the same restrictions as a human learner's permit. There's the autonomous testing permit, which is comparable to a regular (class C) driver's license - you can drive yourself and your employees, but not for hire and not large trucks. Then there's the deployment license, which allows charging money and is hard to get. Mercedes, Nuro, and Waymo have one. Cruise used to have one, but DMV revoked it after a fatal crash.
Tesla reported zero autonomous miles driven on California roads in 2023.[1] They're not even trying. Tesla has long been scared of the reporting requirements. All disconnects have to be logged, miles driven have to be logged, and all accidents, however minor, have to be reported. Everybody else in the real self driving industry, from Apple to Zoox, does this. The ones with bad numbers grumble about it sometimes. Waymo doesn't.
[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...
Mercedes is so limited to just technically qualify for Level 3 that it could be likely be trivially outmatched by some limited FSD conditions if that's the route Tesla wanted to go.
But yeah I assume you start with some limited Level 3 subset, probably highway, then extend it to city streets. Then just start working your way through validating new conditions.
They're putting their money where Musk's mouth is.
And next year it will go up to 85kmph, close to highway speeds.
If you look at their wording, they are saying they are ready to defend themselves and their software, not that they will protect anyone from a lawsuit.
The owners manual even explicitly states you are always the operator under drive pilot.
Just a straight up lie. The manual states:
> The person in the driver's seat when DRIVE PILOT is activated is designated as the fallback-ready user and should be ready to take over control of the vehicle.
> As soon as the driver steers, accelerates or brakes, the responsibility for driving and safe operation of the vehicle, including compliance with traffic regulations, will be returned to the driver.
(leaving aside for the moment, why they wouldn’t want to)
But they would probably want to do all kinds of extra training and validation and fine tuning on it first rather than just blast out the current version.
And I actually believe Mercedes Benz, you know, the inventors of the automobile, to deliver.
I thought Elon said it would be L4 FSD with only vision, but it'll be available later. If he can deliver it, then a $25K L4 robotaxi certainly will have an advantage over Waymo's $200K mod. Well, I guess the stock market believes it's more of a vaporware than reality.
It’s possible that they might be able to get an Level 3 product out similar to offerings by the likes of Daimler, Cadillac, and Ford - where on certain highways under certain conditions you don’t have to pay much attention but still must be available to take over relatively quickly if the conditions change. That seems the most likely route, although all other systems I believe rely on vision+radar or vision+lidar fusion. Those approaches have a lot more broad industry experience and quantifiable benefits in safety, but it’s possible Tesla has compelling data on the performance of its vision system, especially during daylight hours.
I’m honestly not sure how they could ship what they are implying - basically FSD as it is today but without anyone in the driver’s seat. That would imply they are (nearly) comfortable with it driving 10’s to 100’s of millions of miles between fatal accidents without any intervention. Either that or they are willing to ship and know it’s less safe than an average driver. That’s ignoring non-fatal accident rates.
There are some middle ground options where UFSD would have a larger set of conditions it can operate “unsupervised”, say in good weather and possibly daytime, and maybe only on some types of roads. But the edge cases where it transitions out of those conditions can be brutal and not easy to address. It’s relatively easy to say “just pull over and make the driver take over”, but especially on highways or heavy traffic that can take a while.