Back

 Industry News Details

 
Why Is Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Only Level 2 Autonomous? Posted on : Mar 13 - 2021

The Tesla miracle isn’t just about making electric vehicles practical and desirable replacements for fossil fuel cars. Alongside the leading battery and motor technologies have been bold claims by Elon Musk that his cars will be the first you can buy that completely drive themselves too. A trial of Tesla’s Full Self Driving ability has been making its way round a few US cities carrying selected beta-testing Tesla owners since October 2020. But recently a series of emails between Tesla and the California Department of Motor Vehicles have come to light, admitting this “autosteer on city streets” capability is no more than Level 2, when previously Elon Musk had claimed they would be “close to Level 5” by the end of 2021.

Has Elon Musk been exaggerating? Have FSD purchasers been sold something under false pretenses that will never deliver on its promise? Should they be asking for their money back? To answer these questions, it is important first to understand what the different levels of autonomous driving mean. There are six of these, as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers. They start at 0, which means no self-driving ability at all. Level 1 means there is some driver assistance, such as adaptive cruise control. Level 2 is where the car can do the steering and acceleration, but the driver must still be ready to take the wheel. Level 3 and above are fully autonomous, but with human override capability a possibility until you get to Level 5, which doesn’t have to have this ability.

In other words, by claiming Level 5 abilities, Elon Musk has promised completely autonomous driving with no need for user intervention at any point, by the end of this year. But the Californian documents say the autonomous abilities now in beta are only Level 2 – just one step above adaptive cruise control, and still requiring the driver to be attentive and ready to take command at any time. That is a long way off being the same thing and doesn’t sound like the Full Self-Driving we’ve been expecting.

Tesla owners have understandably become very confused, particularly when Musk has talked about occupants playing games while driving. It is true that autosteer on city streets has always been listed as a feature of FSD, rather than being the whole thing. So that could mean that higher levels of autonomy will be added as future features in the same way that Navigate on Autopilot and Enhanced Summon were in the past. But if you paid the extra for the FSD package expecting autosteering on city streets would allow you to take a nap or eat a burger while driving, you are sadly mistaken. This is not legal, and you will still need to be ready to take over in the event of an emergency. View More