Tesla Says it May Not Achieve Self-Driving Technology by End of Year

Tesla has told a California regulator that it may not achieve full self-driving technology by the end of this year, a memo by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) demonstrated.

Tesla’s CEO - Elon Musk said in January that he was "highly confident the car will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year." The company has also rolled out what it describes as a "beta" version of its "full self-driving" (FSD) program to a limited number of employees and customers since October, and Musk has boasted the capability on Twitter.

"Elon's tweet does not match engineering reality per CJ. Tesla is at Level 2 currently”, the California DMV said, following a conference call with Tesla representatives that included autopilot engineer - CJ Moore. Level 2 technology refers to a semi-automated driving system, which requires supervision by a human driver.

"Tesla indicated that Elon is extrapolating on the rates of improvement when speaking about L5 capabilities. Tesla couldn’t say if the rate of improvement would make it to L5 by end of calendar year”, the memo said in reference to level 5 full autonomous technology.

"Tesla indicated that they are still firmly in L2”, California DMV added: ”As Tesla is aware, the public’s misunderstanding about the limits of the technology and its misuse can have tragic consequences."

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