Tesla boss Elon Musk should not be taken too seriously. The man exaggerates – not to say lies – with great enthusiasm and that has resulted in the same annual ritual for nine years. Since 2014, Musk has promised that fully self-driving Teslas will actually arrive next year. Also now…
Elon Musk has even thickened his promise this year. He would be shocked, he says, if Tesla doesn’t come up with a full self-driving system this year that’s safer than a human driver. Yawn! It’s the same thing every year. Musk has been claiming this since 2014. Someone has even made a short compilation on Youtube of his statements about autonomous Teslas, which will always come on the market in a year.
Pay extra for Full Self-Driving Capability that you don’t get
If you order a Tesla, you can pay an additional 7,500 euros for the Full Self-Driving Capability. Do you get that too? New! FSD is far from autonomous and, moreover, the system is not yet available in the Netherlands. In the US, about 60,000 Tesla owners are currently driving around with a trial version of it: FSD Beta. The collection of semi-autonomous assistants works only reasonably and requires constant supervision.
Tesla is at autonomous level 2 and will not progress for the time being
There are levels to indicate how autonomous a car is. Tesla is at level 2 with FSD Beta, where the car can take over driving in certain situations, but requires active human supervision. A true self-driving vehicle is at level 5, so Tesla still has a long way to go. It is impossible for the manufacturer to reach level 4 or level 5 this year. Not only do we say that, Tesla says that too. CEO Elon Musk, however, continues to stubbornly claim that it does, for nine years …