Tesla has released a fascinating time-lapse video of one of its vehicles navigating in Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode, making the impressive 360-mile journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The trip usually takes about seven hours, but this time the car pulled it off with just a brief stop at a Supercharger station to charge its battery.
Technically, a person was still behind the wheel for safety reasons, keeping their hands on their lap and ready to jump in if needed. Plus, Tesla employs a driver-facing camera to ensure the driver remains attentive and focused on the road throughout the ride.
This journey is a solid testament to Tesla’s faith in its FSD technology, showcasing its ability to manage long distances and tricky driving tasks without human input, right from starting off to parking smoothly at the destination.
However, there’s still plenty of debate about FSD. It’s not seen as fully autonomous by regulatory bodies. For instance, in California, Tesla’s FSD is labeled as a Level 2 driver assistance system, where full automation is classified as Level 5, meaning a driver can’t just sit back completely and must be ready to take charge if necessary.
Recently, Elon Musk shared that the company is busy training an upgraded FSD model, which might be ready for the public by the end of September if all goes well during testing.
This latest road trip on the West Coast comes about two months after Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. In that service, autonomous vehicles operate without anyone in the driver’s seat, relying on an upgraded version of the FSD that regular Tesla users don’t have access to yet.
Additionally, Tesla rolled out a ride-hailing service in San Francisco at the end of July. Unfortunately, they’re unable to label it as a “robotaxi” due to the lack of necessary permits, meaning a driver still must be present in the FSD-equipped ride.
