Tesla’s Self-Driving Ambitions: Will They Succeed?

Uzone.id – Tesla has long been struggling with self-driving technology which is available in almost all of its cars. However, nothing has yet reached the peak, namely Full Self Driving (FSD) technology.

However, the American electric car manufacturer plans to launch an advanced driver assistance system known as fully autonomous driving (FSD) technology in China and Europe in the first quarter of next year, if it receives permission from regulators.

Based on the Tesla AI roadmap uploaded on its official X account, FSD technology is needed to win competition with Chinese automotive manufacturers which are also competing to develop driving assistance systems.

In China itself, Tesla has passed a data security assessment and reached an agreement with the country’s technology giant, Baidu Inc, in the mapping and navigation sector. 

In this way, Tesla also received permission to test this FSD technology on the roads of Shanghai. Musk said last July that the FSD driving system could receive approval in Europe, China, and several other countries by the end of this year. 

What is FSD?

According to Tesla’s official website, Autopilot is an advanced driver assistance system that increases safety and comfort behind the wheel. When used properly, Autopilot reduces your overall workload as a driver. 

Each new Tesla vehicle is equipped with eight external cameras and advanced vision processing to provide an additional layer of safety in the package of the camera-based Tesla Vision feature, so it is not equipped with radar and instead relies on Tesla’s advanced camera suite and neural network processing to deliver Autopilot and related features.

Autopilot is a standard feature on every new Tesla. Comes in two types: Enhanced Autopilot Capability and Fully Autonomous Driving.

Full Self-Driving Tesla 

This feature began to be widely released in October 2021 in beta. Even though the name is Full Self-Driving, this doesn’t mean that this car can actually drive itself automatically, even though the technology is still much better and presents a significant improvement compared to the Autopilot mode which is currently installed in almost all Tesla cars.

Features include assisted steering on highways and city streets, intelligent summons, traffic and stop sign control, and automatic parking.

1. Auto Lane Change: It helps to move the car to an adjacent lane on the highway
2. Autopark: automatically parks the car in a parallel or perpendicular place
3. Summon: This allows you to automatically park and retrieve your Tesla while you are standing outside the vehicle. This feature is controlled via the Tesla mobile app or key fob
4. Smart Summon: This allows you to move the Tesla to your location or a location of your choice while avoiding obstacles

How does Tesla FSD work?

All Tesla vehicles are equipped with eight cameras and twelve ultrasonic sensors, which capture information from the surrounding environment and feed it to a sophisticated computer installed in the vehicle. 

This information contains data about other vehicles on the road, pedestrians, objects, traffic lights, signs, and lanes. The internal computer processes this information using AI and machine learning and steers the car according to the information.

Why is Tesla FSD controversial?

Tesla’s FSD feature is considered controversial because the name is misleading. For people who are not familiar with this technology, the Full Self-Driving feature makes it seem like the car can control itself, even though it doesn’t.

​​Tesla said that all their cars need someone to drive them, even if they have fancy self-driving features. They hope to get to a point where the cars can drive themselves perfectly, but it takes a lot of driving to learn how to do that.

People who try out Tesla’s self-driving feature are helping the car learn how to drive better. The software isn’t finished yet, and using it on real roads can be dangerous, as some accidents have shown. Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, has been talking a lot about this self-driving technology, but there are a lot of questions and rules about it.

According to Reuters, US auto safety regulators said that they had opened an investigation into whether Tesla’s December recall of more than 2 million vehicles in the United States was to install new Autopilot safety measures, after a series of crashes. 

So technologically, FSD can take us into a new era of driving, which requires a lot of public trust to want to use it. Therefore, Tesla has a tough road ahead to get the green light for massive use of FSD.