Specialists Say Tesla Is Further Away From Level 5 FSD Than From Mars

The experts Automotive News interviewed say Musk’s allegation “border on the preposterous.”

By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo

Jul 22, 2020 at 8:10am ET

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Elon Musk said in a video for Shanghai's annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) that Tesla would "have the basic functionality of Level 5 autonomy complete this year." Even the people that applaud everything he says took that with a grain of salt. When Automotive News spoke to specialists in safety, technology, and automotive industries about that, things got even worse for the Tesla CEO. They believe he is closer to going to Mars than selling a fully autonomous car.

Automotive News spoke to four people: Jason Levine (executive director of the Center for Auto Safety), John Krafcik (Waymo CEO), Sam Abuelsamid (principal analyst at Guidehouse Insights), and Missy Cummings (director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke University). All of them, with no exception, said Musk's allegations were not something achievable. And it was not just a matter of time, according to some of them.

Abuelsamid seems to be the more vocal detractor. He told Automotive News this:

“The cars they are building will never be Level 5, period. It's nonsense. He needs to shut up until he can deliver something."

If Musk's definition for Level 5 is "Full Self-Driving," that implies people are paying for something they will never get. Even if FSD is Level 4, Cummings doubts Tesla will be able to deliver it.

“The perception systems don't work well in weather conditions, with long shadows. We know the Tesla perception system, and the news is it's a really bad system."

In June 2019, John Krafcik told Automotive News that Level 5 is a myth. Abuelsamid has made a ranking of 18 companies that are pursuing autonomous technology. Tesla ended up last, even behind startups.

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The entire article brings more arguments that support the many times these experts said Tesla reaching Level 5 is "absurd," "nonsense," fundamentally flawed," and so forth. For as much as you want to believe Tesla has an edge with its terabytes of Autopilot data, these specialists don't.

Source: Automotive News