- Tesla claims its new EVs can now drive themselves on a 1.2-mile factory course.
- The freshly assembled EVs start their driverless journey from a charging station.
Tesla isn’t a stranger to controversy. Thanks in no small part to its outspoken CEO, the American electric vehicle got into its fair share of trouble because of its advanced driving assistance systems, which are called Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and Autopilot. That’s despite neither of them being considered Level 3 systems on the SAE’s Levels of Automation Chart.
For several years, Elon Musk has been promising Tesla EVs would soon drive themselves everywhere, a promise that culminated with the debut of the Robotaxi–a two-seater without a steering wheel and pedals that was designed to be bought by anyone but is not yet on sale.
For what it’s worth, FSD has gotten better over time, but as some researchers found out, it offers a false sense of security because it can drive flawlessly on the same piece of road dozens of times, only to randomly mess something up unexpectedly.
All this being said, Tesla is charging forward with the implementation of FSD. It now claims its EVs drive themselves from the factory to their designated dock lanes without human intervention. The automaker’s artificial intelligence arm posted two videos showing several brand-new Model 3s and Model Ys navigating a roughly 1.2-mile course at the Fremont factory grounds without a person sitting inside.
Tesla didn’t offer any details except for what is present in the two X posts embedded below, so it’s hard to pinpoint the exact course taken by the cars. Judging from the videos, it looks like the starting point of the driverless journey is a Supercharger station outside one of the factory buildings. The vehicles then drive for roughly six minutes before arriving at the parking lot where they are loaded onto trucks and head out for delivery.
Despite the controversies linked to Tesla’s FSD system, it’s nonetheless pretty cool to see a bunch of brand-new cars driving around without people inside. BMW is also implementing a self-driving system for new cars at several factories around the world, but the German automaker’s approach is much more complicated.
At its main site in Dingolfing, Germany, freshly assembled vehicles drive themselves on a 0.62-mile route inside the factory. The system is called Automated Driving In-Plant (AFW) and uses a series of sensors installed along the route to guide vehicles. It relies on an externally generated environment model and an external movement planner.
