Tesla to expand self-driving software test — but only to drivers it deems worthy
LA TimesA dashboard in a Tesla Model S P90D. Musk first announced his plan to sell FSD in October 2016, a few months after he told a tech conference he considered autonomous driving to be “basically a solved problem.” In April 2019, he predicted that roughly a year later, Tesla’s technology would advance to the point that drivers wouldn’t need to pay attention. Homendy has since called Tesla’s use of the term Full Self-Driving “misleading and irresponsible” and expressed concern to the Wall Street Journal about FSD’s readiness to be used by more drivers on public roads. “For investors, it’s terrifying,” said Taylor Ogan, CEO of Boston hedge fund Snow Bull Capital, who has closely watched videos of FSD beta testers at times demonstrating the software’s shortcomings. “It’s like the CEO of a drug company broadening the test pool of the experimental drug that the FDA is investigating for potentially hurting people.” Tara Goddard, an urban planning professor at Texas A&M University who’s researching how auto safety tech and automation are being marketed to consumers, questions whether Tesla’s seven-day evaluation of drivers’ behavior goes far enough to weed out unsafe users.