A leaked memo from Tesla reportedly shows that its fully self-driving car is still far from being a reality

• Tesla vehicles are far from reaching a level of autonomy often described by Elon Musk on social media, according to a leaked memo.
• A fully self-driving car, also called Level 5 (L5) Autonomy, may include navigate on autopilot, auto lane change, summon (moves your car in and out of a tight space using the mobile app or key).
• In January 2021, Musk told investors that he was "highly confident the car will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year".

Tesla vehicles are far from reaching a level of autonomy often described by Musk on social media, according to an internal memo obtained by transparency portal Plainsite. "Elon's tweet does not match engineering reality per CJ. Tesla is at Level 2 currently," Tesla's director of Autopilot software CJ Moore told the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)

Autonomous vehicles are graded according to how many functions they can deliver without human intervention. Level 2 technology refers to a semi-automated driving system, which requires supervision by a human driver.

A fully self-driving car, also called Level 5 (L5) Autonomy, may include navigate on autopilot, auto lane change, summon (moves your car in and out of a tight space using the mobile app or key).

However, Tesla vehicles are still not driving on their own. "Tesla indicated that Elon is extrapolating on the rates of improvement when speaking about L5 capabilities. Tesla couldn’t say if the rate of improvement would make it to L5 by end of calendar year, the document showed. The question on the progress in Tesla's fully autonomous car arose after the company's Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk tweeted the following on March 9.


Ahead of this tweet, in an earnings call in January 2021, Musk told investors that he was "highly confident the car will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year".

"As Tesla is aware, the public’s misunderstanding about the limits of the technology and its misuse can have tragic consequences," the email from California's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to Eric Williams, a Tesla executive read.

With inputs from IANS

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