Tesla software director: Boss Musk is bragging, fully autonomous driving may not be achieved this year

Tesla has had a turbulent time recently.

At the recently concluded Shanghai Auto Show, the most popular event was not the new model, but the Tesla owner Ms. Zhang's complaint about Tesla's brake failure at the auto show. This incident triggered a series of chain reactions, raising questions about Tesla's safety, Tesla's brand public relations, and Tesla's use of vehicle data.

But compared to Ms. Zhang’s rights protection case, Tesla’s series of fatal accidents are more worrying.

On April 17, a Tesla crashed and burned severely in Guangzhou, China, killing the passenger on the front passenger seat. On May 7, another accident occurred in Shaoguan, Guangdong, where a Tesla rear-ended a truck, killing the driver on the spot.

In the United States, Tesla also had an accident. On April 19, in Texas, the United States, a Tesla was driving fast on the road, then hit a tree and caught fire, killing two people in the car on the spot. It is worth noting that the investigator at the scene of the accident said that there was no one in the main driving seat when the accident happened, but the automatic driving was turned on.

A series of serious accidents have caused the outside world to question the safety of Tesla, especially its autonomous driving function. However, not everyone within Tesla is optimistic about autonomous driving.

According to a recently released legal document, CJ Moore, director of Tesla's autonomous driving software department, told the California Department of Motor Vehicles that Musk exaggerated the autonomous driving function. The document stated that Musk's claim that "Tesla will achieve full autonomous driving as soon as this year" does not conform to engineering reality. Tesla's current safety level for autonomous driving is L2, and to achieve full autonomous driving, the safety level needs to reach L5.

A few years ago, Musk said that Tesla's autonomous driving safety level is close to L5 - this means that when autonomous driving is turned on, the driver no longer needs to keep his hands on the steering wheel and the vehicle can achieve fully autonomous driving.

In this disclosed document, Tesla implied that Musk was only predicting when talking about the speed of safety upgrades, but in fact, Tesla could not be sure whether it could reach L5 within this year.

In Tesla's Q1 2021 safety report, Tesla claimed that the accident rate of autonomous driving has dropped significantly. Musk also wrote that the accident rate of Teslas using autonomous driving is ten times lower than that of ordinary vehicles.

But the reality seems to be different. After the fatal accident in Texas, the California Department of Motor Vehicles wrote to Tesla's legal counsel Eric Williams, hoping that Tesla would give the public a clear explanation on autonomous driving: "As Tesla knows, the public's misunderstanding of the limits of technology and incorrect use can lead to disastrous consequences."

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.