PALO ALTO, Calif. – Tesla has expanded its “fully autonomous” software to about 2,000 Tesla owners, but some drivers have been revoked for not paying enough attention to the road, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“FSD Beta has now been expanded … we also revoked the beta where drivers were not paying enough attention to the road, Musk said in a tweet on Friday. “No accidents so far.”
It is unclear how many drivers had revoked access to the beta software. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the number of drivers who lost access to the program.
The beta version of “full self-driving” was launched in October last year. Tesla’s use of the term “fully autonomous driving” has been controversial and criticized by experts in autonomous vehicles. For most experts, fully autonomous driving means a car in which a person can fall asleep safely behind the wheel. An attentive human driver is not necessary.
The news comes after reports that a letter was sent in February from the National Transportation Safety Board to the National Highway Traffic Safety asking for stricter requirements for autonomous driving tests on public roads.
CNBC was the first to report the federal agency’s request for updated safety requirements for testing public roads.
In the letter, NTSB President Robert Sumwalt says Tesla is testing on public roads, but with “limited supervision or reporting requirements”.
“Although Tesla includes a disclaimer that ‘currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous’, NHTSA’s non-intervention approach to supervising AV testing poses a potential risk for drivers and other users from the road, “added Sumwalt.
Earlier this month, Musk tweeted his plans to double the size of Tesla’s beta testing program with version 8.2 and about 10 times the number of testers with version 8.3.
He then added on Friday that the “next significant release” of the software will be next month.
“Going with pure vision – not even using radar,” Musk tweeted. “This is the path to real-world AI.”
– Matt McFarland of CNN contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire ™ and © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner company. All rights reserved.