PALO ALTO, California. – Tesla has expanded its “fully autonomous driving” software to about 2,000 Tesla owners, but some drivers were denied access for not paying enough attention to the road, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk .
“The beta version of FSD has been expanded … we also revoked the beta version, where drivers didn’t pay enough attention to the road, Musk he said in a tweet Friday. “So far there are no accidents.”
It is unclear how many drivers have denied access from 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 released in October last year. Tesla’s use of the term “complete self-driving” has long been controversial and criticized by autonomous vehicle experts. For most experts, driving automatically is a car in which a person can fall asleep behind the wheel. No attentive human driver is needed.
The news comes after it was reported that in February a letter from the National Transportation Safety Board was sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety asking for stricter requirements on autonomous driving tests on public roads.
CNBC was the first to report the federal agency’s request for updated safety requirements for highway testing.
In the letter, NTSB President Robert Sumwalt states that Tesla is testing on the public highway but with “limited monitoring or reporting requirements.”
“While Tesla includes a disclaimer that‘ currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous ’, NHTSA’s practical approach to AV test monitoring poses a potential risk. for motorists and other road users, ”Sumwalt added.
Earlier this month, Musk tweeted 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.
Subsequently, he added on Friday the “next significant version” of the software will be next month.
“Go with pure vision, don’t even use radar,” Musk tweeted. “This is the path to real-world AI.”
– CNN’s Matt McFarland contributed to this report.
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