Tesla’s Autopilot and more advanced Full-Self Driving (FSD) systems have been the subject of plenty of negative headlines recently.
The U.S. government has opened an investigation into Autopilot after a series of collisions involving Teslas and emergency vehicles, some owners who have shelled out $10,000 for FSD are wondering whether they’ve been miss-sold, and Tesla’s own engineers say talk of autonomous driving does not match the engineering reality.
Now, even Tesla boss Elon Musk, whose own optimistic comments about the immediate prospects for FSD alarmed those Tesla engineers, is taking a pop at the company’s autonomous tech.
“FSD Beta 9.2 is actually not great imo,” Musk said on Twitter. “But Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible.”
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FSD Beta 9.2 is actually not great imo, but Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible.
We’re trying to have a single stack for both highway & city streets, but it requires massive NN retraining.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2021
“We’re trying to have a single stack for both highway & city streets, but it requires massive NN [neural network] retraining.”
Musks comments were in response to a video posted to Twitter in which auto industry expert Sandy Munro gave a less than glowing review of Ford’s rival BlueCruise system after trying a Mustang Mach-E.
Munro is the boss of automotive consultancy firm Munro & Associates, which dismantles new cars to compile comprehensive reports on their design, engineering and manufacturing, which it then sells to other carmakers.
A former Ford engineer, Munro tried the BlueCruise-equipped Mach-E and discovered that it could not take the off-ramp or change lanes by itself. The system also disengaged on curves it decided were too tight, requiring driver intervention.
With Ford Driver Assist Technology chief engineer Chris Billman riding shotgun, Munro remarks to Billman that he’s been “a little bit spoiled by watching what Tesla’s been doing with the Full Self-Driving Beta.”
“That is really impressive,” he continues, “and I’m going to suggest that somehow, if you can get your hands on that and try it out, it’ll really help you understand what I was talking about as far as improvements are concerned.”
Munro’s comments will sting Ford, though Elon Musk’s surprisingly candid assessment of Tesla’s FSD difficulties might offer some kind of comfort.
