That's correct for Levels 4 (on some roads) and 5 (all roads) autonomy, otherwise known as full self driving (eyes off the road).
What it's correct for is the full FSD package. Because that's literally where the quote is from. It makes no mention of the NHTSA/SAE "levels" at all.
We'll probably get Level 4 in a decade and level 5 five or ten years after that.
Or much sooner. Or much later. Ask 10 people you'll get 10 different answers.
Tesla has obfuscated the situation by on the one hand referring to its ultimate goal of a full self-driving car, and then in the same sentence introducing a package of driver-assist features which it's calling FSD and which is intended eventually to culminate in a car that can drive itself.
not sure how that's obfuscating. A fully functional FSD option is the features they list when you buy FSD. That's pretty clear.
Starting in V9 they will begin introducing SOME of the individual elements of that feature. But not yet others.
Thus nobody who can read would expect the functionality to match what's in the "when it's done" description they saw when they purchased the option.
There is no reason to believe that the ultimate goal of a fully self-driving car gives us any information about what Tesla's FSD package of features will allow us to do in the mean time.
I mean... it
does actually give us some information about that.
Since whatever it allows us to do will be some subset of the full description.
It doesn't tell us
what subset- but it's at least a place to start.
And there's no way that Tesla is going to allow hands-off-the-wheel driving in any of its cars in the next three years. Maybe in five years "FSD"-equipped cars will allow hands off the wheel on limited-access freeways. Ain't gonna happen before that, because the software just isn't there yet, as we can see by the quirky behavior of today's EAP. You won't get to take your hands off the wheel just because you paid the additional $3K. You'll be allowed to take your hands off the wheel when, and not before, the software can reliably respond to traffic conditions and erratic behavior of other cars better than a human driver can.
You realize Cadillac already allows this
today in areas supercruise can be engaged, right? (which indeed are limited access freeways)
It's a much more limited set of places than EAP can be used, but you're free to take, and leave, your hands off the wheel the whole time it's operating.
So I'm not sure where you get a definitive "no way" amount of years before Teslas system would allow that.
And even then, an accident in a car that Tesla has formally announced is hands-off-the-wheel, even if it's a situation no human could have avoided, would be such a PR nightmare
Everyone keeps saying that.
Yet there's been several Tesla accidents that made big headlines- then went no where as far as causing Tesla significant PR problems long term.
Probably because of 2 other things- The
overall accident rate using Tesla systems is lower than humans driving and these accidents usually result in little to no injury because of how safe the car itself is in a crash.
Back when the Model S came out, Tesla liked to put the price of the base model and the range of the premium model in the same sentence. It's doing that again by talking about what full self driving is, in the same sentence as it promotes the "FSD" package which is far, far away from reaching that level.
The full FSD package
is that level by definition.
The fact they're going to be releasing individual parts of it prior to the full package being available doesn't change that, and isn't at all deceptive unless you refuse to read, or understand, the clear descriptions they provide of what is what.