Has Tesla even applied for a permit to test driverless cars?

[Daniel in SD]

Elon can say alot of things but if Tesla isn't accepting liability then it is still an L2 system.

If you say it's safe enough to use without supervision I count that as marketing it as an L3 system.

 

[Terminator857]

If you say it's safe enough to use without supervision I count that as marketing it as an L3 system.

I don't think Elon will say it is safe to use without supervision for a long time, years. Before making such a statement, system will have been tested with longer time between nags for hands on the wheels.
It maybe the case where Elon says it is safer than a human without supervision in certain situations such as stop and go traffic on freeway and we may see nags decrease in that situation.

 

[ThomasD]

Elon Musk says Tesla's Full Self-Driving tech will have Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021​

Only 91 days to go

 

[rxlawdude]

Only 91 days to go

A 9 month old article?

 

[t3sl4drvr]

Looks like the situation remains unchanged: Tesla still lacks a permit for driverless testing in California. Do they have that anywhere else in the world?

In the meanwhile there is an increasing number of robotaxi companies driving passengers without a safety driver on public roads.

 

[diplomat33]

I think Elon has said that Tesla's plan is to get FSD many times safer than human drivers first and only then, go to regulators. And Elon seems focused on deploying FSD everywhere, he does not seem interested in doing driverless only in certain areas. So I think Elon is waiting until FSD Beta is good enough to be driverless everywhere in the US and only then go to regulators to remove driver supervision. Of course, to remove driver supervision in CA, they would still need to apply for a permit. Tesla may ignore CA altogether and deploy driverless in other places that don't require a permit. Alternatively, Tesla may never remove driver supervision and simply deploy FSD wide as L2. That would avoid regulations entirely. Tesla could claim that FSD is both much safer than humans and still L2. IMO, that is a likely scenario.

Frankly, Elon talks like he does not really understand the regulatory landscape because he talks as if there is a central authority that can give Tesla permission to remove driver supervision everywhere once Tesla shows them the right data. But there is no central authority, every State in the US has their own regulations/permits/rules etc... Heck some cities in the US have their own regulations, different from the State's regulations, ie NYC. So I am not sure how Tesla is going to remove driver supervision everywhere by simply "going to regulators and showing them safety data" as Elon says.