I want to make sure that we are clear. L2-L4 is not about driver supervision. You can have L4 with driver supervision. L2-L4 is about how much of the driving the car is able to do. L2, the car can only do some of the driving tasks, L4 the car can do all the driving tasks within its ODD.
Sure, but in my view the more important distinction is that at Level 2 the driver is always responsible and at Level 4 the car is sometimes responsible. So when you say Level 4 Automatic city driving I expect you mean car responsible Automatic city driving (at least when weather permits etc).
So when you say the Design Studio is selling a L2 "automatic city driving", are you saying that "automatic city driving" will be missing some driving tasks or that it will require driver supervision? The former would be L2, the latter could be L2 or L4 depending on what it does.
When I am saying I think Design Studio’s ”Automatic city driving” later this year means Level 2, I mean I believe the driver will remain responsible for that drive — and the reason for that won’t be merely legal, but lack of features that would allow the car to be responsible for the drive within cities. So both: I believe it will be missing some driving tasks and also it will not be able to be car responsible.
If Tesla releases "automatic city driving" that can't do all the driving tasks (for example, it can handle intersections but it can't stop at stop signs) that would be L2. But if Tesla releases "automatic city driving" that can handle all the driving tasks but requires some supervision, that would be L4.
For it to be Level 4, Tesla would first of all have to define it as Level 4. It is a design-intent definition. So even if it was fully capable, but Tesla does not call it Level 4, it won’t be. But I think the question of Level 2 is far more nuanced than that.
I think Automatic city driving will handle stop signs and traffic lights, as Tesla has specifically mentioned those. I think it must handle intersections and roundabouts Tesla has mentioned as well. I don’t think it will do them at an autonomous reliability level, but let’s put that aside for now...
What else would be missing? Well I expect, for one, the ability to recognize and react to all obstacle types, as well as to recognize all types of lane arrangements (including temporary ones). This I would expect is the biggest reason for it remaining at Level 2. This is simply a very hard problem to solve, and probably even more so without Lidar (obstacles) and crowd-sourced HD mapping (lanes).
Frankly, I would be very surprised if Tesla wants "automatic city driving" to remain at L2 forever when their stated end game is L5 autonomy. After all, Tesla has been working hard to add the necessary pieces to make FSD L4/5 when they are done. And based on the promise of "L5 feature complete nogeofence", I think Tesla certainly intends "automatic city driving" to be L4 at some point. Whether they will ever achieve it or when is a different matter.
Of course they don’t want it to remain Level 2 forever. I was talking about what I believe Design Studio is selling for release later this year. I firmly believe the Level 5 robotaxi stuff (whether or not we believe in it) is wholly separate of whatever they have in the actual release pipeline for the next year or more.
The robotaxis, for the time being, are the 2020 equivalent of the coast to coast drive of 2017. Automatic city driving (ACD?) on the other hand is the 2019 equivalent of 2017 Enhanced Autopilot... much closer to actual release, I expect.
