Still no autopilot

While Tesla fans often claim that their beloved company is a leader in driverless cars, that’s not the case at all, for a number of reasons, including Ford’s recent launch of Level 3 Autopilot, which doesn’t require you to be behind the wheel, and Mercedes already testing Level 4 Autopilot.

But one of the main reasons is that Elon Musk’s company still doesn’t have a commercially available driverless vehicle service like Waymo or Cruise. Their services are available in some cities in the US and allow you to hail a taxi without a driver. You set up your pick-up and drop-off location in an app on your smartphone, select the settings you want in the cabin (music or temperature, for example), and the driverless vehicle comes to you.

Tesla fans say the company could easily do the same if it wanted to. But these companies have different approaches to autonomy. Where Waymo and Cruise use georeferencing of a specific city’s streets and map, Tesla focuses on an autonomous system that can go anywhere, anytime without prior reference to the area.

Even so, we see that the company still cannot do something like this, because it has not done so far, even in a project simpler than the conditions in which Waymo and Cruise work. Of course, we are talking about a closed loop tunnel under Las Vegas, where autonomous Tesla cars should move according to the plan, transporting visitors to the exhibition center.

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Tunnels

The Boring Company’s first full-scale project, now in commercial use, was completed in just over a year at a cost of $50 million. The Boring Company Loop system consists of tunnels where Tesla electric cars travel at high speed between stations to transport people within city limits.

The Boring Company said it was working with Tesla to use driverless systems in these tunnels, which would eliminate the need for drivers and reduce operating costs. However, two years later, several more tunnels were added to the Loop. The Boring Company still uses tunnel drives.

Steve Gill, president and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Convention, said the goal is to have “some type of driver assistance vehicle” in the tunnels by the end of the year.

We hope to start with a light hand using the driver assistance tool before the end of this year.
says Gill.

This sounds a lot like the constant statements from Elon Musk, who has promised every year since 2014 that Autopilot would be ready “by the end of this year.” The most recent such statement was made a few months ago during Musk’s call with investors, where he said that Autopilot is expected to be available by the end of 2024, but that if something goes wrong, he would be “very surprised if it doesn’t happen before the end of 2025.”

Currently, only three stations operate at the convention center and one at the Resorts World hotel. Another station connecting the network to the Encore Hotel is expected to open soon. In total, the Loop project near Las Vegas has 93 stations and 68 miles of planned tunnels. Meanwhile, there is no concrete date yet for when “full autonomy” will arrive.