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Dead Bugs Are Getting in the Way of Fully Autonomous Self-Driving Cars
Elon Musk vs. the Mayfly
On October 19, 2016, Elon Musk kicked off the lie about Tesla Full Self-Driving capabilities: “The basic news is that all Tesla vehicles exiting the factory have the hardware necessary for Level 5 autonomy. So that in terms of the cameras and compute power, it’s every car we make. So, on the order of 2,000 cars a week are shipping now with Level 5, meaning hardware capable of a full self-driving or driverless capability.”
Don’t get me wrong—I am not among those in the $TSLAQ community on Twitter who believe that everything Musk touches is a massive fraud. While there is much about the accounting around his businesses that is highly questionable and very possibly fraudulent, I think Musk is a true believer in most of the ideas he has brought forth, regardless of how outlandish many seem.
But the idea that all Teslas built in the past four years have the hardware necessary to achieve Level 5 (L5) automated driving capability was and is a lie, and for some very mundane reasons.
