Tesla's full self-driving won't be approved before the end of the year

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said that the new version of the advanced driver assistance system or “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) still hasn’t received approval from the relevant authorities, because the authorities don’t believe in the possibility of driving a car without the direct presence of a person in it. Thus, the innovation won’t be used until at least the end of this year.

The cost of such a product reaches $15,000. The standard “Autopilot” already allows cars to drive autonomously and change speed within one lane. And thanks to the advanced "Full Self-Driving" function, cars will be able to change lanes and park autonomously. 

However, cars yet can’t be considered fully autonomous because, until the regulatory authorities issue the appropriate permit, driving must take place under close human control. 

Elon Musk assured North American FSD users that before the end of the year, all their cars will have "Full Self-Driving," which will minimize the need to touch the steering wheel and press the pedals. But the businessman stressed that it was still too early to leave cars without human supervision.

Musk added that this version of “Autopilot” copes well with routine routes, such as the way to work, friends' homes, favorite supermarket, etc. And he also expressed uncertainty whether the new Tesla product will receive approval from the relevant authorities, since the company doesn't have good relations with them.

Moreover, the name “Full Self-Driving” has been criticized by the California state transportation regulator because it doesn’t reflect reality, as cars need partial control by a human.  That's exactly what Tesla's website says.

On the other hand, according to some analysts, the Tesla product has difficulties not so much because of ambiguous relations with the authorities, but because of the complexity of the technology itself. This, for example, is the opinion of Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.

He also noted that despite multiple attempts to make the car fully autonomous, Tesla has never been able to achieve this. Thus, the company is clearly having difficulty achieving this goal, although Musk believes that in the future autopilots will become the company's main source of profit.