Tesla has shared a time-lapse video showing one of its vehicles in Full Self-driving mode traveling some 360 miles from San Francisco to LA seemingly without any human intervention.
The drive (below), which ordinarily takes up to seven hours, also included a stop at a Supercharger station to replenish the car’s battery.
7 hour road trips aren’t so bad when your Tesla does all the driving pic.twitter.com/tIrmhDAbRf
To keep within the law, someone is sitting in the driver’s seat the entire way, hands-on-lap and ready to take over control of the car at a moment’s notice if required. Tesla’s setup includes the deployment of a driver-facing camera that checks the person in the driving seat is attentive and looking at the road ahead while the car is in motion.
The recent trip demonstrates Tesla’s confidence in FSD’s ability to handle long-distance, complex driving without human intervention, from pulling away to parking up.
But despite the progress, FSD remains controversial in some quarters and is not considered fully autonomous by regulatory standards. In California, for example, Tesla’s FSD is still classified as a Level 2 driver assistance system — where Level 5 is full automation — that requires driver supervision and readiness to intervene.
Tesla chief Elon Musk revealed last week that the automaker is currently training a a much-improved FSD model that could get a public release by the end of September if testing goes well.
The recent supervised drive down the West Coast comes nearly two months after Tesla debuted its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. In those vehicles, no one is sitting in the driver’s seat, though they’re using a version of FSD that’s not yet available to regular Tesla owners.
Tesla also launched a ride-hailing service in San Francisco at the end of July, though the absence of the required permits means it’s unable to call it a “robotaxi” service, and therefore someone needs to be in the driver’s seat during the FSD-powered ride.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.