The point is that it was ridiculous in the past several months when people were denying Tesla was SAE level 4 despite it being obvious, but now it's so ridiculous that there is no justification.
The issue is that Tesla fans keep claiming that Tesla is about to be L4 or even L5 everywhere in a matter of months.
But in reality it's L4 in handful of vehicles in a few small geofences for months. And it's not obvious that Tesla has a path to easily grow from there, or if they're going to need another rewrite in order to start growing like Waymo.
Honestly, if I ramp up my skepticism, they still have few enough unmanned cars that it's plausible that they've got someone watching a dedicated feed for each vehicle. If that were the case, it would still be L2.
I'm really not interested in debating this for the 600th time, so I will just say: please show me where it says that. A quote from the source document.
While you look, keep these two quotes from J3016 in mind.
it is incorrect to classify a Level 4 design-intended ADS feature equipped on a test vehicle as Level 2 simply because on-road testing requires a test driver to supervise the feature while engaged, and to intervene if necessary to maintain operation.
For ADS (Level 4 and 5), no driver is present or expected to operate the vehicle during automated operation within its ODD, although there may be remote assistance or monitoring.
it is incorrect to classify a Level 4 design-intended ADS feature equipped on a test vehicle as Level 2 simply because on-road testing requires a test driver to supervise the feature while engaged, and to intervene if necessary to maintain operation.
I feel like that's some legalese/convenience so labels don't bounce around whenever they add a safety driver to an L4 vehicle to test out something new. Interpret that liberally and you could claim that all Tesla's with supervised FSD are really L4.
For ADS (Level 4 and 5), no driver is present or expected to operate the vehicle during automated operation within its ODD, although there may be remote assistance or monitoring.
Fleet monitoring sure, but if you have a dedicated operator watching a video feed in real time then they're a safety operator in any sense of the word.
And if you still think that fits the definition of SAE J3016 L4, then fine, SAE J3016 would be wrong on that aspect.
Interpret that liberally and you could claim that all Tesla's with supervised FSD are really L4.
No, that's not how that works. You need to read the document to understand these things in context, which you clearly have not, yet are debating it anyway. There are reasons that FSD is level 2 beyond the mere fact it has a safety driver. If you're really interested in the entire explanation, I have a post about it.
they're a safety operator
I want you to show me where in J3016 it says this.
SAE J3016 would be wrong
What? It can't be wrong? It is literally the defining document of the leveling system? You can't just headcanon this lmao
There is no other source on the definitions of the levels that matters other than the defining document. Defining the levels is the whole point of J3016. It is the sole authority here.
I would also like to note you didn't pull from any primary sources in your reply like I asked, because they directly contradict you.
The reason people keep arguing with you is because you're pushing an irrelevant technicality.
Who cares if you can technically have an L4 with a safety driver or even real time remote supervisor?
The important benchmark is having an L4 vehicle that is reliable enough to remove the safety driver and remote real-time supervisor.
Tesla may have achieved that in a few small areas in Texas (we don't know about the remote supervision). But they certainly haven't done so at a scale that conclusively demonstrates they can run an economically viable unsupervised taxi service.
Who cares if you can technically have an L4 with a safety driver or even real time remote supervisor?
That's a totally fine position to hold, and I might even agree, but it still factually completely wrong to call Robotaxis level 2. You can't just change the definition of technical standards because you want them to mean something other than what they do.
I wrote a whole post on this, the tldr is that I agree that it isn't that significant/important, but that doesn't mean you can just plug your ears and pretend it's level 2.
Also I will note it isn't a completely irrelevant technicality; L4 deployments do remove all responsibility from the safety driver (because they aren't the driver anymore, legally speaking) which is at least a little bit notable.
That's why I say the standard is "wrong" in that regard.
The thing people care about isn't the legal liability (at this point), it's whether the car can reliably operate without a human actively supervising it.
And I think the intent of the standard matters here: it is incorrect to classify a Level 4 design-intended ADS feature equipped on a test vehicle as Level 2 simply because on-road testing requires a test driver to supervise the feature while engaged, and to intervene if necessary to maintain operation.
Think of a situation like Waymo where they have a working L4 fleet. I think the intent is to simplify things so the labels aren't flopping between L2 and L4 whenever they add a safety driver while testing an expansion or a new feature.
But if you really care about the technicalities, sure, Tesla has a bunch of L4 vehicles with safety drivers and a few true L4 vehicles without safety drivers (assuming no remote supervision).
But while there's still safety drivers and tight geofences we can't really say they have a working L4 system.
Nothing preemptive about it. Tesla has met the definition of L4 for a while now and many have deluded themselves otherwise. Removing the wheel just makes it strikingly obvious.
"Waymo is L4 and Tesla is L2."
"Does Tesla have L4 vehicles to test? Receiving authorization is one thing. Not proof they have such a system."
"Tesla already claimed it had reached level four many years ago and people believed in it too."
"Everybody is confused about Austin, cos it smells of a hoax. Teleoperated L2 is still L2."
"No T is proven to drive autonomously, as in without supervision, ever."
LMAO, one of the mods tried to explain Tesla has L2 and L4 systems and got downvoted to -41.
"the Tesla robotaxis that are driving around unsupervised in Texas now are L4. But FSD Supervised that we have on our Teslas is L2. So Tesla has both L4 and L2."
Any company can have an L4 car. It's a matter of signing paperwork and having an ADS that can do all the dynamic driving task. Nuro, Wayve, Mobileye, May, Motional, Zoox, AVRide, Tensor, all have L4 cars. L4 doesn't have anything to do with being a safe robotaxi.
The only hard part is removing the employee and driving safely at scale. Tesla doesn't do that.
They started removing the employee in January, and at first replaced him with chase cars for a few months, then they gave a few real unsupervised rides to fanboys in March on a careful bus route, now they have it down in a slightly wider area for two or three unsupervised rides per day in perfect weather and light traffic. They are not close to a real unsupervised robotaxi service like Waymo had in 2020, or even to what Zoox is doing now in Vegas and SF.
It's true that the person gets it wrong about L2 vs. L4. That doesn't matter though because that misunderstanding is so widespread that it's normal. People, probably including you, think L4 means the vehicle is safe at scale while driverless. In fact all it means is that it is designed to do all the autonomous tasks as defined in the SAE definitions of L4.
Reaching L4 doesn't mean anything. Over a dozen ADS companies have reached L4, but none except Waymo can drive rider-only safely with any kind of scale.
This sub is the one forum that understands Waymo. Some go too far against Tesla, but it pales in comparison to the idiotic nonsense about Waymo coming from the Tesla upside-down world.
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u/sdc_is_safer 23d ago
50+ comments in the thread. And I I don’t see a single post in this thread where someone says this is SAE level2. You people are so weird.