- "FSD Beta 9.2 is actually not great imo, but Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible," Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter.
- Musk's critical tweet on Monday came just days after he touted Tesla's prowess with autonomous systems and components for them at an event called Tesla AI Day.
- Musk's critical tweet also follows the launch of a formal investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system by federal vehicle safety authorities in the US last week.
The billionaire entrepreneur tweeted that the Full Self-Driving
Beta version 9.2 is "actually not great imo [in my opinion], but
Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible."
"We're trying to have a single stack for both highway
& city streets, but it requires massive NN (neural network) retraining."
Tesla had recently come under the scrutiny of US safety
regulators, who opened an investigation into its driver assistant system
because of 11 accidents where its cars crashed into stationary police cars and
fire trucks.
The incidents dating back to 2018 included one fatal crash
and seven that resulted in injuries to 17 people, according to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The agency "is committed to ensuring the highest
standards of safety on the nation's roadways," a spokesperson said, and in
order to "better understand the causes of certain Tesla crashes, NHTSA is
opening a preliminary evaluation into Tesla Autopilot systems."
Two US senators also called on the Federal Trade Commission
to investigate Tesla, saying it misled consumers and endangered the public by
marketing its driving automation systems as fully self-driving.
"Tesla and Mr. Musk's repeated overstatements of their
vehicle's capabilities...put Tesla drivers – and all of the traveling public –
at risk of serious injury or death," Senate Democrats Richard Blumenthal
and Edward Markey said in a letter to newly appointed FTC Chair Lina Khan.
"Tesla drivers listen to these claims and believe their
vehicles are equipped to drive themselves – with potentially deadly
consequences."