Tesla’s autonomous driving advancements, specifically its advanced driver-assistance system Autopilot and Level 2 autonomous driving system FSD, have just received heartwarming praise from the NVIDIA Chief Executive in an interview.
CEO Huang commends Tesla’s video-based training approach
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged Tesla’s self-driving performance progress in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance.
The NVIDIA boss even asserted that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is currently the most advanced. However, it must be noted that NVIDA’s chips are what power the FSD.
“Tesla is far ahead in self-driving cars. One of the things that’s really revolutionary about version 12 of Tesla’s full self-driving is that it’s an end-to-end generative model.
It learns from watching videos — surround video — and it learns about how to drive end-to-end, and using generative AI, predict the path and how to understand and how to steer the car. So the technology is really revolutionary and the work that [Tesla’s] doing is incredible.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang
Is Tesla truly “far ahead” in self-driving tech?
Tesla’s latest FSD, version 12, officially dropped the “beta” moniker and replaced it with “supervised.”
The company released the FSD v12 in a 30-day free trial to new electric car owners earlier this year.
The FSD suite currently costs $99 per month or $8,000 up-front. In April, Tesla announced that its Level 2 autonomous driving system had surpassed 1.3 billion cumulative miles since its debut in March 2021.
As mentioned, it is still under the “Level 2” autonomous system category. Therefore, it still heavily demands supervised use. It has even been subject to safety recalls and regulatory questioning into its capabilities.
Tesla claims Autopilot among safest driving systems
As per the recent data Tesla released, its Autopilot suite is among the safest ways to run an automobile.
Tesla has once again provided a Vehicle Safety Report after almost a year of omitting to share these critical data.
The Musk-led company disclosed that it recorded only one crash for every 7.63 million miles driven with Autopilot technology activated. The data shows that the ADAS is less than one-tenth prone to an accident compared to the frequency of the US average of one for every 670,000 miles.
“In the 1st quarter, we recorded one crash for every 7.63 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology. For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology, we recorded one crash for every 955,000 miles driven. By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2022) shows that in the United States, there was an automobile crash approximately every 670,000 miles.”
Tesla
As the NVIDIA boss highlighted, numerous automakers worldwide are developing at least some form of driver assistance package to improve their cars’ safety. However, they differ in how they develop their technology. Many of them only use cameras and sensors, while Tesla employs video to capture the data necessary to refine its self-driving programs. Notably, how they gather data is key evidence that some companies need to determine how robust and safe they can actually be.
You can watch the full interview below:
