Tesla Is Urging Drowsy Drivers to Use'Full Self-Driving'. Experts say that advising customers to switch in on when they're drifting between lanes is exactly the wrong move. Since Tesla launched its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature in beta in 2020, the company's owner's manual has been clear: Contrary to the name, cars using the feature can't drive themselves. Tesla's driver assistance system is built to handle plenty of road situations--stopping at stop lights, changing lanes, steering, braking, turning. Still, "Full Self-Driving (Supervised) requires you to pay attention to the road and be ready to take over at all times," the manual states.

Automakers and tech developers testing and deploying self-driving and advanced driver assistance features will no longer have to report as much detailed, public crash information to the federal government, according to a new framework released today by the US Department of Transportation. The moves are a boon for makers of self-driving cars and the wider vehicle technology industry, which has complained that federal crash reporting requirements are overly burdensome and redundant. But the new rules will limit the information available to those who watchdog and study autonomous vehicles and driver assistance features--tech developments that are deeply entwined with public safety but which companies often shield from public view because they involve proprietary systems that companies spend billions to develop. The government's new orders limit "one of the only sources of publicly available data that we have on incidents involving Level 2 systems," says Sam Abuelsamid, who writes about the self-driving vehicle industry and is the vice president of marketing at Telemetry, a Michigan research firm, referring to driver assistance features such as Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised), General Motors' Super Cruise, and Ford's Blue Cruise. These incidents, he notes, are only becoming "more common."

Five years to the day after I criticized Uber for testing its self-proclaimed "self-driving" vehicles on California roads without complying with the testing requirements of California's automated driving law, I find myself criticizing Tesla for testing its self-proclaimed "full self-driving" vehicles on California roads without complying with the testing requirements of California's automated driving law. As I emphasized in 2016, California's rules for "autonomous technology" necessarily apply to inchoate automated driving systems that, in the interest of safety, still use human drivers during on-road testing. "Autonomous vehicles testing with a driver" may be an oxymoron, but as a matter of legislative intent it cannot be a null set. There is even a way to mortar the longstanding linguistic loophole in California's legislation: Automated driving systems undergoing development arguably have the "capability to drive a vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator" even though they do not yet have the demonstrated capability to do so safely. When supervised by that (adult) human driver, these nascent systems function like the advanced driver assistance features available in many vehicles today: They merely work unless and until they don't.

Along with robot butlers, billboard-sized TVs, and inadequately sanitized wearables being tried on by untold hordes, self-driving demonstrations have become a staple of CES. As the show takes over Las Vegas, the Strip, hotel parking lots, and side streets play host to robo-vehicles with spinning sensors on the roof, pods with splashy logos, and even autonomous Lyfts. Usually, these demos go the same way: You sit in the back and try to glean whatever you can from a carefully staged ride. So it was odd to find myself this week in the driver's seat of a Lincoln MKZ that looked like a full self-driver, sensors and bold logos included. And I was being told not just that I'd have to drive, but that I would be monitored--and graded--on my concentration, trust, and emotional state.