This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. T he smell was strange . The concrete wall was too close. One of my kids was standing on the sidewalk next to our car--not crying, just confused. The seat belt had held. The crumple zone had crumpled.

As robotaxis become a more familiar sight on the streets of Los Angeles, Tesla has taken a step that could bring it closer to building its own fleet of self-driving electric vehicles, the California Public Utilities Commission confirmed last week. In November, Tesla applied for a permit that would allow the electric vehicle manufacturing giant to deploy transportation services with company-owned vehicles and human drivers. The permit would be required for Tesla to advance to autonomous cabs. Chief Executive Elon Musk has long made clear his ambitions for a robotaxi service powered by Tesla vehicles, though his company has been criticized by the U.S. government's highway safety agency for making statements that its vehicles can drive themselves. To be sure, the automaker is still a long way off before it can launch a service.

Multiple owners confirmed over the weekend that Tesla is beginning to unlock its controversial Full Self-Driving mode in select Cybertrucks, with a wider software release expected to roll out during the next few months. Although initial vehicle deliveries began on November 30, 2023 to Tesla Cybertruck Foundation package purchasers, the company only announced the EVs would start receiving their pre-order's long promised feature in a post on X earlier this month. According to the Tesla software-tracking website, NotaTeslaApp, the latest 12.5.5 v12 over-the-air software update including FSD is only available to some early access testers and Tesla employees at the moment. But it didn't take long for those drivers to upload clips of the largely automated piloting system in action. "Boys and girls, the wait is finally over! It is here NOW! AND IT IS SPECTACULAR!" one user posted on September 29 to Tesla-centric forum, CybertruckOwnersClub, along with a clip depicting the roughly 6,660 lbs, stainless steel EV navigating at night through lightly trafficked streets in California before merging onto I5 freeway towards Los Angeles.

A deadly accident in Washington that took the life of a motorcyclist earlier this year was caused by a Tesla vehicle while it was in "Full Self Driving" mode. The Associated Press reported that investigators from the Washington State Patrol confirmed that a 2022 Tesla Model S involved in the fatality accident in April was in self-driving mode from the car's event-data recorder. The accident occurred on April 19 on the eastbound side of State Route 522 approximately 15 miles northeast of Seattle. The unidentified driver told police he had his Tesla's self-driving mode on and was looking at his phone at the time of the crash. The vehicle crashed into the back of the motorcycle pinning Jeffrey Nissen, 28, underneath the vehicle.

A'deeply disturbing' video claims to show a Tesla in full self-driving mode running over a child-size mannequin during a test by a safety campaign group. The Dawn Project said the vehicle failed to detect the stationary dummy's presence in the road and hit it over and over again at an average speed of 25mph. It claims that the experiment was carried out under'controlled conditions' on a test track in California. Tesla, which was founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, has been approached for a comment by MailOnline but is yet to respond to the video. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed that it'currently has an open and active investigation of Tesla's Autopilot active driver assistance system'.

Tesla's goal to release its level 5 Full Self Driving (FSD) mode autopilot capability in 2021 was deemed unrealistic by the CEO of competitor Waymo in a recent interview. Tesla is the only autonomous vehicle manufacturer using real-time cameras, rather than pre-mapped Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) to guide vehicle movement. Tesla also uses its own AI chips, developed after early experience with NVIDIA chips. "It is a misconception that you can simply develop a driver-assistance system further until one day you can magically jump to a fully autonomous driving system," stated John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, the self-driving startup spun off from Google's X lab, in a recent interview with German business magazine Manager Magazin, reported in Observer. Krafcik acknowledged that Tesla "is developing a really good driver assistance system," but very different.

Elon Musk warned that Tesla would hike the price of Full Self-Driving now that it's in beta, and he's being true to his word. The Verge reports Tesla has raised the cost of the package to $10,000 in the US for both new car buyers and upgrades, up $2,000 from before. And that price isn't guaranteed to stay put -- as usual, Tesla warns that the pricing is "likely to increase" as it rolls out new features. You still need to pay attention and sometimes take the wheel. Instead, it unlocks more semi-autonomous features like Auto Lane Change, Autopark and traffic light stops, on top of more familiar perks like Navigate on Autopilot.