“The road trips have never been so easy”: Tesla publishes a shock video, a 580 km journey without the slightest human intervention

The video, which has 2 million views on X, is millimeter. From the hills of the Baie de San Francisco to the entrance to Los Angeles, a Tesla rolls for six and a half hours, takes the suspenders, exceeds trucks, manages slowdowns. The driver is there, but he does nothing. Not a gesture. Full Self-Driving (FSD) software supports everything, including a quick reload on a supercharger.

To date, this is the most fluid demonstration ever published by Tesla. It arrives as a spectacular counterpoint to a much more chaotic context.

A 600 km route in supervised driving

The journey begins in eastern San Francisco bay, in the urban area of ​​Hayward. From the first minutes, the vehicle enters into dense traffic, punctuated by frequent work and change changes. The Tesla manages these first difficulties without trembling, then engages on Interstate 580, before joining the legendary i-5, spine of California, which runs along the dry orchards of the Central Valley to the foothills of Los Angeles.

The road is long, varied, sometimes tracking: long straight lines conducive to boredom, sidewaves of wind, entrances and outputs of tight motorway, semi-trailers in line. As we approach, circulation is densified, the queues are multiplying, behaviors become more erratic. The Tesla does not flinch.

It changes lanes without starts, anticipates slowdowns, even manages vehicles arrested on emergency stop band. Halfway, the software chooses to stop on a Supercharger at Kettleman City, in the shade of a shopping center. The driver stays on board, the car manages everything. Ten minutes later, she hit the road.

Last step: entry into the megalopolis. Bouting, fast ways that intersect, cars that force the passage … Hell for any human driver, but that the model is going without any hand, the steering wheel. This is what Tesla wants to show: not a simple straight line in the desert, but a real journey, demanding, urban and highway, dotted with dozens of complex situations. A demonstration designed to silence criticism … or move them.

And behind the scenes

For several months, Elon Musk has pushed for an acceleration of the global deployment of the FSD. In France, Tesla even published a video in May showing an autonomous car crossing without incident one of the worst engineering nightmares: The roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe.

But as the demonstrations are linked, the controversies accumulate. In the United States, the manufacturer has recently been sentenced in a deadly accident case involving the autopilot. In China, FSD experimentation was brutally suspended. In Florida, another legal proceedings revealed thatEsla refused to disclose certain logsinvoking a “Financial damage”. And internally, the company develops a new FSD model ten times heavier in parameters, with a major update expected by the end of 2025.

The car rolls, but the questions remain

Officially, the FSD remains a supervised system: the driver must keep his eyes on the road. A camera observes it, and can deactivate management in the event of inattention. But do these safeguards are enough? In a recent video, a Tesla in FSD has Strich of models representing childrenafter ignoring a school bus when you stop.

So what should we see in this San Francisco-Los Angeles without the hands? A technical feat? Yes, no doubt. But also a millimeter communication operation, in a war of influence where Tesla no longer clashes only its competitors, but the states, the courts and the real.

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