Tesla said it didn't have key data in a fatal crash, then a hacker found it

That's something different. The problem with the level is, that it only focuses on the attention the human driver needs to give to the automation. In this sense my Kia EV6 is also Level 2/3, same as FSD. However FSD can do so much more than my Kia EV6. That's a fact. Still the same level. Where did Tesla say FSD is SAE Level 5 approved? They would be responsible everytime FSD is active during a crash. Tesla is full self driving with Level 2/3 supervision and in my opinion this is not missleading.

Also "All this demonstrates is the term “full self driving” is meaningless." prooves my point that it is not missleading.

> FSD can do so much more than my Kia EV6. That's a fact. Still the same level

The levels are set at the lowest common denominator. A 1960s hot rod can navigate a straight road with no user input. That doesn’t mean you can trust it to do so.

> Where did Tesla say FSD is SAE Level 5 approved?

They didn’t say that. They said it could do what a Level 5 self-driving car can do.

“In 2016, the company posted a video of what appears to be a car equipped with Autopilot driving on its own.

‘The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons,’ reads a caption that flashes at the beginning of the video. ‘He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.’ (Six years later, a senior Tesla engineer conceded as part of a separate lawsuit that the video was staged and did not represent the true capabilities of the car.) [1]”

> Tesla is full self driving with Level 2/3 supervision and in my opinion this is not missleading

This is tautology. You’re defining FSD to mean whatever Tesla FSD can do.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5462851/tesla-lawsuit-a...

How would you name a system which can do everything a Level 5 system can, but with Level 2/3 supervision? A name, which a PR team would choose without the missleading stuff as you are saying.

> How would you name a system which can do everything a Level 5 system can, but with Level 2/3 supervision?

FSD cannot “do everything a Level 5 system can.” It can’t even match Waymo’s Level 4 capabilities, because it periodically requires human intervention.

But granting your premise, you’d say it’s a Level 2 or 3 system with some advanced capabilities. (Mercedes has a lane-keeping and -switching product. They’re not constantly losing court cases.)

But this speaks to the fundamental point the other commenter is making. A Waymo requires human intervention periodically too. It's just less than a Tesla with FSD, which is in turn less than a Tesla with Autopilot, which is dramatically less than my 20 year old truck. It's just that at some point we assume the probability of a crash is low enough that the human driver can zone out and hope for the best and nobody has the balls to come out and actually define an acceptable probability of serious injury or death to set an actually useful performance standard based on this.

> Waymo requires human intervention periodically

Not urgently. FSD has time-sensitive intervention requirements. Waymo’s time sensitivities are driven by passenger comfort, not safety.