Tesla Model 3 drives itself like it’s no big deal in new video

Tesla is betting big on autonomous driving, and to support its claims — which include launching an army of robo-taxis as early as next year — the company released a new video, demonstrating Tesla Model 3’s self-driving capabilities.  

The video shows a Model 3 drive itself without any interaction from the “driver,” if you don’t count him choosing a destination on the car’s navigation system. 

We already know that Tesla cars can more or less drive autonomously on a highway. But in this video, the Model 3 is driving on all sorts of roads, making turns and stopping at traffic lights — all by itself. The entire length of the ride, which according to this Redditor starts and ends at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto, is about 12 miles, and it takes about 18 minutes to complete (the video is sped up, so that time is compressed into less than two minutes). 

Tesla released a similar video of a Model X driving autonomously in 2016, but the new video appears to be a single take, whereas the video from 2016 was edited. 

The video was released during Tesla’s Autonomy Day on April 22. The company shared details of its new self-driving chip and revealed its vision for the future of autonomous driving. A video of the event live stream is available here.