[DubiousPusher]

"Mr. Musk said in a conference call that the self-driving technology was “technically capable of going from parking lot to parking lot,” meaning through cities as well. But, he said, Tesla will disable the autopilot when cars are not on highways or major roads, citing safety concerns."

I think the implication here is that the cars are capable of this but they are taking the smaller step out of legal and liability concerns.

[derefr]

With a secondary implication that, were the laws updated and the car's hardware "certified safe", they could theoretically just push a software update to enable last-mile autopilot on the car you already own.

[DubiousPusher]

My thoughts exactly. Hopefully it's true.

[cblock811]

If that's the case I think it was a good decision. If anything went wrong I feel like the media would love to fixate on it as they did with the car batteries igniting previously.

[kzrdude]

It makes sense that exactly tesla might not want to be the first company to launch that technology. A major failure would be an existential risk to them (just from publicity and momentum).

[jasonlingx]

He's already stated his desire for Tesla to be the first to market with autonomous vehicles.

[TeMPOraL]

With the capability to enable it by just a press of a button at Tesla HQ, he can wait for the last possible moment and still be first.

[acadien]

So what if they're capable? The tech is not available, end of story.