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according to the associated press report on august 29, william stein, a technology analyst at truist securities, accepted elon musk's invitation three times in the past four months to try out the latest version of tesla's acclaimed fully autonomous driving system.

tesla cars equipped with the technology can drive from one location to another with little to no human intervention, the company said. however, stein said,every time they are driven, the cars make unsafe or illegal maneuvers. stan said his most recent test drive earlier this month horrified his 16-year-old son who was accompanying him.

stein's experience, along with a tesla fully autonomous vehicle crash in seattle in april that killed a motorcyclist, drew the attention of federal regulators, who have been investigating tesla's autopilot system for more than two years after dozens of crashes raised safety concerns.

the problems have heightened doubts among self-driving car monitors whether tesla’s self-driving system can operate safely on a large scale. stein said he doubts tesla can deploy a fleet of self-driving taxis next year, as musk has predicted.

the latest accidents come at a critical time for tesla, as musk has told investors that fully self-driving cars could be safer than human drivers by the end of this year or even next.

in less than two months, tesla plans to launch a car built specifically for self-driving taxis. musk said that in order to get self-driving taxis on the road, tesla will have to prove to regulators that the system is safer than human drivers. under federal regulations, tesla must meet national vehicle safety standards.

musk released mileage data for each crash, but only when tesla's less advanced autopilot system was in use.

safety experts say the data is invalid because it only counts serious crashes in which air bags deployed and does not show how often human drivers had to take over to avoid a collision.

about 500,000 tesla owners have used the full self-driving feature on public roads, a little more than one in five teslas currently in use. most of them paid $8,000 or more for the optional system.

the company warned that cars equipped with the system cannot actually drive themselves and drivers must be ready to intervene if necessary.

tesla also said it tracks each driver's behavior and will suspend their ability to use full self-driving if they don't properly monitor the system. the company recently began referring to the system as full self-driving (supervised).

musk admitted that his past predictions about the use of autonomous driving were too optimistic.he promised in 2019 to have a fleet of self-driving cars on the road by the end of 2020. five years later, many who follow the technology say they are skeptical it will be rolled out across the u.s. as promised.

"the gap is still very large, and it won't be that way next year," said michael brooks, executive director of the center for auto safety.

the car stan was driving was a tesla model 3, which he bought at a tesla showroom in westchester county, north of new york city. the car is tesla's lowest-priced vehicle and is equipped with the latest full self-driving software, which musk said now uses artificial intelligence to help control the steering and pedals.

during his test drive, stein said the tesla felt smoother and more user-friendly than previous models. but during a trip of less than 10 miles, he said the car turned left from the through lane at a red light.

“that was shocking,” stan said.

he said he did not take control of the car because there were few cars and the maneuver did not seem dangerous at the time. but the car then drove down the center of a parkway, straddling two lanes of traffic going the same direction.

this time, stan said, he intervened.

the latest version of full self-driving doesn’t solve the self-driving problem as musk predicted, stein wrote in a letter to investors. it also doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the capabilities of a self-driving taxi.

during two test drives in april and july, stein said tesla vehicles also surprised him with unsafe maneuvers.

tesla has not yet responded to a message seeking comment.

stein said that while he thinks tesla will eventually profit from its driving technology, he doesn't foresee self-driving taxis with no drivers and only passengers in the back seat in the near future.when self-driving taxis are launchedthe time will be greatly delayed or the driving range will be limited.

stein noted that there is often a large gap between what musk says and what is likely to happen.

to be sure, many tesla fans have posted videos on social media showing their cars driving themselves without human control. of course, the videos don't show the system performing over time. others have posted videos showing dangerous behavior.

alain kornhauser, who leads self-driving car research at princeton university, said he drove a tesla vehicle borrowed from a friend for two weeks and found it was able to consistently identify pedestrians and detect other drivers.

while it performs well most of the time, kornhauser said he has to take control when tesla does something that scares him, and he warned that full self-driving isn’t ready for unsupervised operation in all locations.

he said: "this matter has not yet reached the point where it can go anywhere.

kornhauser said he does think the system could operate autonomously in smaller areas of a city, where detailed maps can help vehicles navigate, and he wondered why musk didn't start with a small-scale ride-hailing service.

"people can really take advantage of the mobility that this technology brings," he said.

experts have warned for years that tesla's cameras and computer systems can't always spot objects and determine what they are. the cameras can't always see clearly in bad weather and darkness.

most other self-driving taxi companies, such as alphabet inc.’s waymo and general motors co.’s cruise, combine cameras with radar and laser sensors.

"if you can't see the world correctly, you can't plan, act and adapt to the world correctly," said missy cummings, a professor of engineering and computer science at george mason university. "cars can't do that with vision alone."

cummings said even self-driving cars equipped with lasers and radars may not always be able to operate reliably, raising safety concerns about waymo and cruise. (representatives for waymo and cruise declined to comment.)

phil koopman, a professor at carnegie mellon university who studies autonomous vehicle safety, said it will take many years before self-driving cars running solely on artificial intelligence can handle all real-world situations.

“machine learning has no common sense and can only learn narrowly from a large number of examples,” koopman said. “if a computer driver encounters a situation it has never learned, it can easily crash.”

last april, a tesla vehicle using its fully autonomous driving feature struck and killed a motorcyclist in snohomish county, washington, near seattle, according to authorities.

the tesla driver, who has not been charged, told authorities he was using the full self-driving feature while looking at his phone when the car struck the motorcyclist from behind. the motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities reported.

the agency said it is reviewing information provided by tesla and law enforcement officials about the fatal crash. the agency also said it is aware of stein's experience with full self-driving.

nhtsa also noted that it is investigating whether tesla's recall earlier this year to bolster its autopilot car driver monitoring systems was actually successful.

it also urged tesla to recall its full self-driving system in 2023 because the agency said it could violate certain traffic laws in certain rare circumstances, increasing the risk of an accident. (the agency declined to say whether it had completed its assessment of whether the recall accomplished its task.)

tesla's electric cars have been selling poorly in recent months despite price cuts, and musk has told investors they should think of the company as a robotics and artificial intelligence business rather than a car company. however, tesla has been working on fully self-driving technology since at least 2015.

“i would advise anyone who doesn’t believe tesla can solve the problem of vehicle automation not to own tesla stock,” he said on an earnings call last month.

still, stein told investors they should judge for themselves whether full self-driving, tesla’s oldest ai program, which is generating revenue and already being used in the real world, actually works.