Tesla Model 3 Autonomous Fleet Is Filmed On Tampa Expressway (Florida)

Originally published onX Auto.

In Tampa, Florida, one of the expressway bridges was temporarily shut down recently to film part of a documentary. The expressway was shut down to film a fleet of autonomously driven Tesla Model 3s. One of the volunteers of the project, Model 3 owner Blaine Johnston, posted the story on Reddit and provided us with some extra stunning pictures of the event (photo gallery below).

The maker of the film is Tampa-based creative studio “Diamond View.” Mr. Johnston gave some details of the film shooting that took place in the middle of the day last Tuesday when traffic on this path is minimum. He posted:

“There were 9 Tesla Model 3s there for a 3×3 caravan of ‘autonomous’ Model 3s. It was filmed by a drone and camera truck with a boom camera. Officially, the shoot was for an upcoming documentary about the future of transportation in Tampa. Unofficially, it seems like a pretty big production for that, but maybe these guys just go big, and it was fun to be a part of.”

Some of the details and pictures of the event were shared by a local film and digital media commission in the following tweet:

Looking at the above pictures, it seems like most of the Tesla Model 3s are in black, but according to the photographer, there are at least two cars in blue, and I am able to see one in Tesla’s signature midnight silver metallic (gray) color.

The purpose of the filming was to record the Model 3 cars moving without driver input, but according to Blaine, they did not use FSD for the filming — only the Autosteer and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) features. Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) still seems to be a few years away.

Reportedly, Diamond View is working on a long-term documentary project named Building Tampa. This multi-episode documentary focuses on various aspects of Tampa’s rise as one of the most forward-looking cities of the United States, with its rich history, arts, culture, and nightlife.

Florida is probably one of the most densely populated states when it comes to the number of Tesla vehicle owners. The East Coast state is also home to one of SpaceX’s launch sites, the Kennedy Space Center, from where Elon Musk’s rocket company is preparing for the 6th Mission of the Falcon 9 Starlink launch later this month.