Tesla CEO Elon Musk publically praised data and claims about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) progress. However, data indicates that FSD capabilities are still years away. The automaker has faced public scrutiny from the public and safety regulators for years regarding the safety of its Autopilot and FSD driver assistance features.
In December, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) probed into the automaker’s FSD software following concerns raised by the misleading promotional materials and posts on X and reports of multiple collisions. In addition, NHTSA requested Tesla to re-evaluate how it communicates the capabilities of its driver-assistance systems to consumers. Since then, there have been several probes into Tesla’s technology.
CEO Elon Musk publicly boasts that Tesla is nearing unsupervised self-driving and that consumers can expect fully autonomous driving by Q2 2025. He’s also publicly praised the newest FSD software update, v13, claiming that it increased the vehicles’ capability to drive “5 to 6 times more miles per necessary interventions” compared to the previous v12.5.
If accurate, it would be a significant breakthrough and a major win for Tesla. However, the automaker consistently refuses to release public data to substantiate its claims. However, 8,000 cumulative miles of crowdsourced data reveal an entirely different story. While the data is limited and imperfect, it shouldn’t be discounted and is the most transparent source of information available.
While Tesla’s self-driving ambitions are progressing, the timelines aren’t aligning with the data, and claims should be scrutinized carefully. Despite Musk’s optimistic projections, the reality is that Tesla’s self-driving technology is still far from meeting the necessary safety and performance benchmarks for unsupervised operation. The lack of transparency around critical data and the reliance on limited crowdsourced information only heighten concerns about whether Tesla is overselling its capabilities. While progress has undeniably been made, it’s clear that achieving truly autonomous driving is still years away.
