Tesla Is Dropping the Dream of Human-Free Self-Driving Cars

Once upon a time in 2016, Tesla boldly told the world that every car it made from that point forward would be capable of self-driving, no human needed. Elon Musk, one of the planet’s most prolific bullshitters, doubled down on this every year like a gambler convinced the next hand was finally the royal flush.

Nearly a decade later…that’s still not a reality. And now Tesla is, in a slightly roundabout way, admitting that it may never be.

Tesla has not only admitted that the vehicles built between 2016 and 2023 can’t actually self-drive without human supervision, but as noticed by the folks over at Electrek, the company has quietly rebranded “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised),” meaning you still need to drive it.

Despite charging up to $15,000 for FSD, the fine print now makes it clear that your Tesla is not autonomous and, more importantly, won’t be. At least, not by the strict definition of an autonomous car.

What makes this all the more fascinating is that Tesla’s board just dangled a new $1 trillion compensation package in front of Musk, tied to several milestones, one of which is to reach “10 Million Active FSD Subscriptions.”

Electrek points out that “FSD” is defined as any system capable of “transportation tasks” with “autonomous or similar functionality.” It’s a definition so vague it could apply to cruise control if you squint hard enough.

This redefinition is important because it allows Tesla to keep the FSD dream alive on paper while delivering a completely different product in practice, all while giving Elon some extremely low bars to clear to get his payday.

What Tesla once sold as your own personal robot chauffeur is now just an expensive suite of driver-assist tools, little different from any other car manufacturer’s slate of offerings. It’s all so very Elon. It’s like promising a colony on Mars and instead only getting a series of increasingly more spectacular rocket explosions.