Tesla $TSLA’s artificial intelligence team on Thursday released its roadmap for the next several months, reaffirming its goal to launch the company’s self-driving technology in two new markets early next year.
It reaffirms Tesla's goal to launch the company’s self-driving technology in two new markets early next year
Tesla $TSLA’s artificial intelligence team on Thursday released its roadmap for the next several months, reaffirming its goal to launch the company’s self-driving technology in two new markets early next year.
Tesla’s driver assistance software, Full Self-Driving (FSD) originally launched in the U.S. in October 2020 as a beta feature. Since then, the technology has become more and more advanced, with it being upgraded from “Beta” to “Supervised” in April. The primarily cosmetic change came with the removal of some of Tesla’s cautionary language, including a statement warning drivers that FSD “may do the wrong thing at the worst time” and reminding them to “always keep your hands on the wheel.”
Tesla will need to secure regulatory approval for its technology from local regulators before it can start selling its packages. In the U.K., only Ford $F Motor Co.’s self-driving tech is currently allowed on the road, while the European Union has approved both Ford’s and BMW’s systems. Tesla CEO Elon Musk visited Beijing earlier this year as the company prepared to register its software with authorities.
“Pretty soon, we will ask for regulatory approval of the Tesla supervised FSD in Europe, China and other countries,” Musk said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July. “And I think we’re likely to receive that before the end of the year, which will be a helpful demand driver in those regions obviously.”
Musk on Thursday wrote on X $TWTR that right-hand driving markets should “hopefully” get FSD later in the first quarter of 2025 or early in the second quarter, pending regulatory approval.
The CEO has made expanding FSD adoption a key point of Tesla’s long-term push toward fully driverless vehicles and a fleet of self-driving robotaxis. In order to make progress in developing the software — and win over regulators — Tesla needs to keep collecting data. As of its second quarter, Tesla customers have driven some 1.6 billion miles with FSD enabled.
After a lack of success in boosting adoption, Musk in March mandated that all new customers were required to be given a test ride using FSD, with the company later offering customers a free one-month trial that had extremely limited success. Tesla has also repeatedly slashed the price of FSD, which now costs $99 per month for U.S. drivers. During Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call, CFO Vaibhav Taneja said he expects FSD to drive sales, mainly thanks to its lowered price.
Tesla’s AI roadmap also includes the launch of its Actually Smart Summon feature, which was released earlier this week, and finally making FSD available for Cybertruck owners. In October, Tesla said it aims to launch FSD version 13, with six times as many miles between necessary interventions — when human drivers need to take control — and allowing FSD to park, unpark, and reverse.
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