Tesla has just scored a meaningful third-party endorsement for its autonomous driving software. At the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) was named the Best Driver Assistance System, with the publication noting the competition isn’t even close.
MotorTrend, which has closely tracked Tesla’s autonomy efforts for years, did not mince words about how far the software has come. In announcing the award, the publication wrote, “After years of criticizing @Tesla’s erratic driver assistance tech, we’ve been converted into acolytes by the latest release, V14. FSD now delivers a hands-off experience that routinely navigates from driveway to parking spot—and back again—all while ensuring the driver’s attention stays focused on the road.”
That statement alone captures the scale of the shift. Only a year ago, Tesla’s FSD was edged out by General Motors’ Super Cruise in MotorTrend’s first Best Tech evaluation. At the time, the editors raised serious concerns about unpredictable behavior, unnecessary lane changes, and sudden braking. The 2026 award signals that version 14 of FSD has addressed many of those pain points and elevated Tesla to the top of the field.
MotorTrend’s testing philosophy looks beyond just raw performance. The Best Tech Awards are judged on innovation, ease of use, real-world usefulness, safety and privacy, and overall value. Against that backdrop, Tesla’s approach stood out. Unlike rivals that rely on a combination of lidar, radar, and pre-mapped highways, FSD uses a camera-only vision system designed to work on almost any road—urban streets, freeways, two-lane highways, and everything in between.
According to MotorTrend’s evaluations, no competing driver assistance package offers that level of geographic freedom today.
The user experience also played a major role in Tesla’s win. FSD can be activated with a simple tap on the touchscreen, after which it handles steering, braking, and acceleration while following navigation directions. Drivers can enter destinations manually or by voice, and over time the system learns common routes, even predicting where you are headed based on time of day and driving habits. When you arrive, Auto Park can take over, guiding the vehicle into a curbside spot, a driveway, or even backing into a charging stall.
On the value front, FSD is still priced well above most rivals at C$11,000/US$8,000 upfront or C/US$99 per month, but MotorTrend concluded that the broader capabilities justify the premium. While systems like Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise remain confined to mapped highways, Tesla’s software can handle dense city streets, traffic circles, and complex intersections, giving it a much wider scope of use.
The award was not given lightly, and MotorTrend acknowledged ongoing concerns about edge cases and the need for a vigilant human driver. Still, after thousands of miles of testing, the editors landed on a clear verdict: Tesla FSD (Supervised) is now the most capable driver assistance system available, and with version 14, it has finally delivered on much of its long-promised potential.
