Tesla unveiled their robotaxi last night, and while that vehicle won’t appear on roads until 2026, the company is planning on rolling out their fully autonomous software in some of the vehicles next year.
At the ‘We, Robot’ event last night, Tesla said the robotaxi will be not feature any advanced sensor technology, relying solely on vision to drive around town without a human behind the wheel. Even though the robotaxi will have the next-generation AI5/HW5 self-driving computer, Elon Musk said that all cars made today (more on that later) will be able to run Full Self-Driving (Unsupervised), what the company is calling the next iteration of their software that will allow “drivers” to take a nap during a trip.
And while the robotaxi is a few years away, FSD (Unsupervised) could be released next year. Musk went on to explain that they expect to first roll it out in California and Texas in 2025 on the Model 3 and Model Y, later expanding to also include the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck.
After launching in those two states, Musk said FSD (Unsupervised) will then expand to other regions of the US, and elsewhere in the world, without providing a specific timeline as the expansion will obviously be dependent on receiving regulatory approval.
As far as we know, Tesla has not obtained that approval for California and Texas, but Musk appears to believe they are close and that will come next year, although we have heard similar promises and timelines from Musk in the past.
Back to Musk’s comments on FSD (Unsupervised), and how he said all cars made today will be able to run it. Here’s the exact quote from last night.
“The Model 3, Model Y, and S and X that we make today, will be capable of full autonomy, unsupervised.”
Elon Musk
If that sounds familiar, it is because he said almost exactly the same thing several times in the past, as far back as 2016. Musk reiterated this sentiment after the release of HW3/AI3 in 2019, and as we all know, Tesla has since released HW4/AI4, and has HW5/AI5 on the horizon.
We don’t know if Musk’s statement above was just an off the cuff remark, but if not, its implications are significant. What that means is that unsupervised FSD will only be able to be run on cars with HW4/AI4, the only computer Tesla is currently producing. That means the millions of cars with HW3/AI3 won’t be able to, despite the promise(s) made by Musk back in 2019, and since, that it will be capable of doing so.
This then brings up the question of retrofits. Musk has previously said that a retrofit from HW3 to HW4 isn’t necessary, and that it would be cost-prohibitive to do it anyway. If all of this turns out to be the case, it would not be surprising to see some lawsuits against Tesla over their broken promises.
