Tesla FSD pothole avoidance is ‘coming soon,’ seven years after Musk first teased the feature

Tesla may finally be getting closer to adding pothole avoidance to Full Self-Driving (FSD), more than seven years after Elon Musk first discussed the capability. While that might sound like a long wait, even in Musk-time, Tesla’s approach to autonomous driving has changed significantly in the years since.

Musk provided the latest update Sunday night, responding to a post on X asking whether FSD would eventually be able to avoid potholes. Musk’s response was typically brief, saying only, “coming soon.”

Coming soon

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 31, 2026

That isn’t the first time Tesla has talked about the feature. All the way back in February 2020, Musk responded “Yes” when asked whether Tesla vehicles could create and share “micro-maps” containing road features such as potholes and stop signs, allowing vehicles travelling the same roads to benefit from data collected by the fleet.

That was preceded in 2019 by Musk agreeing that pothole avoidance would “definitely” improve the Autopilot experience.

Definitely

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2019

Six years later, that specific capability still hasn’t arrived. However, a lot has changed with Tesla’s approach to autonomous driving since Musk made that original comment.

At the time, Tesla was still using radar and had not yet completed the major architectural rewrites that would transform FSD. The following year Tesla stopped using radar in new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, later also removing ultrasonic sensors as it shifted toward a camera-only system – Tesla Vision.

Tesla has since rewritten large portions of FSD multiple times, eventually moving toward the neural network-heavy, end-to-end approach used today.

Pothole avoidance officially joined the roadmap this year

While Musk on Sunday night suggested the feature was coming soon, we have known this feature was actually under development since April.

That was when Tesla deployed FSD v14.3 through software update 2026.2.9.6. In the release notes, Tesla explicitly listed “Add pothole avoidance” under ‘Upcoming Improvements.’

That also raises questions about how soon “coming soon” actually is. Nearly five months have passed since pothole avoidance first appeared in the release notes, and Tesla still hasn’t provided a specific release timeline.

There are signs the underlying technology is getting closer. FSD v14.3 upgraded Tesla’s neural network vision encoder to improve its understanding of 3D geometry and difficult environments. Tesla also completely rewrote its AI compiler and runtime, which the company said resulted in a 20% improvement in reaction time. Both could be used to improve pothole detection and avoidance.

However, whether Tesla ultimately uses fleet-generated road information similar to Musk’s 2020 comments or relies primarily on real-time vision remains to be seen.