Is Tesla FSD Finally Full Self-Driving?

For over a decade, Elon Musk has promised a future of driverless cars. Now, with the debut of Tesla’s dedicated robotaxi, the Cybercab, and plans to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, this June, that vision is being put to the test. To find out where things stand, CNBC took multiple rides with Tesla owners using Full Self-Driving (Supervised), experiencing its strengths, weaknesses, and ongoing evolution. While fans remain optimistic, experts are skeptical. With just months to go, will Musk’s driverless dream finally become reality?

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
4:34 Chapter 1 - The long road to Full Self-Driving
8:20 Chapter 2 - Testing Full Self-Driving
13:44 Chapter 3 - Mired in controversy
20:47 Chapter 4 - Robotaxi ready

Produced, Shot and Edited by: Andrew Evers
Reporter: Lora Kolodny
Senior Director: Jeniece Pettitt
Narration: Robert Ferris
Additional Camera: Marc Ganley, Katie Tarasov, Lisa Setyon
Graphics by: Jason Reginato
Additional Footage: Tesla, Getty Images, Waymo

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Is Tesla FSD Finally Full Self-Driving?

[tonydeveyra]

Ive driven 80K miles on FSD over the past three years. The rate of improvement in the past year has dramatically accelerated. I currently drive about 500 miles a week and the only time i am manually steering the car is when i park. The technology is incredible and i feel very confident that robotaxi will be ready this year.

[montew]

The lawyer is a liar. He claims that Tesla hides the disclaimer. Tesla makes it very clear you must remain attentive. On the latest versions of FSD it tracks where the driver is looking to make sure the driver is paying attention. If the driver has too many instances where they are not paying attention then it will suspend them from using FSD.

[ampedupevct]

There are so many lies in this video it's hard to even go through them all.

- FSD disclaimer is 1 page. It also tells you every single time you engage it to pay attention and keep your hands on the wheel, and be ready to take over at all times.

- Tesla released 2024 safety data month ago which shows that in Q4 2024, despite the majority of the fleet being on older hardware and not able to get the latest and substantially better versions, FSD had around one accident for every 6 million miles of driving. Compare that to approx. 1 in 700K for the average human driver.

- NHTSA requires all accidents involving autonomous or assisted driving to be cataloged and reported to the agency. Tesla isnt hiding anything.

- The car in the Youtube test mentioned didnt hit the wall on the latest version FSD with HW4. Mark Rober purposely used HW3 and only the much more rudamentary autopilot (more akin to other automakers ADAS that does not incorporate AI). When the test was repeated on the latest version, it passed multiple times.

[rl]

The report does not mention at all the current monitoring system that FSD uses with eye sensing detection to ensure users are paying attention to the road.

[norkisserrano]

It’s “SUPERVISED “ Full Self Driving. I used FSD all day everyday with the latest software update 13.2.8 and I trust it 98% but of course I should be very watchful, vigilant and aware of the driving situation at all times and so far I’m so loving my Model Y HW4 with the latest software version. It just takes away a lot of driving stress. Good job Elon Musk, I mean incredible job. I can’t wait for the next software update.

[damonddbw]

I use FSD daily. It's near perfect. Most folks need to get butts in seats to begin to understand how advanced these cars really are.

[mikec]

I just bought a month of FSD and drove it. VASTLY improved from last time I got it, about six months ago. ZERO flaws so far. No interventions. This trajectory of improvement convinces me it will be ready for robtaxi within the year.

[Wiru]

i use fsd everyday from ontario to DTLA without needing to touch the steering wheel. it is so much more relaxing to commute now.

[jdb]

Some of these so-called "experts" are willfully ignorant, at best. Most of their criticisms are not grounded in fact. For example, the suggestion that the car is not monitoring whether the driver is paying attention is factually false. It is a very robust monitoring system. If you take your eyes off the road for more than a couple seconds, you get a warning. . . . FSD works very well. I use it everyday. 95% of it is flawless. The driver is in control, at all times. The driver is responsible. Tesla has not said otherwise. No other manufacturer has anything even close to Tesla's FSD. Used appropriately, I do believe FSD, as it is now, is safer than 75% of all drivers. . . .

[ampedupevct]

It literally says right on the screen every time you engage FSD to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention all times, that the driver needs to be ready to take over. So not only is it in the one screen disclaimer which is only a couple paragraphs long when you first activate FSD capability, you literally see the same warning message every single time you turn it on.

Typical blood sucking lawyer is a liar.

[johnlabernik]

As an FSD user, FSD requires you to be MORE attentive than if you were driving manually. I’m not sure how anyone can dispute this.

[definitelylucca]

Correction: Currently, Tesla does not currently rely on nudging the steering wheel for ensuring driver attentiveness. Instead, Tesla uses an internal cabin camera to ensure the driver is actively looking at the road. I have a 2024 Model Y and I tested the monitoring software on an empty road and it reliably told me to look at the road even if I look at the screen for around five seconds.

[geoffshelley]

It is unreasonable to expect that there will NEVER be an accident on FSD, no matter how good it gets.
But the accident rate will eventually be much less than human drivers alone.

[vermontsownboy]

It's clear CNBC positioned this video production as a hit piece against Tesla FSD. A lot of this content was partially true last year or more true in years past. It does not remotely reflect the current state (Q1 2025) of FSD, nor does it reflect the furiously iterative rate of FSD improvement at present...and exponentially ramping going forward. Moreso, the Atty Schreiber lawsuits are based upon what the driver "believed" about the FSD system instead of what the FSD system was directly telling the driver. Either Atty Schreiber is ignorant or a liar. The accidents are clear human error. Moreso, driver attention monitoring is absolutely rigorous and will suspend your FSD privileges if violated. The truth is that today anybody can sue anybody for almost anything, but a frivolous lawsuit should be ended in its tracks. Moreso, the lawsuits are based on facts from literally years ago. The here and now is that challenging real world edge cases FSD encounters as portrayed in this video yesterday have been, or are currently being used to train the neural nets on the FSD supercomputer (Cortex) today, and will be fixed next week. CNBC completely failed to cover that part of the story. Deliberate? Maybe. Question is, is it sloppy journalism, or slander?

[Chobiefi]

Humans that are paying attention and care about driving safely are good drivers. Unfortunately a large percentage of humans are too busy doing something other than driving or taking risks that are not acceptable in the name of arriving .005 seconds earlier.

[gcajay]

I recently got a Tesla (2025 Model 3) and have been using latest (13.2.8) FSD for over 3 Months now. It works probably 90-95% of the time, but it sometimes makes stupid mistake
1. It has driven through red lights (not Stop signs) 3 times already. I saved the clip for proof.
2. Drives on wrong way, when there are no marking.
3. It often struggles to navigate parking lot situations.

[robertboudreau]

I’m surprised you didn’t mention Tesla’s success with supervised FSD in China. It has proven superior right out of the gate, showing how its approach is moving towards a general solution that can work anywhere.

[Sebster]

I don't think I've ever seen a CNBC video about an Elon-related company that isn't filled with lies.

[richardalexander]

Took my first all FSD trip yesterday with V13.2.8 using hardware 4. 10 hrs. 488 miles partly rain, fog, and heavy traffic. It's finally good enough for the ride to have been pretty much stress free and uneventful. A huge improvement from six months ago, and on a different planet from V12. Not perfect, but enough of an improvement for me to believe true FSD will happen...sometime in the "near" future.

[movingsocks]

I've had FSD since 2020. I have driven my car 2% of the time since. It works incredibly. I drove across the country and only drove 1% of that drive. My pedals still look brand new.