Next Tesla car will be almost entirely autonomous, says Elon Musk

08 March 2023

Elon Musk appeared at a Morgan Stanley conference, during which he reiterated the notion of Tesla making its next generation electric car fully autonomous. The CEO of Tesla was adamant that the EVs based on the company’s new platform will operate in autonomous mode with drivers needed only on rare occasions.

We heard that so many times and for so many years that we tend to ignore it. First Tesla’s Autopilot then the FSD, all meant to be driving our cars by now. Our cars were on the verge of becoming autonomous taxis to make us money while we sleep. That was the dream, the reality is Tesla’s official admission that FSD Beta is Level 2 ADAS and no more.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a visionary, we only need to take a step back and appreciate how much our world has changed since Tesla made its first electric car. It’s not a change, it’s a revolution. But the constant barrage of “fully autonomous capability next year” statements made people tired, heck - it made some people angry.

With the Giga Mexico plant confirmed, will Tesla make the autonomous taxi a reality? Elon Musk has been talking about the Robotaxi for a while, it was always meant to be built on the next generation EV platform, the one that will be the backbone of Giga Mexico production.

Can Tesla eventually deliver a working FSD? One that’s not trying to drive off the highway when it sees birds and one that doesn’t hold a secret grudge against emergency services? At some point, eventually - yes. Elon Musk will most likely have to go through a painful u-turn on LiDAR though.

There is no denying that Tesla has the most advanced self-driving software. There is no denying that Tesla electric cars clocked the most autonomously driven miles in the world. It only proves how difficult it is to create a safe autonomous vehicle. Especially when it’s only using vision for navigating.

While Tesla is hellbent on the vision-only FSD, competitors not only caught up to it but already are leaving the company in the dust. Mercedes offers fully approved Level 3 autonomous driving, Zeekr is preparing production of its autonomous taxi for next year, Uber and Motional run taxi service in Las Vegas and GM operates its taxi service - not without issues though - in San Francisco and plans to expand to Austin and Phoenix. While Tesla is still stuck on Level 2.

Via