Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) is stagnating with no real improvement in miles between disengagement in months just as CEO Elon Musk said it is going exponential.
The stagnation of FSD could be explained by Tesla making a pivot and focusing on its geo-fenced ride-hailing service instead of its long-standing promises.
Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all it vehicles produced onward have all the hardware capable of self-driving at a level enabling a robotaxi service and that a software update would eventually enable it.
For the past six years, CEO Elon Musk has claimed that Tesla would achieve that goal by the end of the year, and he has been wrong every time.
Lately, Musk has been focused on hyping Tesla’s latest Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) updates.
FSD is technically a level 2 advanced driver assist system (ADAS). It requires driver supervision at all times, and Tesla takes no responsibility in the case of a crash.
Miles between critical disengagement is the primary metric used to track progress with each FSD update. Tesla and Musk have both used the metric in the past.
In January, we reported on Musk sharing a crowdsourced FSD dataset, claiming that it showed Tesla had now reached “exponential improvement” with FSD v13. We noted that this was both false since exponential improvement would require an extra data point that he didn’t have and misleading since he focused only on highway miles between disengagement and Tesla had just introduced its long-used city driving neural network stack to highway driving.
FSD v13 has now been out for 3 months, and it received several point updates, but the same data praised by Musk a few months ago shows that it is stagnating – not going exponential:
Musk had previously claimed that v13 would enable “a 5 to 6x increase in miles between disengagement compared to v12.5.”
The data now shows that v13 barely brought a 2x improvement, going from ~200 miles to ~400 miles.
After over 33,000 miles reported through all versions of FSD v13, the datasets now point to 495 miles between critical disengagement on average:
Ashok Elluswamy, the head of FSD at Tesla, has previously stated that for Tesla to enable unsupervised self-driving, Tesla needs to achieve the average in miles per critical intervention “equivalent of human miles between collision,” which stands at 700,000 miles, according to NHTSA.
Musk is moving the goal post on Tesla Full Self-Driving
The current stagnation is disappointing for Tesla fans and surprising even to critics. Even those who don’t believe Musk’s ambitious timelines for Tesla to achieve self-driving believed that the system would improve faster.
It needs to improve faster if Tesla wants to go from ~500 miles between critical disengagement to 700,000 miles – the company’s own goal of being safer than humans.
We believe that a possible reason for the current stagnation is that Tesla is focusing on a new strategy for self-driving.
Last month, we posted a report called ‘Elon Musk is about to masterfully move the goalpost on Tesla Full Self-Driving‘. After years of being wrong about Tesla achieving unsupervised self-driving, Musk badly needs a win on that front.
That’s why instead of delivering on its long-stated promise of consumer vehicles achieving unsupervised self-driving, Tesla is shifting to releasing a ride-hailing service in a geo-fenced area around Austin, Texas in June.
Using an internal fleet of vehicles helped by teleoperation in a limited area is a complete change of plan for Tesla self-driving, and it is a service similar to what Waymo has been offering for years. Musk has even thrown colder water on Waymo’s approach, calling it “too difficult to scale.”
We believe that part of the reason why Tesla FSD is stagnating is that the automaker is currently using its engineering power as well as its training compute toward this new program rather than its broader FSD product.
Electrek’s Take
You know my take on FSD. I think that if it was developed in a vacuum without Tesla selling it as “Full Self-Driving” and Musk promising that it would be unsupervised by the end of every year for the last 6 years, I think it would simply be praised as the best level 2 ADAS system out there.
Unfortunately, it’s not the case.
Instead, Musk has tainted the product with lies and false promises and we are not even getting into HW3 in this post.
I think Musk has been really successful at misleading people with FSD, and now he thinks that this pivot to a Waymo-style product will enable Tesla to claim a win on self-driving without most people realizing that it’s actually a loss for millions of Tesla owners.
He might be able to pull it through, but we are going to keep reporting it for what it is on Electrek.
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After a rocky rollout of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system in China, Tesla is dropping “FSD” from the name of the system while it faces increased scrutiny from regulators.
Last month, Tesla started rolling out a limited version of its FSD system in China, finally allowing driver assist features to be used on urban roads in the country after a long wait.
Tesla is facing competition from Chinese domestic manufacturers. BYD recently pushed a software update giving smart driving features to all of its vehicles – for free. This is surely part of what pushed Tesla to roll out its FSD system in China in the first place.
But immediately after that rollout, Tesla drivers started racking up fines for violating the law. Many roads in China are watched by CCTV cameras, and fines are automatically handed out to drivers to break the law.
It’s clear that the system still needs more knowledge about Chinese roads in general, because it kept mistaking bike lanes for right turn lanes, etc. One driver racked up 7 tickets within the span of a single drive after driving through bike lanes and crossing over solid lines. If a driver gets enough points on their license, they could even have their license suspended.
Between these troubles and a new set of rules for connected vehicles in China, Tesla rolled back its FSD rollout just this week, only a week after having announced a month-long free trial (as it has done in the US before).
It looks like it’s now making some naming changes, too – and these changes are timed in a way that suggests they might have something to do with that new scrutiny for connected vehicles.
The change in names appeared on Tesla’s website in the last day or so. You can see it below, in both Chinese and translated to English:
Previously, the system was called “FSD Intelligent Assisted Driving” in Chinese. The new name drops “FSD” from the title, and simply calls it “Intelligent Assisted Driving.” It has also previously been called “Full Self-Driving Capability” in China.
Tesla has received plenty of criticism over the years for the name of its system, which, despite being called “Full Self-Driving,” does not actually allow cars to fully drive themselves. Tesla changed the name to “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” in the US last year, to show that a driver still needs to supervise the vehicle while the system is active.
Despite the name change, the system is still fetching the same price – 64,000 yuan, or about $8,800 USD. Each level of
Tesla also removed the world “autopilot” from the Chinese name for its lower version of driver assist software. This word is meant to evoke airplane systems which can do basic tasks but still require an attentive pilot to take over in case anything goes wrong, but has also been subject to criticism over the years because of the colloquial understanding that suggests drivers can stop paying attention while it’s turned on.
Tesla says that it still intends to offer its driver-assist system in China once it gets the necessary approvals. Perhaps today’s retreat in naming conventions is part of those requirements.
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The 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 SEL is more expensive than the more basic SE, but it’s a better lease deal this month – here’s the lowdown.
The 2025 IONIQ 5 SE Standard Range is the cheapest lease deal right now because it can be leased for $199 per month over 24 months with $3,999 due at signing.
If you want to drive the 2025 IONIQ 5 SE Long Range, which adds an extra 73 miles of range and 57 horsepower, the monthly payment rises to $229 per month over 24 months, with $3,999 due at signing. As CarsDirect points out, that puts the effective monthly cost at $396, and that’s a fantastic deal relative to the SE Long Range’s price of $48,125.
But when we look at the SEL trim, things get interesting: You can upgrade to the $51,075 SEL model for just $10 more per month.
Hyundai cut $40 off the lease price of the 2025 IONIQ 5 SEL in March, giving it a monthly price of $406. CarsDirect reports that Hyundai is able to offer this great deal on the SEL trim because of the comparably high residual value (65% vs. 63%) and $750 more in lease cash ($12,250 vs. $11,500) factored into the payment than the SE Long Range.
The SEL and SE Long Range have the same powertrain, but that extra $10 a month gets you projector headlights, roof rails, a hands-free power liftgate, a power passenger seat, heated rear seats, rear climate control vents, a heated steering wheel, and other goodies.
These 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 offers are advertised in Los Angeles and are valid through March 31.
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Environment
Tesla is banned from Canada EV rebate program, gov freezes suspicous $43 million in rebates
Tesla has been banned from upcoming federal EV rebate programs in Canada as the government freezes the suspicious $43 million in rebates that Tesla claimed days before the program was paused earlier this year.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Tesla claimed $43 million in government rebates from the iZEV federal EV rebate program in Canada just a few days before the program was paused due to a lack of funds.
The move was suspicious as it would have required Tesla to deliver over 8,000 vehicles at just 4 locations on a weekend, which is physically impossible.
It is believed that Tesla preemptively filed for thousands of rebates after being made aware of the pause to ensure it wouldn’t run out in an anticipated surge in demand due to the program’s pause.
However, this tactic proved problematic. The government told other car dealers who actually delivered EVs before the end of the program that they couldn’t get the rebates, which were already applied to the customer purchases, as Tesla took most of the money for vehicles it likely didn’t deliver.
Today, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s new transport minister, confirmed that the funds have been frozen until it can investigate precisely what happened with Tesla’s rebates.
Furthermore, Freeland confirmed that Tesla will be banned from future federal rebates for electric vehicles. In this case, it has more to do with the trade war launched by President Trump, whose biggest political donor is Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
She said (via the Toronto Star):
No payments will be made until we are confident that the claims are valid. I also directed my department to change the eligibility criteria for future iZEV programs to ensure that Tesla vehicles will not be eligible for incentives so long as the illegitimate and illegal U.S. tariffs are imposed against Canada.
The federal government is following the same strategy as some provinces. British Columbia has recently banned Tesla products from its EV charger rebate. Nova Scotia just announced that it has excluded Tesla from its $2,000 rebate at the purchase of a new EV.
Quebec just relaunched its own EV incentive program today. It will come into effect next week, and so far, Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y vehicles are still included in the list of eligible vehicles.
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