With Elon Musk having pinned Tesla’s future on its autonomous and AI technologies, the company apparently still has a long way to go.
Two Tesla influencers recorded their attempt to drive cross-country from California to Florida using the latest version of the company’s so-called Full Self-Driving technology, without human intervention. They made it only about 60 miles before a collision cut their journey short, according to Electrek.
What’s happening?
In 2016, Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO, famously claimed that a fully autonomous Tesla would be able to make a coast-to-coast drive completely on its own by the end of 2017.
“I feel good about this goal,” Musk said on an October 2016 call with reporters, Business Insider reported at the time. “We’ll be able to do a demonstration guide of full autonomy all the way from L.A. to New York. So basically from home in L.A. to Times Square in New York. And then have the car go and park itself by the end of next year.”
To date, such a demonstration still has not taken place, though Tesla’s cars can nonetheless now park themselves and drive on highways with driver supervision, making the goal sound possible in theory.
Eight years after Musk claimed a fully autonomous cross-country ride would be possible, two Tesla enthusiasts put the company’s latest Full Self-Driving technology to the test, live-streaming their attempt to drive from Los Angeles, California, to Jacksonville, Florida, without human intervention.
They didn’t make it far.
Only about 60 miles into their 3,000-mile trip, their Tesla hit a piece of debris on the road, suffering damage so severe that the vehicle could not continue the drive, per Electrek.
“This accident could have happened to anyone, but Tesla is still very far away from FSD,” said one commenter. “They still have safety drivers inside the cabs in Austin. Until they don’t, I think Tesla is very far behind Waymo.”
It’s worth noting that Waymo — Tesla’s primary competitor in the driverless taxi space — does not yet allow its vehicles to drive on highways. While Waymo has deployed its services in five cities to Tesla’s one (Tesla also has a service with someone in the driver’s seat in San Francisco) and has lidar and radar on top of optical cameras to better detect objects, there is no sure way to know whether a vehicle with Waymo sensors would have avoided the same debris in the road.
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Why does it matter?
In 2022, Musk staked the future of Tesla on its autonomous-driving technology.
“The overwhelming focus is on solving full self-driving,” Musk said in an interview, Business Insider reported at the time. “That’s essential. It’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”
Fast forward about three years, and the cross-country feat Musk previously proclaimed would happen in 2017 still has not taken place in 2025. Even Tesla’s self-described Robotaxis must operate with a human driver behind the wheel, more like a traditional rideshare than an autonomous vehicle-for-hire, until the company and regulatory bodies agree it’s ready to proceed without them.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s truly autonomous service, which operates with no human drivers onboard, has been rolling out in more and more cities. Waymo also has received permission to operate at airports like San Francisco International and San José Mineta International.
While perhaps faced with bad luck, since large debris on the road is uncommon, the Tesla influencers’ failed coast-to-coast autonomous journey has only cast further light on how far Tesla still has to go even to catch its chief autonomous-driving rival. Even if chalking it up as bad luck, though, it still highlights the camera system’s vulnerabilities to see, recognize, and react in time while traveling at a high rate of speed.
What’s being done about it?
While Tesla has continued to make incremental improvements to its so-called Full Self-Driving technology, the company, like its mercurial leader, has shifted its main focus to other areas.
In early September of this year, Musk posted on X that approximately “80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus,” referring to the company’s still-unreleased AI-powered robot, according to CNBC.
The good news is that regardless of the vehicles’ autonomy, both Tesla and Waymo operate their taxi fleets using fully electric vehicles, which are responsible for less planet-overheating pollution per mile than gas-powered cars. Thus, whichever company ultimately comes out on top in the robotaxi war, it stands to reason that it will lead to a long-term reduction in taxi-related pollution.
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