Tesla's fleet of vehicles using the company's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has driven over 10 billion miles, according to the company's updated safety page. This crosses the threshold Elon Musk set in January for "safe unsupervised" driving. However, FSD remains a Level 2 system requiring constant human oversight, and Tesla owners have not gained access to unsupervised driving.
The threshold
In January, Musk stated on X that "roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving." The implication was that once reached, Tesla would enable unsupervised driving for customers. The company has now hit that number, but the cars remain Level 2 — drivers must keep hands on the wheel and be ready to take over at any moment.
Liability questions
Tesla's terms of service place liability on the owner for crashes involving FSD, characterizing it as a Level 2 supervised system. If FSD were unsupervised, who would assume responsibility? Waymo, which owns its tech and fleet, assumes liability for its vehicles. Tesla has faced hundreds of crashes involving its partially autonomous features and dozens of fatalities, but has largely avoided liability through settlements or dismissed lawsuits. A federal jury in Florida last year found Tesla partly liable for a 2019 crash involving Autopilot and ordered the company to pay $243 million; Tesla appealed, but a judge rejected that effort.
Safety claims and methodology
Tesla claims its FSD-equipped vehicles drive 5.5 million miles on average before a major collision, versus 660,000 miles for the average US driver. Experts have questioned this methodology. Studies indicate Tesla's safety reports fail to account for basic traffic statistics — for example, crashes are more common on city roads and undivided roads than on highways, where Autopilot is most often used. Some researchers believe Tesla may be miscounting crashes to make Autopilot and FSD appear safer than they are.
Robotaxi fleet progress
Tesla is ramping up its unsupervised robotaxi fleet. After launching in Dallas and Houston with two vehicles each, Dallas now has five unsupervised robotaxis and Houston has six, according to the Robotaxi Tracker. Austin, where Tesla first launched its robotaxi service, now has 29 supervised vehicles (with employees in the front passenger seat) and 22 unsupervised ones.
What's next
In an earnings call last month, Musk said unsupervised driving would come when "it is legal to do so." Asked specifically about unsupervised FSD in customer cars, he predicted it would arrive in the fourth quarter of the year. Whether this is another threshold or another moving goalpost remains to be seen.
The practical takeaway: Tesla's