Get ready for Tesla to ignore another broken promise: Tesla’s vehicles have now driven over 10 billion miles using Full Self-Driving (Supervised) mode, according to the company website. Earlier this year, Elon Musk said that once Tesla reaches that threshold, its vehicles will be ready for “safe unsupervised” driving. That’s certainly interesting, since Musk just admitted a few weeks ago that FSD is nowhere near as capable as the autonomous driving he promised over a decade ago.
But we all know by now that Musk’s claims hold no weight. In fact, they’re considered so completely silly that one Tesla driver was even able to sue the brand for over $10,000 after waiting years for his vehicle to drive autonomously. The 10 billion miles thing was actually just a number Musk threw out there on X (formerly Twitter) because Tesla drivers wizzed past his previous goalpost without the brand coming any closer to autonomous driving.
In 2016, Musk wrote that the company would likely need 6 billion miles “before true self-driving is approved by regulators.” What regulators, nobody knows. In January 2026, the site claimed that Tesla’s FSD had been used for over 7 billion miles. But we all know why Musk ignored that goalpost. At that point, Musk’s robotaxis required a human inside or following behind, and drivers using FSD in their personal cars were seeing mixed results, prompting multiple investigations and lawsuits.
So yeah, I’m assuming the miles-driven thing will be moved again. Maybe 15 billion this time?
Will Tesla actually offer autonomous driving ever?
I think at this point we all know that none of these goalposts matter. Right? Musk has been promising a fully autonomous fleet of Cybercabs for years. However, we’ve had only barely functioning Model Ys in two cities, available at very limited capacity. A recent earnings call had Musk admitting that HW3 was nowhere near ready to provide autonomous driving to passenger vehicles either.
This hasn’t stopped the Tesla fans, of course. They continue to claim that Musk isn’t lying. He’s just saying it’s possible to have in the future. Just be patient! Well, it’s been over 10 years at this point. It’s also been about 10 years since we were promised the second-generation Roadster. But I guess we’re not supposed to care about that either. As long as it arrives eventually — even if it doesn’t function as promised — guess we should just accept it.
Anyway, Musk now claims that passenger vehicles are getting unsupervised driving by the fourth quarter of 2026. That’s pretty close. This is actually a bit horrifying to hear, since FSD is nowhere near that point right now. Some drivers will even need to buy entirely new vehicles to access a semi-improved version of FSD than they currently have. It just seems a bit far-fetched.
But I don’t think Musk cares. In fact, I think Tesla is relying on these ongoing promises as its marketing plan. If he can just keep setting new goalposts, Tesla drivers will hold on until then. It doesn’t sound very long to wait just a few more months. Might as well keep up hope and keep driving my Tesla!
Meanwhile, I don’t think Musk even wants these cars to have autonomous Full Self-Driving mode. Maybe his hideous Cybercabs, which have no steering wheel or pedal in preparation for being completely autonomous. But the passenger cars? I don’t think Tesla would even benefit from this.
Remember when I said Tesla was often getting sued for the accidents that happen while drivers use FSD? Well, most of these lawsuits end with Tesla winning: that’s because FSD is actually just a Level 2 system, which means someone should be ready to take control at any given moment. This means the driver is at fault if something goes wrong. Why would you let a Level 2 system drive you around!? (We won’t mention that it’s because they’re clueless enough to trust Elon Musk.) It’s probably in Tesla’s best interest to keep the cars at this level while claiming they are safe enough for a blind person to drive a Cybertruck. This keeps people driving without Tesla having to actually improve on the technology.
Because once it’s fully autonomous, Tesla would be at fault for what happens in that car. Right now, Tesla is saving a lot of money by staying Level 2. But Musk wants you to keep holding on and not give up. It seems like a pretty tricky balancing act, leading to all these silly goalposts, claims, and promises that Tesla fans keep explaining away.
If it were me, I’d give up all hope that Tesla’s passenger vehicles will get autonomous driving. Tesla itself has made it clear that it’s sorta bored of these vehicles anyway. It wants to focus on its autonomous robotaxis and humanoid robots. So quit askin’ for it!
