A duo of Tesla shareholder-influencers tried to finish Elon Musk’s coast-to-coast self-driving experience that he claimed Tesla would be capable of do in 2017 they usually crashed earlier than making it about 60 miles.
In 2016, Elon Musk infamously mentioned that Tesla would full a completely self-driving coast-to-coast drive between Los Angeles and New York by the top of 2017.
The thought was to livestream or movie a full unedited drive coast-to-coast with the car driving itself always.
We’re in 2025 and Tesla by no means made that drive.
Regardless of the numerous missed autonomous driving objectives, many Tesla shareholders imagine that the corporate is on the verge of delivering unsupervised self-driving following the rollout of its ‘Robotaxi’ fleet in Austin, which requires supervision from Tesla workers contained in the automobiles, and enhancements to its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) methods inside client automobiles, which remains to be solely a stage 2 driver help system that requires driver consideration always as per Tesla.
Two of those Tesla shareholders and on-line influencers tried to undertake a coast-to-coast drive between San Diego, CA, and Jacksonville, FL, in a Tesla Mannequin Y outfitted with the newest FSD software program replace.
They didn’t make it out of California with out crashing into simply avoidable street particles that badly broken the Tesla Mannequin Y:
Within the video, you may see that the driving force doesn’t have his palms on the steering wheel. The passenger spots the particles means forward of time. There was loads of time to react, however the driver didn’t get his palms on the steering wheel till the final second.
In a follow-up video, the 2 Tesla influencers confirmed that the Mannequin Y had a damaged sway bar bracket and broken suspension parts. The car can be throwing out a variety of warnings.
They made it about 2.5% of the deliberate journey on Tesla FSD v13.9 earlier than crashing the car.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla shareholders used to debate this considerably rationally again within the day, however now that Tesla’s EV enterprise is in decline and the inventory value relies upon completely on the self-driving and robotic guarantees, they now not do.
I recall when Musk himself used to say that if you attain 99% self-driving, it’s when the “march of the 9s” begins, and you could obtain 99.999999999% autonomy to have a very helpful self-driving system. He admitted that that is essentially the most difficult half because the real-world is unpredictable and laborious to simulate – throwing a variety of difficult state of affairs at you, resembling particles on the street.
That’s the place Tesla is true now. The laborious half has simply began. And there’s no telling how lengthy it can take to get there. If somebody is telling you that they know, they’re mendacity. I don’t know. My greatest estimate is roughly 2-3 years and a brand new {hardware} suite.
Nevertheless, competitors, primarily Waymo, started its personal “march of the 9s” about 5 years in the past.
Tesla remains to be years behind, and one thing like this drive by these two Tesla influencers proves it.
I used to be truly in the same accident in a Tesla Mannequin 3 again in 2020. I rented a Mannequin 3 on Turo for a visit to Las Vegas from Los Angeles.
I ended up driving over a blown-out truck tire in the course of the street like this. I used to be Autopilot, however I don’t know if the automobile noticed it. I positively noticed it, but it surely was a bit late as I used to be following a truck that simply drove over it. I had most likely lower than 2 seconds to react. I utilized the brakes, however my decisions have been driving right into a ditch on the best or right into a automobile within the left lane.
I managed to cut back the drive of the affect with the braking, however the car jumped a bit like on this video. There wasn’t actually any harm to the entrance, however the backside cowl was flapping down. I taped it collectively on the subsequent gasoline station and I used to be in a position to proceed the journey with out a lot difficulty.
Nevertheless, after returning it to the Turo proprietor and having the suspension harm evaluated by Tesla, the restore job was estimated to be roughly $10,000. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s the same state of affairs with this accident.
