Tesla earnings call is highlighting FSD and robotaxi progress and some regulatory delays in Europe and China. They expect to get past those delays shortly.
In two weeks, the Austin robotaxi area will expand again. Tesla will have robotaxi and unsupervised FSD for half the population of the US by end of this year. This would mean have the service in all major cities of Texas, California, Arizona and Florida and a few other states. The number of robotaxi cars will increase exponentially.
Sun belt states would be better places for robotaxi based upon weather. This would be Nevada, New Mexico, Georgia, Tennessee, Oregon and other states. AV hotspots like Georgia (Atlanta), Illinois (Chicago potential), and North Carolina (growing tech hubs). New York and Pennsylvania have urban density but stricter regulations, so they might be later additions.
Alternative (focusing on more AV-friendly/sunbelt states): Georgia (11.3M) + North Carolina (11.2M) + Virginia (8.9M) + Tennessee (7.3M) + South Carolina (5.6M) + Alabama (5.2M) + Colorado (6.0M) + Washington (8.1M) = A stepwise sum: 63 million (close but short; might need one more like Michigan at 10.2M to hit 73M).
They want to get to 1 million Teslabot per year within 5 years (by 2030).
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FSD distance to critical disengagements (ie potentially accident averting) hasn’t improved in 1.5 years, and still less that 200miles in cities. That means they still need to eliminate something like 999 out of every 1000 disengagements to get into the hundreds of thousands of miles between accidents that human drivers achieve. There is no chance that happens without a huge hardware upgrade and an enormous amount of new training, revision, tweaking etc. It’s going to take years. Until then it will only work with human supervision and so be at best a publicity stunt to bolster Teslas currently languishing fortunes.
99% of disengagements aren’t because FSD is making a bad decision, it’s because the human gets nervous and takes control. The FSD was handling things just fine.
Big difference between disengagements vs. critical disengagements.
I believe you are conflating miles between critical disengagements with disengagements as a whole…
I have to disengage FSD (juniper) every time I drive home, because my driveway is about a hundred feet from where the car’s internal map thinks it is for my address. If I don’t the car drives past my driveway. It’s not a problem for me since I know to touch the brake pedal to disengage before the driveway, but it makes for a lot of non safety related disengagements.
In general, I’m amazed at how well FSD works. Still has problems mistaking reflections for lane markings on rainy nights, and getting around in parking lots. It also does not like to drive over roots in the driveway when being summoned.
I have also noticed it takes a while for the internal map to register traffic pattern changes like new turn lanes, or a street going from two to one way. Of course, humans also have that problem with their internal maps.
FSD is far from a parlor trick to amuse your friends. In the near future it will begin saving countless lives, suffering, and damages. I look forward to courts ordering drunk driving convicts they must have a vehicle with no steering wheel.
Tesla’s official Q2 2025 Vehicle Safety Report focuses on crash rates rather than disengagements, noting one crash every 6.69 million miles with Autopilot engaged (which includes but is not limited to FSD).
After a little bit of lull, the progress picks up. Can’t wait for the scale-up to happen.