by Tesla reached 10 billion miles with FSD, but true autonomy is still ahead
Although Tesla does not have a fleet of fully autonomous robotaxis that could compete with Waymo, it has an advantage in the form of over a million vehicles equipped with the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. This gives the company a huge array of real-world data to train and improve its autonomous technology. However, in news that will surprise no one, the company has still not delivered true autonomy, despite repeated claims by Elon Musk that it is “just around the corner.”
Earlier this week, Tesla updated the FSD safety page, reporting that vehicles with this system have driven over 10.03 billion miles worldwide. This is truly an impressive figure, of which over 3.7 billion miles were driven in urban areas.
Currently, the fleet accumulates approximately 29 million miles per day with FSD engaged. Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated on social media platform X in January that “roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving.” Tesla has already crossed this threshold, but the unsupervised version of FSD has still not appeared.
“Roughly 10 billion miles of training data is needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving.”
Testing continues
Exactly when the system will be deemed safe enough for drivers to sleep behind the wheel remains an open question. As of early January, the Tesla FSD fleet had covered just over 7 billion miles, so the pace is growing quickly. With more testing, Tesla will have more data to analyze, which should help on the path to full autonomy. However, it will likely be a long time before the system is ready for deployment.
According to The Verge, based on Tesla’s own calculations, vehicles with Full Self-Driving cover an average of 5.5 million miles between serious accidents. The company compares this to the average of 660,000 miles it cites for U.S. drivers overall.
However, there is more to this data than meets the eye. The figure does not account for the fact that accidents occur much more frequently on city streets than on highways, and the majority of FSD miles are accumulated on highways.
It is worth noting that, despite the impressive mileage figures, the FSD systems in customer vehicles remain Level 2 systems that require full driver attention. Liability issues remain unresolved between owners and any unsupervised deployment. Thus, while Tesla has achieved a significant milestone in data accumulation, a true breakthrough in fully autonomous driving still remains a matter for the future, and the company still has many technical and regulatory hurdles to overcome.
