It Seems that Elon Musk Is Fabricating Data to Back Up His Automated Driving Claims

Elon Musk has been hyping up Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, claiming that it will soon achieve unsupervised driving, but the data suggests otherwise, Electrek claims. For years, Musk has made ambitious predictions about FSD, but his timelines have repeatedly proven wrong.

Some argue that these are tough goals, and Musk’s optimism shouldn’t be held against him, but the data doesn’t back up his claims.

Tesla has kept a tight grip on its data, refusing to share key metrics about its progress. Musk recently praised updates to Tesla’s FSD, claiming they would improve by ‘5 to 10x’ in terms of how many miles can be driven between critical interventions.

However, crowdsourced data shows that the real improvement is much smaller. For example, FSD v12.5 achieved 183 miles between disengagement, but the figure dropped to 493 miles with the v13 update, far below the expected 915 to 1,098 miles Musk promised.

Tesla’s claims about huge improvements are misleading. The data, which has limitations, is still the best available since Tesla refuses to release its own. Musk himself has referred to this data in the past, but now he’s ignoring it when it doesn’t fit his narrative.

The real progress is modest, especially when you look at the city driving software, which has hardly changed.

Musk’s prediction that FSD will be unsupervised by Q2 2025 seems unrealistic when you consider that Tesla is still far from reaching the milestones needed. According to Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s FSD head, the system needs to achieve 670,000 miles between disengagement to match human driver safety standards.

Tesla is currently at just 493 miles, which shows how far away they are from unsupervised driving. Even if Tesla continues to improve, it’s still a long way to go.

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