A select number of all-electric Tesla Cybertrucks can now drive hands-free on US highways, after the automaker pushed out a vehicle update this morning. Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy wrote on to navigate.
“Nice work,” Tesla CEO (and X owner) Elon Musk responded to his AI chief.
It appears the feature is in 'early access', meaning it will only be available to some Cybertruck owners who have purchased the feature. It's unclear when the automaker will release the feature more widely. Tesla, which disbanded its PR team in 2021, did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.
Tesla owner's manuals state that the full self-driving feature, or “FSD (Supervised),” should only be used when drivers are paying attention to the road. The feature will reportedly be disabled if drivers are detected to be searching elsewhere. Critics have argued that Tesla's marketing wrongly leads drivers to assume that FSD can actually drive itself and that the automaker has not been proactive in preventing driver abuse.
Customers who purchased the base model Cybertrucks early, on pre-order, paid $7,000 for access to the driving feature, with some having to wait nearly a year for it to be available on their trucks. Tesla owners can now subscribe to the FSD (Supervised) feature for $99 per month.
One Cybertruck driver reported on X that, based on this morning's driving, the feature is “working well.”
The feature's introduction is much-needed good news for the Cybertruck, which has had a rocky introduction to Tesla's lineup. The vehicle was delayed for years due to the Covid-19 pandemic and technical problems. (A leaked 'alpha' briefing on the vehicle, first reported by WIRED, revealed that the truck had serious problems with braking, handling and noise.)
The all-electric truck has also been subject to a handful of recalls, including one that required the company to repair or replace stuck accelerator pedals.
As more automakers enter the electrification race and Tesla's huge lead in electric cars has been eroded by other manufacturers, Musk and company appear to believe that “self-driving” features powered by AI will help Tesla regain its lead win. “Tesla's value is overwhelmingly autonomy,” Musk told investors this summer.
The US highway safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has found that Tesla's Autopilot feature, an older and less advanced version of FSD, did not adequately protect drivers from misuse – and was involved in 13 fatal crashes between 2018 and 2023. After years of investigation into Autopilot, Tesla recalled 2 million vehicles with Autopilot last year. (The automaker said it disagreed with the government's conclusions.)
Earlier this year, Tesla settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a Northern California man who died while using Autopilot on his Model
Tesla is also facing a class action lawsuit alleging it misled customers who bought Teslas after Musk promised the cars had everything they needed to drive autonomously. Eight years later, Tesla has made significant improvements to its self-driving features and has plans to make a lot of money from this feature, but has still not produced any self-driving technology.
That could change this month. Musk has promised that Tesla will unveil a self-driving taxi called Cybercab at an event in Southern California on October 10.
