Tesla
investing is an adventure. You never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes, for instance, the richest person on Earth and
Tesla
CEO Elon Musk posts a video of himself in a self-driving Tesla navigating to the house of
Meta Platforms
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, possibly to challenge him to hand-to-hand combat.
Friday, Musk posted a video of himself and others in a Tesla (ticker: TSLA). He narrated a drive using the beta version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving, or FSD, software. The beta version includes navigation on city streets. It has the ability to do most driving tasks of any Tesla driver assistance product.
The video, unlike many posted on YouTube and X, which is Musk’s social media platform formerly Twitter, wasn’t edited or sped up, giving watchers a better sense of FSD Beta’s capabilities.
During the drive, Musk pointed out that Tesla engineers didn’t program what to do with speed bumps, stop signs, or roundabouts. All things the car handled well on its own. Tesla trained the system with video and the car learned for itself. It’s an example of Tesla using artificial intelligence to build its self-driving products.
The drive lasted about 40 minutes and took Musk, passengers, and viewers on X around
Palo Alto,
Calif.
“Maybe we’ll run into Zuckerberg and we can challenge to a fight…spice it up,” joked Musk a one point. Musk and Zuckerberg considered a fight for charity. The origin of the fight seemed to be rooted in Musk’s objection to Meta’s plan to create Threads, an X competitor. It doesn’t appear a fight will take place.
The car performed well. Barron’s counted one intervention. Musk had to take over at a stoplight where the car started to proceed straight on an advanced green for left turns. That, of course, means the system still needs driver supervision 100% of the time. Still, the drive is impressive. It was also a beautiful, sunny day in Palo Alto. Weather and light can also impact self-driving systems.
After completing one portion of the drive, Musk Googled Zuckerberg’s address. “Just a polite inquiry as to whether you would like to engage in hand-to-hand combat…if it’s not inconvenient, perhaps you’d like to fight,” quipped Musk. “I don’t think this can be really considered doxxing if we just Googled it.”
Doxxing is publishing information about someone on the internet, typically with malicious intent, according to Google. Musk has suspended some accounts on X for sharing information about the whereabouts of his jet.
Google, however, doesn’t seem to have the right address for Zuckerberg in Palo Alto. The two didn’t meet up.
The FSD Beta version hasn’t been released widely to the public yet. Tesla drivers need to first pay for FSD which is a one-time payment of $15,000 or a subscription price of up to $199 a month. Then they can request FSD Beta. Drivers earn it based on a safety score for their driving.
Tesla offers several driver assistance products with increasing levels of functionality. Autopilot is standard on Telsa cars, Enhanced Autopilot costs $6,000. FSD can also cost $99 a month if the Tesla driver already paid for Enhanced Autopilot.
Musk believes that self-driving cars will be huge for the company. “Being able to do a software update and have several million cars suddenly go from manual driving to autonomous, I think will be the single biggest asset value increase in history,” said Musk at Tesla’s May annual meeting of shareholders. He has said similar things several times.
Self-driving cars can be used as robotaxis or just to make people’s commutes and road trips easier. More important for Tesla, those millions of Tesla drivers will be paying thousands of dollars upfront or as a monthly subscription to Tesla to access the ability.
There are plenty of detractors who don’t believe Tesla should be testing systems on roads. But more systems like FSD Beta are coming.
General Motors
‘ (GM) Ultra Cruise product is targeting similar capabilities.
When drivers are actually allowed to stop paying attention will be a function of software development and a negotiation between car companies and regulators.
Coming into Monday trading, Tesla stock is up about 94% so far this year, better than the 30% gain of the
Nasdaq Composite.
Telsa stock is also down about 17% over the past 12 months. It’s always a wild ride for Tesla investors.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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