A vinyl record stuck in an endless loop has the needle skipping over the same groove no matter how many times you lift it. Elon Musk’s narrative on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software follows a decade-long pattern of bold predictions that never quite reaches the crescendo. Since 2016, Musk has positioned FSD as the holy grail of autonomous driving, promising everything from coast-to-coast self-navigation to robotaxi empires. Yet, here we are in 2025, and Tesla’s vehicles still require human oversight for anything beyond basic highway assists. This is a tale of tech delays and a cautionary story about the perils of hype in AI-driven innovation, where overpromising can erode investor trust and invite regulatory backlash.
Tesla’s 2016 Q3 earnings call kicked off the FSD frenzy, with Elon Musk unveiling Hardware 2.0 as the enabler for full autonomy in every new vehicle. “All Tesla cars being produced now have full self-driving hardware,” he stated, projecting features like autonomous summoning and cross-country drives within months. Shares surged over 10% in the aftermath, buoyed by visions of Tesla as a mobility titan.
By the Q1 2019 call, however, the script looped back. Musk promised to “solve autonomy this year,” teasing robotaxi fleets by 2020 and beta releases that would allow owners to monetize their cars. Competition from Waymo and Cruise intensified the pressure, sending $TSLA on wild swings as delays mounted, even as EV deliveries continued to shatter records.
Fast forward to the Q2 2025 call, and the refrain remained familiar. Musk hailed FSD v12.5 as “very close” to unsupervised operation and cited Dojo’s AI advances, noting ongoing regulatory snags. Meanwhile, NHTSA probes into crashes deepened the scrutiny. Adoption still hovered below 20%, and unfulfilled milestones from previous years cast long shadows over Tesla’s achievements in battery innovation and market dominance.
This relentless pattern fuels $TSLA volatility, invites federal oversight, and tempers industry-wide optimism on self-driving technology. Enthusiasts are left to wonder whether Musk’s bold charisma continues to drive real breakthroughs or merely prolongs the impasse.
The 2016 Hype Machine
Tesla’s 2016 Q3 earnings call marked the dawn of FSD fervor, a time when autonomous technology felt like science fiction inching toward reality. Elon Musk, ever the showman, unveiled Hardware 2.0, introducing cameras, radars, and processors embedded in every new Tesla to serve as the backbone for full autonomy.
“All Tesla cars being produced now have full self-driving hardware, meaning that in a few months there will be an Autonomous driving team working around the clock to take you from your house to your work, no matter where in the country,” Musk declared, framing it as a near-term revolution. He even teased feature rollouts like summon and park functionalities by year’s end, positioning FSD as a software upgrade away from ubiquity.
This wasn’t idle chatter. It ignited a stock surge, with $TSLA shares climbing over 10% after the call during the height of the AI boom. Investors eagerly bought into the optimism, seeing Tesla not merely as an automaker but as a mobility disruptor. Musk’s rhetoric echoed Silicon Valley’s ethos: hardware first, software magic second. Yet the promises ignored the neural network challenges of edge cases such as rain-slicked roads and unpredictable pedestrians, which would continue to trouble development.
Recognizing Tesla’s EV milestones, such as the Model 3 ramp-up, highlights Musk’s brilliance in execution. However, FSD exposed the widening gap between ambitious aspirations and the limits of achievable engineering.
2019’s Robotaxi Mirage
Fast-forward to the 2019 Q1 earnings call, and the FSD tune played on, louder and more elaborate. With delays from 2016 already whispering doubts, Musk doubled down, announcing the FSD beta for select owners and a grander vision: a fleet of one million robotaxis by 2020. “I think we will probably solve autonomy this year,” he boasted, echoing the “imminent” breakthroughs from three years prior. Language similarities abounded as Musk once again touted hardware readiness and over-the-air updates as silver bullets, while he scaled up to commercialization claims such as owners lending cars for autonomous ridesharing to generate passive income.
The context was fierce. Waymo was logging real miles in self-driving vans, and Cruise was partnering with GM for urban tests, pressuring Tesla to accelerate. Delays surfaced publicly; beta releases slipped, and features like cross-country drives still required supervision. Yet Musk amplified the hype, sending $TSLA stock on a rollercoaster, rising 20 percent initially before corrections. This escalation highlighted a recurring pattern: each call reframed past misses as stepping stones, but the core assurances of “full autonomy soon” persisted. Tesla’s EV dominance grew, with record deliveries, but FSD’s beta users continued to report glitches in complex scenarios, foreshadowing the scrutiny that lay ahead.
2025: Still Waiting
By the 2025 Q2 earnings call, the broken record skipped once more, now with a weary familiarity. Musk revisited FSD v12.5, promising regulatory approvals for unsupervised driving in select states by mid-year and AI training leaps via Dojo supercomputers. “We’re very close to cracking full self-driving,” he reiterated, mirroring 2016’s hardware optimism and 2019’s timeline urgency, while citing updated hurdles like federal red tape and data privacy. Phrases like “a few months away” resurfaced, alongside nods to robotaxi unveilings delayed yet again from prior vows.
Real-world setbacks paint a starker picture: NHTSA investigations into FSD-related crashes, including a fatal 2024 incident, have capped adoption at under 20% of eligible vehicles. Safety statistics show FSD interventions every 500 miles, which is still far from the “safer than humans” benchmark Musk touts. Meanwhile, its market share in autonomous technology continues to lag behind Waymo’s commercial operations. Tesla’s EV sales hit new highs, but FSD revenue remains negligible, a fraction of projections. The repetition isn’t just linguistic; it’s a cycle of unachieved milestones, from 2016’s feature teases to 2025’s regulatory pivots, widening the chasm between words and wheels on the road.
Analysis and Implications
To crystallize the loop, consider this comparison table drawn from earnings transcripts:
| Year | Key Quote | Promised Timeline | Actual Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | “All Tesla cars… could be fully self-driving” | Features by end-2016; full autonomy soon after | Basic Autopilot only; no unsupervised driving |
| 2019 | “We will probably solve autonomy this year” | Robotaxi fleet by 2020; beta releases imminent | Beta limited and supervised; no fleets launched |
| 2025 | “Very close to cracking full self-driving” | Unsupervised in states by mid-2025; robotaxi event | Ongoing probes; adoption <20%; delays persist |
This pattern erodes Tesla’s brand as an AI leader, fueling $TSLA volatility. FSD announcements still spike shares 5-10%, only for reality checks to drag them down. Ethically, it raises stakes for AI safety, pressuring standards amid competitors’ caution. Does Musk’s style spark innovation, or breed skepticism in self-driving cars? For more on AI ethics, check our post on autonomous vehicle regulations.
Photo by Stockcake.