Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / BREAKING : Tesla owners paid $3 Billion and got no FSD.

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BREAKING : Tesla owners paid $3 Billion and got no FSD. · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everyone, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
• 0:05
  I'm thrilled to share some exciting news with you Over the
• 0:08
  next two weeks, we're evolving. We'll be broadening our focus to
• 0:11
  cover all the tech Titans shaping our world.
• 0:15
  You'll still get the latest insights on Elon Musk, plus so
• 0:19
  much more. So stay tuned for our official
• 0:22
  relaunch coming soon. Now let's get into this episode.
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  How many years and how many billions of dollars can one man
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  promise a future that never arrives before someone demands
• 0:35
  accountability? Now this is self driving tech
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  from Tesla. We're talking about FSD.
• 0:41
  And since 2016, Elon Musk has made bold, detailed, and very
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  public claims about Tesla's ability to deliver fully
• 0:50
  autonomous vehicles. He told customers that the road
• 0:54
  to robo taxis and driverless cross country trips was just a
• 0:57
  year or so away. He said the hardware already
• 1:01
  existed. He described a future of cars
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  that drove themselves while people sat back and watched or
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  even slept. Now, those statements weren't
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  vague hints or cautious predictions, though.
• 1:12
  They're treated as guarantees by Tesla's most loyal fans, and,
• 1:16
  more importantly, by Tesla's paying customers.
• 1:20
  And nearly a decade later, the promised reality has not
• 1:24
  arrived. But the profits certainly have
• 1:27
  for Tesla and Elon, and the gap between those two truths raises
• 1:32
  uncomfortable questions about what Tesla is actually selling
• 1:37
  now. Since the first wave of
• 1:39
  autonomous driving claims in 2016, Musk has repeated his
• 1:43
  promise almost every year, each time with slight variations and
• 1:47
  fresh urgency. In October 2016, he said that a
• 1:51
  Tesla would complete a full autonomous trip from Los Angeles
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  to New York by the end of 2017. And it didn't.
• 2:00
  In April 2019, he claimed over 1,000,000 Teslas would soon hit
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  the road with the hardware necessary for full autonomy that
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  the company would launch a Robo taxi in 2020.
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  That service hasn't arrived. It hasn't yet, and in January of
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  2020, Musk said full self driving would be a feature
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  complete by the end of the year. This is the phrase that sounded
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  promising, but meant very little to the people that were driving
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  the cars that were expecting to sit back and relax, take a nap,
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  and have their car drive for them.
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  Now, the system still required constant driver supervision, so
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  none of that actually happened. Now, each of these statements
• 2:41
  was not only incorrect in hindsight, but deeply misleading
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  in the moment. When the promise milestone came,
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  it went. There were no public apologies
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  or retractions. There was only a new promise set
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  one year ahead, again and again and again.
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  And the public has now been subjected to the cycle for
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  almost a decade. In January 2021, Musk and Tesla
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  would achieve Level 5 autonomy, the highest category of self
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  driving where there's no human input, by the end of that year.
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  And that didn't happen. Tesla continued to sell its Full
• 3:16
  Self Driving feature at a steep price, even as the tech
• 3:20
  continued to demand that drivers keep their hands on the wheel
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  and remain alert at all times. More recently, in early 2025,
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  Musk said Full Self Driving would launch in Austin as a paid
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  service this summer. Now, that version, according to
• 3:36
  available descriptions, still won't allow drivers to fully
• 3:40
  disengage from operating the vehicle.
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  In other words, it still doesn't Full Self Driving, but it still
• 3:47
  costs the customer $12,000. Now, the money Tesla has made
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  off this feature cannot be dismissed as a rounding error.
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  For every Tesla owner who added Full Self Driving to their
• 4:00
  vehicle of the time of purchase, and many of them did, is $12,000
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  collected upfront. Many of those buyers paid years
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  ago, and they're still waiting for what they were told they'd
• 4:10
  eventually receive. Because Tesla treats this
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  feature as software, not a separate product, there are no
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  refunds offered, and if the system doesn't meet
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  expectations, customers just can't get their money back.
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  Tesla simply keeps the cash now. That business model has raised
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  serious concerns, though, and this is a huge problem.
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  The company is exploiting customer trust while avoiding
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  meaningful accountability. And despite having a product
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  name that suggests it delivers complete vehicle autonomy, full
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  self driving still requires near constant oversight by the
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  driver. In some cases, the software has
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  caused erratic or unsafe driving behaviors, according to safety
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  investigations and user reports. Yet Tesla continues to market
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  and sell the feature with language that implies
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  breakthrough autonomy. Now, Musk's defenders often
• 5:02
  argue that predicting timelines and technology is increasingly
• 5:07
  difficult, especially in emerging fields like AI.
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  They say breakthroughs are non linear and the innovation is
• 5:13
  unpredictable. Now that's all true, but it
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  doesn't explain a pattern of consistent public over promising
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  followed by failure without correction.
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  Now, Tesla hasn't just been optimistic though.
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  The company has repeatedly set timelines that it did not meet
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  and has never provided refunds to customers who paid for
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  autonomy they never received. Now, and it's not Tesla's stock
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  price, brand image, and customer loyalty are all shaped in part
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  by the belief that the company is leading the future of
• 5:49
  transportation. It's an idea that Tesla is on
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  the cusp of full autonomy, and it adds value to the company and
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  also to Musk's public reputation and to his bank account.
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  It's a narrative that feeds directly into the stock market
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  valuation and manipulation, giving Tesla a financial
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  incentive to maintain it even when the technology falls short.
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  And when looking at how this effects everyday people like
• 6:15
  you, the people that want to buy a Tesla, the consequences become
• 6:19
  clearer. Thousands of Tesla buyers paid
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  extra, in many cases as far back as 2016, for a product that
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  hasn't come close to delivering what they expected and what was
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  promised. Some believe they were
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  purchasing future proof technology, convinced that Tesla
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  would unlock full autonomy through software updates.
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  Now, that belief was not irrational.
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  It was supported by statements the Musk made personally in
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  interviews, on earnings calls, and on social media.
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  And in practical terms, this means ordinary customers have
• 6:51
  been bearing the financial risk of Tesla's technical
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  shortcomings. They paid in advance for
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  something that was never finished, and their money helped
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  the company pad its revenue and profit margins for years.
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  Elon Musk is getting extremely rich from this, and Tesla's
• 7:07
  earnings reports benefited from these FSD sales.
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  The company's valuation, Musk's personal wealth were boosted by
• 7:14
  that perception of technical momentum.
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  There's also a safety component that can't be ignored.
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  When drivers believe their cars are more autonomous than they
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  truly are, they may place undue trust in systems not equipped to
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  handle real world complexity without supervision.
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  Federal safety regulators have documented multiple incidents in
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  which Tesla driver assist systems failed in critical
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  moments. Some of these failures have led
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  to crashes, and in those cases, the blurred line between
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  advanced driver assistance and full autonomy becomes absolutely
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  dangerous. Yet even in the face of
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  technical setbacks, legal pressure, and growing
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  skepticism, Tesla continues to operate without formal
• 7:55
  regulation around how it markets and sells its software.
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  While some lawmakers have called for closer scrutiny, so far
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  there's been no consistent federal framework to stop
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  companies from using terms like full self driving unless they
• 8:08
  meet specific standards. And part of the reason that Musk
• 8:11
  has been able to maintain this pattern is because of the way he
• 8:14
  communicates using X. He often announces updates or
• 8:18
  predictions directly to his massive following, bypassing
• 8:22
  formal press channels, and his fans interpret these statements
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  as absolute truths. Many believe that delays are the
• 8:28
  result of bad luck or external obstacles, not Elon Musk
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  promising something that the Tesla engineers cannot deliver
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  now. That creates a powerful echo
• 8:39
  chamber where disappointment is constantly postponed.
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  The timeline shifts from year to year.
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  The goal posts move, but the emotional investment remains.
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  Some customers say they still believe that Tesla will
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  eventually deliver, even after being let down for almost 10
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  years. That long term loyalty, rooted
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  more in belief than in actual evidence of FSD, allows Tesla to
• 9:03
  keep selling a product that doesn't even exist in the form
• 9:07
  that Elon Musk has promised. Now, Wall Street has rewarded
• 9:11
  that approach, though Despite repeated delays, the prospect of
• 9:15
  autonomy continues to inflate Tesla's value.
• 9:18
  Analysts cite the potential of Full Self driving as a future
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  revenue stream, even though the technology has missed every
• 9:24
  milestone so far. This speculative optimism
• 9:27
  continues to shape public perception, even as the actual
• 9:31
  performance of the software remains underwhelming.
• 9:34
  The question that looms over all of this is not whether Tesla
• 9:38
  will one day achieve true full autonomy.
• 9:40
  They will eventually. It's one of the customers who
• 9:42
  paid 10s of thousands of dollars based on promises from nearly a
• 9:46
  decade ago will ever receive what they were sold.
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  Some of these people have sold their cars already, so they paid
• 9:53
  $12,000 for something that they will never, ever be able to use.
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  They might have moved on to a different brand, and there's no
• 10:02
  way to move full self driving from Tesla to another brand now.
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  If they don't get it, will anyone be held responsible?
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  And without enforcement, companies can keep making these
• 10:14
  wild claims without being obligated to fulfill them.
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  Musk's long string of missed targets has made this apparent.
• 10:21
  There's no external mechanism currently in place that forces
• 10:24
  Tesla to either deliver the Primus software or issue refunds
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  for what was not provided. Now these customers stuck in a
• 10:31
  loop of waiting and a hoping while the company moves on to
• 10:35
  the next promise and continues to gather money from these
• 10:39
  people that are suckered into spending $12,000 on something
• 10:44
  that doesn't exist. Now in the end, the real product
• 10:47
  Tesla has been selling may not be full self driving at all.
• 10:50
  Maybe belief. A belief that the company is on
• 10:53
  the edge of solving a absolutely insanely complex problem.
• 10:58
  A belief that your $12,000 investment will someday pay off,
• 11:03
  not just for you, but for the company.
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  And you're part of that. You're part of this community.
• 11:08
  It's a belief that Elon Musk knows something that the rest of
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  us don't. But belief isn't technology.
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  Belief doesn't drive a car safely through a construction
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  zone or detect a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
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  Belief doesn't make a feature full if it still needs human
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  intervention. And after nearly 10 years of
• 11:27
  shifting deadlines, missed goals and cost the upgrades and maybe
• 11:31
  time to stop asking when Tesla will deliver self driving, the
• 11:35
  better question is whether the ever intent to deliver it at all
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  or whether the plan was always to keep selling the dream one
• 11:42
  year at a time. Hey, thank you so much for
• 11:44
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 11:47
  support. If you could take a second and
• 11:48
  hit subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
• 11:51
  platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly
• 11:54
  appreciate it. It helps out the show
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  tremendously and you'll never miss an episode.
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  And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
• 12:02
  caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
• 12:05
  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stage Zero.
• 12:10
  And please take care of yourselves and each other, and
• 12:13
  I'll see you tomorrow.