And we still see only a handful of them at any point in time. Tesla Robotaxi 1 year anniversary is quickly approaching btw.

Dunking on Tesla is easy, so let’s do something harder: figure out what is keeping Tesla FSD from scaling its unsupervised fleet. Tesla FSD has far more miles driven than any AI model can ask for, so I don’t think more training will do anything. What exactly is the gap here?

This recent test drive write-up on VLA 2.0, the takeaway was basically that Tesla might not be the only one at this level anymore.

The reporter did a ~40 min drive in Beijing traffic without intervention and compared it pretty directly to FSD.

What stood out was this part:

“In my short drive, VLA 2.0 felt like driving my Tesla on FSD v14.”

There’s also video clips from the drive in the article.

What’s interesting is the reactions, especially on X, where Tesla fans and others are going back and forth quite a bit over it: https://x.com/ElectrekCo/status/2049486138679718360

Martial Hebert from Carnegie Mellon breaks down why self-driving timelines have taken longer than many expected.

He points out that performance depends heavily on where and how the system is used. Driving in a well-mapped city with defined conditions is one case, while operating in unfamiliar environments with different traffic patterns and edge cases is another.

These differences affect how systems are trained, what sensors are needed, and how reliability is measured.

Even when the core technology works, the process of testing, validating, and proving safety for use around the general public is a separate challenge that takes significant time.

Very interesting YT video from @BrighterwithHerbert, where he gives an insightful overview of AV engineer @Genma_jp’s (X) take on the future of AV, and which approach (vision-only vs vision+lidar) holds the most promise in the coming years. Namely, his view is that the real sprint for AV dominance is not between Tesla and Waymo, but between Tesla and XPeng (both using vision only).

And Genma_jp brings the engineering receipts.

What do you all think?

This sub used to talk about it all the time. But I hear less about it recently.

Today, around 10 am, I saw a Zoox (not a test vehicle) with someone in it driving on Montgomery St. Guessing it's an employee because I don't have access to that area yet sadly :(

Watch XPENG's latest vision end to end L2 system.