Elon Musk Says FSD Will Make Drivers Like Lift Operators, Now No Longer Needed

Elon Musk said that in the future the driver will no longer be needed as is the case with elevator operators today. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA – CEO of Tesla Inc. Elon Musk, said that customers who pay for driver assistance, which he claims will one day offer the operation of fully autonomous Tesla vehicles, are "betting on the future." To ensure that, he stated that Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature needed to work properly.

"As of now, does it make sense for someone to subscribe to FSD? I think that's debatable," Musk said.

Musk said once Tesla could prove that the system was operating more safely than the average human driver, government regulators would allow it to operate. He also compared a Fully Self-Driving car to an elevator without a human operator.

“In the past, we had elevator operators with big buttons and they operated elevators and moved between floors. But they were tired or maybe drunk or something or distracted and once in a while, someone would be shaved in half between floors,” Musk said.

"That's the kind of situation we're in with autonomous cars that are going to be so safe that it's actually not safe to operate the car manually, relatively speaking," said Elon Musk.

Tesla this month made the FSD feature available through a monthly subscription for $99 or $199, depending on the vehicle model, so drivers can try it out without paying the full $10,000 upfront price for the option. But don't expect the price to stay the same. It might turn out to be more expensive.

"I mean, any price is going to be wrong, so we're going to adjust that over time because we see the value proposition makes sense to people," Musk said.

Full Self-Driving currently allows Tesla to orient itself in lanes, pass other cars, park, self-driving through parking lots to pick up their owners and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.

The Beta version of the software available to a small group of testers adds additional functionality that includes the ability to drive on city streets. The video posted online by the owner has shown it is far from perfect in operation at this stage and still requires someone to sit in the driver's seat and pay attention to the operation.

Much of Tesla's $650 billion valuation is tied to the company's pledge to launch a fully autonomous ride-hailing service using customer vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving.