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Ten years ago, Tesla promised its customers that their vehicles would soon be able to drive themselves, thanks to software updates. In 2025, this promise has still not been kept. Worse still, Elon Musk now admits that millions of owners will never get what they paid for.
A dream of autonomy sold at a premium
In 2016, Tesla revolutionised the automotive market by announcing that all its vehicles produced from that date onwards would be equipped with the necessary hardware to become fully autonomous. The promise was simple: thanks to software updates, every Tesla would one day be able to drive itself without human intervention. For many buyers, this is a decisive argument. Some are investing up to $15,000 in the Full Self-Driving (FSD) package, convinced that they are taking part in the advent of the autonomous car.
The technological challenge is a bold one. Tesla equips its cars with a suite of cameras, radars and a computer called HW2.5, which will be rapidly replaced in 2019 by the HW3, designed to pave the way for total autonomy.
But the road to autonomy is full of pitfalls. By 2023, the HW3’s technical limitations were becoming apparent. Software updates struggled to deliver on the initial promise. Tesla then launched a new generation of hardware, the HW4, which was much more powerful, but incompatible with the old models. However, official communication remains reassuring: HW3 owners will also be able to access autonomous driving without supervision, thanks to future software improvements.
In January 2025, the discourse changed radically. Elon Musk publicly admitted that the HW3 would never achieve the promised autonomy. He announced that the hardware would be replaced, but only for customers who had purchased the FSD package, and with no specific timetable.
Silence worries owners
Four months after this announcement, Tesla has still not presented any concrete plan to replace the faulty computers. The owners affected, some of whom have been Tesla customers for almost ten years, are left in a state of uncertainty. Many are finding that their vehicles no longer receive significant updates for the SDF, and that the current version is a long way from the much-vaunted unsupervised autonomy.
For some, the pill is all the more bitter because Tesla’s promise did not just apply to SDF buyers, but to all vehicles produced since 2016, which were supposed to be “ready for autonomy”. The resale value of these cars has been affected, and confidence in the brand seriously shaken.
Faced with the lack of a solution, many owners say they are ready to turn their backs on Tesla, or even switch to another manufacturer. Class action suits have already been launched in the United States to denounce what amounts to misleading advertising and demand compensation. Experts estimate that these proceedings could cost the brand billions of dollars.
Tesla now seems to be focusing on renewing its fleet rather than retaining its original customers. Is the strategy to push HW3 owners to buy a new vehicle, rather than to keep the promise made ten years ago? Many people see this as an outright abandonment of the electric car pioneers.
Rather than correcting this, Tesla is now concentrating its efforts on developing an in-house fleet of robot taxis, operating in limited geographical areas and under remote supervision. The aim is no longer to turn every Tesla into an autonomous car, but to offer a shared mobility service, piloted by the latest models equipped with the HW4 or the future HW5.
For customers who believed in Elon Musk’s vision in 2016, the reality is bitter: the promise of a car that evolves and improves over time has turned into a technological mirage. Ten years on, the dream of universal autonomy is slipping away, leaving behind a generation of disappointed drivers and a brand confronted with its own commitments.
