Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
There’s no doubt about it — Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD), still “Supervised,” is much better today than it was a year or two ago. It has gotten much better over time, even if it did take several years longer than Elon Musk expected. But whether it is now “Level 4” self-driving, well, that is hotly debated every day among fans and critics. For the first time I’m aware of, though, a Wall Street analyst, Piper Sandler’s Alexander Potter, has chimed in with his opinion that Tesla FSD has “effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy (at least in most conditions).”
These are some key reasons he makes this claim:
Tesla is offering lower insurance premiums for customers who used FSD a lot. “You don’t cut prices on a product that you think is going to generate claims,” he said.
Volume production of the Cybercab began in April. This is a capital investment of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” and makes no sense if FSD isn’t ready to deploy widely, Potter argues.
