Elon Musk and influencers seemingly enjoy best Full Self-Driving experience as Tesla is accused of prioritizing fixes for "VIP" users
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) is one of Elon Musk’s favorite features to hype up and the tech billionaire can often be found praising the technology online. However, a quick search on Google is enough to confirm that many Tesla owners don’t share Musk’s enthusiasm for the technology because it reportedly doesn’t work well enough to justify its asking price.
For instance, upon inquiring whether FSD was worth its asking price on r/TeslaModelY, user thoracicexcursion was met with many dismal responses. One reply termed the FSD system “a complete waste of money” while another called it “a gimmick”.
So, we have to ask: Why are ordinary Tesla users seemingly not finding FSD as useful or good as Elon Musk claims it to be?
The answer could be a bit controversial as a report from Business Insider (BI) claims that Tesla “prioritizes” improving FSD for Elon Musk and other “VIP” users. BI came to this conclusion courtesy of statements from “more than a dozen” active and past Tesla employees.
According to employee testimonials obtained by BI, Tesla’s FSD data annotators are focused more on labeling routes frequented by Elon Musk and VIP Tesla owners, like Tesla influencers, who are likely to share their FSD experience with an audience online. One employee told BI that their Team was instructed to focus on routes around the Twitter (Now X) headquarters in San Fransisco in 2022/early 2023, matching the timeframe of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter which was completed in October 2022 after months of business drama.
BI also obtained other such testimonials with former employees recalling labeling data around Tesla and Space X campuses in Austin and California.
Tesla owners categorized as “VIP” also reportedly had their video footage scrutinized more. “Tesla Influencers” like Tesla Raj and Chuck Cook were among the people on the VIP list and as such their routes were prioritized.
John Bernal, a former Autopilot tester at Tesla, alleged to BI that, in one of the instances of the company giving priority to data from influencers, he tested San Fransisco’s famous Lombard Street after Tesla Raj had shown a video of FSD failing to work properly on the street.
Chuck Cook even claimed that test drivers frequent his neighborhood and that Tesla was indeed paying attention to his content.
So, it appears to be quite clear that Tesla is making sure that FSD and Autopilot work the best for Elon Musk and people with a significant online reach.
Tesla fixing FSD for Elon Musk and influencers makes sense
While on the surface it seems quite deceptive of Tesla to better the FSD experience for Elon Musk and a handful of other people, the end result could improve FSD for everyone.
For starters, it makes sense for Elon Musk, the face of Tesla, to have the best FSD experience to present to the world. This in turn tempts more people to give FSD a chance, giving Tesla more data to work with.
Similarly, Tesla influencers and content creators often test the EVs in worst-case scenarios, e.g. Lombard Street with its numerous sharp turns, exposing the glaring holes in the FSD software. Once recognized, these issues can be fixed by Tesla engineers to the benefit of everyone.
Source(s)
Business Insider (paywall), Teaser image: Bram Van Oost on Unsplash
