#self driving

A duo of Tesla shareholder-influencers tried to complete Elon Musk’s coast-to-coast self-driving ride that he claimed Tesla would be able to do in 2017 and they crashed before making it about 60 miles.

In 2016, Elon Musk infamously said that Tesla would complete a fully self-driving coast-to-coast drive between Los Angeles and New York by the end of 2017.

The idea was to livestream or film a full unedited drive coast-to-coast with the vehicle driving itself at all times.

We are in 2025 and Tesla never made that drive.

Despite the many missed autonomous driving goals, many Tesla shareholders believe that the company is on the verge of delivering unsupervised self-driving following the rollout of its ‘Robotaxi’ fleet in Austin, which requires supervision from Tesla employees inside the vehicles, and improvements to its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) systems inside consumer vehicles, which is still only a level 2 driver assist system that requires driver attention at all times as per Tesla.

Two of these Tesla shareholders and online influencers attempted to undertake a coast-to-coast drive between San Diego, CA, and Jacksonville, FL, in a Tesla Model Y equipped with the latest FSD software update.

AAA did some pretty solid testing on three of the top driver assist systems. Not "Full Self Driving" but stuff like adaptive cruise & lane keeping. Specifically, they wanted to know how well these systems work in heavy traffic.

The results are depressing. Wow. We have a long way to go before cars can be trusted to drive themselves, even for short durations.

Today's assisted driving systems seem to add to the driver's stress, rather than alleviate it. If you're in 100% Driving A Car Mode you're alert, you're steering, you're anticipating what that other stupid car is going to do, you're watching out for traffic signals & street signs. You are engaged. And yes, that takes a lot of energy. For many it's stressful.

Now you're given Driver Assists. The car accelerates & stops on its own while you touch the steering wheel rarely, only to change direction. On straightaways you don't even need to touch the wheel, because the car centers itself in the lane, even on curves. Cameras track your face to see if you're asleep or dead, and the car yells at you if you're not paying attention.

And the system... mostly works.

The problem is, you can't anticipate exactly how or when it'll fuck up. That means your vigilance is already 150% higher than if you were in control of everything.

Not knowing when is terrifying. WAY more stressful than driving the car yourself. You're in constant predator/prey mode, waiting for the wrong twitch of that wheel, the sudden swerve into traffic, the red light the car "didn't see". Babies! In the crosswalk! Babies & puppies! Oh my fucking god how could you not see the babies & puppies & kitties in the crosswalk you murdering monster.

And that feeling never stops, the whole time you're behind the wheel of a Self Driving car. I'm surprised this point isn't talked about more: the negative psychological impact of almost Self Driving cars.

A: When the vehicle came to a stop at a red light, waited a few seconds, and then attempted to run the red light while traffic was actively going through the intersection, causing Musk to slam on the brakes and deactivate the system.

B: When the vehicle got caught in a Yellow Light and was taking way longer than necessary to stop, prompting a verbal "I hope it stops," panic from Musk.

Another job viable for people, especially immigrants, disabled, and neurodivergent people that's being phased out is uber and taxi services. The self driving car is not only unsafe, it's actively taking jobs. I trust a human more than a self driving car (especially living in a coastal city with cliffs).

We need legislation to protect our jobs and automate industries that are dangerous for humans to do. I went to my local job center, do you know what they were hiring for? Coal miner. What century are we living in? Humans deserve safe and clean jobs. Have the robots mine the coal.