Tesla owners need to get comfortable with an uncomfortable possibility:
Sleeping in the back seat of your personal Tesla may still be many years away.
I’ve been tracking FSD progress for almost 4 years. Every major version keeps getting better, but the gains are getting smaller.
v11 +1.37
v12 +1.39
v13 +1.09
v14 +0.78
Since v12, each major has added roughly 75% of the improvement of the one before it.
If that trend continues:
v15 → ~8.8
v16 → ~9.2
We’re already past the average 322-day (10month) gap between major versions, so I’m expecting v15 soon.
8.8 is the number I’ll be watching. If v15 lands significantly below that, it means the improvement curve is flattening faster than the current trend predicts.
But here’s the problem: the last 10% isn’t just another 10%.
Comfort is already at 9.3 on my tracker. What’s left is a mix of stubborn everyday problems that somehow still aren’t solved, like navigation, potholes, parking, signs, and the long tail of less frequent safety-critical edge cases like thin barriers, overhanging objects and unusual road situations.
Navigation is especially frustrating. After almost 4 years of tracking FSD, it doesn’t feel like it’s getting much better.
This is the march of nines. The closer we get, the harder each additional nine becomes.
And there’s another part of this I think people are overlooking.
If Tesla can continue growing FSD subscriptions simply by making Supervised FSD better and progressively less actively monitored, where is the urgency to push personal vehicles into true unsupervised operation?
That next step brings a completely different level of regulatory scrutiny and liability.
Meanwhile, Tesla has another path. It can roll out unsupervised Robotaxi city by city, control the fleet and operating area, and expand as the system proves itself.
That’s a much more controlled way to take on the risk than allowing millions of privately owned Teslas to drive around without anyone in the driver’s seat.
So I absolutely expect FSD to keep getting better. I expect the nags to keep disappearing. And I expect Supervised FSD to get incredibly boring in the best possible way.
But “better FSD” and “I can sleep in the back seat” are not the same finish line.
I don’t know about you but I love this journey. It’s fascinating to experience and I look forward what the next couple of major version releases brings.