Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company is in discussions with major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) about licensing its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. FSD is Tesla’s advanced driving assistance system (ADAS) that can automate driving tasks on highways and urban streets. If other automakers adopt FSD technology, they would need to integrate both Tesla’s software and hardware suite.
Unlike many competitors, Tesla’s approach to ADAS and autonomy relies solely on computer vision processing, using cameras rather than a combination of sensors like lidar and radar. During Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call, Musk also announced that the company will allow the transfer of FSD software to new vehicles, but only in the third quarter. This represents a one-time opportunity for current owners who have already purchased FSD software but want to upgrade to a new Tesla model without losing access to the software.
Tesla currently has around 400,000 vehicles equipped with FSD onboard, with the goal of expanding this number to increase the amount of real-world driving data collected by these cars. Musk emphasized the importance of having vast amounts of video data to train FSD and achieve full autonomy. Tesla has accumulated 300 million miles driven on FSD, a number that Musk believes will seem small in the near future.
In addition to data collection, compute power is crucial for Tesla’s pursuit of autonomy. Musk stated that having enough training compute is the real limit to progress in full self-driving. As part of their autonomy strategy, Tesla will soon start production of the Dojo training computer. Dojo, which Musk announced in 2021, is designed to train Tesla’s neural nets, which power the FSD system and the company’s humanoid robot, Optimus. Tesla plans to invest over $1 billion in Dojo for capital expenditures and research and development.
While Tesla already utilizes a large Nvidia GPU-based supercomputer, the custom-built Dojo will utilize Tesla-designed chips. Musk claims that Dojo will be capable of 1 exaflop, or 1 quintillion floating-point operations, per second. Tesla’s earnings report indicates that the company promises Dojo will deliver 100 exaflops by October 2024. Such compute power could perform calculations that would take a regular desktop computer billions of years to complete.
It is important to consider that these claims should be taken with caution. Tesla’s success in achieving full autonomy relies heavily on Dojo performing as expected. Musk previously stated that without FSD, Tesla’s value would be zero. The company has faced regulatory scrutiny regarding the safety of FSD and its Autopilot feature, which has been linked to several crashes, including fatalities.
Musk acknowledged the criticism of his optimistic predictions, but he remains confident that FSD will surpass human capabilities by the end of this year. The pursuit of full autonomy and the successful implementation of FSD are crucial to Tesla’s vision of becoming more than just an automaker, offering autonomous vehicles for hire as robotaxis.
It is clear that Tesla’s discussions with major OEMs about licensing FSD technology demonstrate the company’s willingness to collaborate and share its advancements in autonomous driving. As the industry continues to evolve, partnerships and the integration of advanced technologies are key to driving progress towards a fully autonomous future.
