Elon Musk has dangled the dream of fully autonomous Teslas for years. Every year, in fact. Owners who shelled out thousands for Full Self-Driving are done waiting. Lawsuits pile up. Hardware falls short. And Tesla’s pivot to robotaxis leaves early buyers in the dust.
Take Tom LoSavio. The retired attorney bought a Model S in 2017. He paid $8,000 extra for FSD, on top of the car’s $100,000 price tag. Musk promised it would drive itself. Seven years later? Nothing. LoSavio’s class-action suit in California accuses Tesla of false claims. It gained class status in September. Tesla’s appealing. (Wall Street Journal)
LoSavio isn’t alone. A Dutch driver filed a collective claim last week. He wants his $8,000 back too. Tesla’s response? “Just be patient.” That’s after seven years. Hardware 3 in cars from 2018 to 2023 can’t handle full autonomy, Musk admitted in January 2025. No free upgrades in sight. (Futurism)
Frustration boils over on X. “Bro, it doesn’t matter how many times you say this, you do actually have to deliver at some point,” one user shot back at Musk in November. FSD v14.3? Musk called it the “last enormous piece of the puzzle.” Owners report regressions: hesitating at flashing reds, lane weaving, random braking. Even Tesla fans gripe. (X post)
Musk’s timeline slips keep coming. In 2015, self-driving in three years. Missed. 2016: Cross-country demo by 2017. Nope. 2023: He dubbed himself the “boy who cried FSD.” October 2024: Unsupervised in Texas and California by 2025. Still supervised. Cybercab production? “Agonizingly slow,” Musk warns. (Wikipedia)
FSD costs a fortune. Once $15,000 upfront. Now $99 monthly after Tesla ditched the one-time fee. Buyers feel duped. A judge ruled last year Tesla must refund one owner $10,000. The software? Beta at best. Drivers must watch constantly. NHTSA probes crashes in poor weather. Nine incidents, one fatal, across 3.2 million cars. (Wall Street Journal)
Tesla’s stock? Over $1 trillion valuation. Investors bet on robotaxis. Cybercab lacks steering wheel or pedals. Production maybe this month. But owners with HW3 vehicles? Forgotten. Musk touts safety stats—one crash per 5.3 million miles. Better than average. Still gets sued.
Europe delays hit too. FSD rollout pushed to 2026 after UN review. Dutch claims mount. Sigtermans, another owner: “Why did I buy it? Because I believed they would make it happen. I just didn’t think it would take them seven years, and still they wouldn’t deliver.” (Wall Street Journal)
And the software bugs. Tesla halted 2026.8.6 rollout. Lane-weaving on HW3 cars. V14.3 rollout? Spotty. Some get a “lite” version. Owners spot clues of big changes ahead. But trust erodes. “Tesla won’t ship FSD for that HW configuration,” one X user notes. Thousands demand refunds.
Musk pushes back. FSD “saves a lot of lives.” Unequivocal stats, he says. 90% of accident victims owe their lives to it, unknowingly. Criticism grows anyway. Ford’s Jim Farley jabs: Tesla lacks updated vehicles for China. Musk cites FSD delays there.
Owners revolt. Class actions in Australia too. LoSavio’s suit questions if Teslas on roads today will ever go autonomous. Tesla’s answer: Robotaxi fleets. Not your car. Early adopters? Left holding subscriptions to supervised software.
Progress exists. Thousands of miles intervention-free. But promises? Eternal. Owners paid for the future. Got beta. Patience wears thin. Lawsuits mount. Tesla’s self-driving saga drags on—fueled by hype, hobbled by hardware, haunted by history.
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