So what does "Full Self Driving" mean these days. Last time I check, a couple of years ago, all it meant was "Will also try to obey STOP signs", and that was it.

But then, Tesla's sales are in freefall, so Musk is presumably desperate to milk the mugs while he can.

Tesla car sales are certainly well down on previous years, and couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I'm especially pleased to see the arse has fallen out of WankaTruck (tm) sales, where The Man originally said he was gearing up for 250k sales, and last year only 20,000 mugs could be found in all of America to buy one.

But sadly the stock price of Tesla is up, significantly so, because gormless investors are sucking up the Elonade about his promises to make and sell robots and robotaxis. The dismal track record of lies, delays, and broken promises on the WankaTruck, FSD, robotaxis and other things has already been forgotten, and he's busy telling the markets that he will have robots to sell by 2027, and a national fleet of robotaxis by the end of this year.

Investors and their money, eh?

> " Elonade"

Well, to paraphrase a saying, when life gives you piss, make Elonade.

That's what you get taking too much Special K

Tesla also appear to be trialling a new feature in the UK, where they refuse to help the police deal with speeding cases:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0r44zpprg7o

If the driver isn't identified, then they can avoid speeding fines and, perhaps more importantly, penalty points on their licence. If Tesla keep offering this service, then I suppose it may lead to an uptick in UK sales among a certain sort of clientele.

There should be a fine related to a business turnover, and previous events, in that sort of a case. Might get them to have someone actually dealing with mail/support.

"If the driver isn't identified, then they can avoid speeding fines"

Surely the fine's issued to the registered owner and then it's up to the owner to nominate the driver if they weren't driving it themselves?

Which is what happened: the registered keeper was Tesla Financial Services.

So how many penalty points does Tesla now have? Surely enough to disqualify it from driving...

Generally a business or organisation will get away with it once or twice, claiming they don't know who was driving. After that a senior person, e.g. the company secretary or in one case a Deputy Chief Constable, will be prosecuted instead and get the points on their license. The threat is usually enough to improve record keeping!

@Yorick Hunt

Yeah.. that is how it works in the UK

Hopefully it has improved a bit over the years (but I doubt it*)

Years ago we had car TWOC*ed (& also discovered various items stolen from it when it was recovered, e.g. bolted in child seat)

Despite it all being reported we received speeding fine notice (relating to night it was stolen) & had to jump through a few hoops to get it rescinded (giving our crime number for the car theft, describing what happened). Ideally system would have some sensible cross referencing against theft of that vehicle, but I would not be surprised if victims of car theft even now still have to fight invalid speeding fines generated by the TWOCers.

*TWOC - taken without consent, used to be a common term used in UK for vehicle "theft" (as often it was not "theft" as, if not stolen for parts etc by for a "joyride" then usually recovered (albeit often damaged**) so not permanently deprived of it (so not technically theft))

** In our case, ended up getting insurance to write it off as it was ****ed & as it was a low value old car not worth insurers getting it repaired (I'm guessing driven at speed over some of the many roadbumps in the area - the parts & labour costs for the Mcpherson strut replacements alone about the same as resale value of the car)

Initially a Notice of Intended Prosecution is issued to the registered keeper (ie. the person responsible for paying the VED and insuring it) The registered keeper is not necessarily the legal owner.

It is then for the registered keeper to respond with the details of who was driving it at the time if it was someone other than them.

Also TWOC = Taken Without Owners Consent ;)

Interesting story. Good for Tesla for not being a snitch.

the wage of a full time chauffeur/chauffeuse might on the way down meet the more rapidly rising cost of Musk's FSD † subscription.

† Frankly Suicidal Delusion ?

Elon Musk indicates the trajectory of Tesla subscription pricing - click to enlarge

My reaction -->

Bravo Mr Speed

[Airplane mode] "Buddy is NOT a narsty, right?"

That caption is absolutely brilliant, it's a welcome journey back to ElReg's glorious feeding-hand-biting times of lore.

[icon: A well deserved one to the author]

Mouthpiece ? Backpassage given it is Shitter.

A speech from the throne, I suppose.

The self annointed emperor of Mars although all that Earth 2.0 nonsense has gone deathly quiet unlike his imperial majesty.

In addition, modern hands-free systems mean that operating a cellphone is perfectly possible from a moving vehicle. Possible, possibly, but not necessarily wise or advisable. It still divides one's mental attention from the task at hand. Ask me how I know.

Ask me how I know.

Go on?

Been out of the news cycle lately so gotta get some attention. He also is saying the safety driver is being pulled from the robo taxis in austin. What is not said is that there will be a car following the taxi to ensure operation. So I'm guessing remote controlled from the car behind the robo. Sort of like the bmw in the bond movie where he had the remote for the car. It was a fairly unbelievable chase scene though. It did end in a fiery explosion of the car, so fingers crossed the robotaxi does the same.

So you pay double for a robotaxi... not so much 'car sharing'...

"If Tesla waits until FSD reaches the point where it can be trusted to pilot a vehicle with the driver asleep at the wheel, "

It's already driving around with no-one behind the wheel, and doing so remarkably well with paying customers. That's still geofenced, but is now without an employee on board at all - and that geofence keeps on growing.

Whilst they are putting the price up, they might also consider changing the name to more accurately reflect that is actually little more than a glorified lane-assist, and certainly not anywhere near capable of carrying out the level of driving autonomy that the name clearly suggests.