Back in the early 2000s, everyone thought that 20 years later, people will be living futuristic lifestyles with technology taking over and the skies would be swarming with air traffic. Sadly, it’s 2021 and there are no flying cars but, there are self-driving cars which are maybe just as interesting as flying cars.
Tesla has been tirelessly working to make the self-driving car dream a reality where people no longer have to worry about driving at all. While there has been some advancement in this case now, they want to take it one step further by introducing the Full Self-Driving system.
What is FSD?
The owner and CEO of Tesla Elon Musk may call this new technology a full self-driving system but the reality is far from it. Generally, one would assume that new technology installed in a vehicle would allow the passengers to travel without worrying about the vehicle going out of control. But unfortunately, the FSD is referred to as the sophisticated version of driver’s assistance (Level 2).
Tesla’s new system allows:
- Controls of the car’s speed through automatic brakes and acceleration,
- Detection of objects and spacing, and
- Provision of semi-automatic lane change, when the driver presses the turn signal and when it is safe to make a lane change.
Price of the FSD
Now that Tesla has officially announced it, it is time to get to the real point: the profit. FSD runs on a subscription service and the company is planning to charge $199 every month for an upgrade from Basic Autopilot to an FSD system. And that is not all. Installing the system into your vehicle can cost you $10,000.
Reports have suggested that the FSD system will boost profit greatly, expected to rise from $600 million in 2021 to $102 billion by 2032, only if 80% of the Tesla vehicles make the transition from basic autopilot to the new FSD system. However, there is a major obstacle that holds Tesla back.
Forget about flying cars, the future is cars all about self-driving cars that don’t require owners to lift even a finger.