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Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot

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Tesla Model 3 takes a 45-minute joyride on Autopilot with no intervention

Tesla Model 3 exits freeway on Autopilot (Credit: Cf Tesla via YouTube)

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The current iterations of Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot hint that the company’s plans for a Full-Self Driving Robotaxi future may not be that far away.

As Model 3 owner and YouTube channel host Cf Tesla shows, Autopilot doesn’t have a lot of trouble driving through 8 miles of city streets and three highways with zero intervention from the driver. Autopilot took over the steering wheel for a whole 45 minutes and 20 seconds before the driver had to take over. Cf Tesla’s Model 3 comes with the Full Self-Driving package and was in Mad Max mode during testing.

A closer look at the video shows the car drove smoothly through city streets for the first 16 minutes. During the time, the driver used the turn signal, telling the car to make a lane change, which it did on its own. Later, 22 minutes in, the car made a sharp 90-degree into the highway and had no problems navigating the freeway and taking the off-ramp as it exited into a second highway with Tesla’s driving-assist feature.

The experience was similar during the drive through the second and third highways. He noticed a few minor glitches, none of which made a difference in the driving experience. Cf Tesla says the car sometimes makes a lane change even if there’s no car in front of it and then goes back to the previous lane. The car also turns its blinker on when passing an exit, which may be attributed to a flaw in the mapping system.

Although it was not full self-driving since the car didn’t have to navigate a roundabout or stop at a stoplight, going 45 minutes on Autopilot without the driver having to do anything except for making a command to change lanes signifies that Tesla may be another step closer to a real autonomous driving experience.

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“There’s so much to go in terms of actually being full self-driving, but come on, 45 minutes? That’s a long time to go without having to actually steer or use the brake or the accelerator myself, blinkers, all of that. That’s pretty cool. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to a full self-driving car,” says Cf Tesla.

At Tesla’s Q3 2019 earnings call, Elon Musk predicted that Tesla will be releasing a feature-complete FSD suite to members of its early access program by the end of 2019. Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD will be able to recognize stop signs, stoplights, and other road markings encountered during city driving. Musk clarified that while a feature-complete FSD will be able to drive the car from one destination to the other without the driver having to intervene, the driver will still be required to keep a close eye on the car.

“So it will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive—it will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy—low-speed autonomy with Summon,” Musk said. “You’ve got high-speed autonomy on the highway and intermediate speed autonomy, which really just means traffic lights and stop signs.”

When asked earlier this year when a feature-complete FSD is coming out, the Tesla chief only had one word to say: “Soon.”

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang regrets not investing more in Elon Musk’s xAI

The CEO stated that Nvidia is already an investor in xAI, but he wished he had given the artificial intelligence startup more money.

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Credit: Elon Musk/X

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that one of his investment regrets is not putting more money into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI. 

Speaking in a CNBC interview, Huang said Nvidia is already an investor in xAI but wished he had given the artificial intelligence startup more money. This was due to Musk’s record of building transformative companies such as Tesla and SpaceX.

A new wave of transformative AI firms

Huang said he’s very excited about xAI’s latest financing round. He described Musk’s company as part of a powerful new generation of AI developers, alongside OpenAI and Anthropic. that are reshaping the computing landscape.

“I’m super excited about the financing opportunity they’re doing. The only regret I have about xAI, we’re an investor already, is that I didn’t give him more money. You know almost everything that Elon’s pat of, you really want to be part of as well,” the Nvidia CEO stated.

The CEO also clarified Nvidia’s investment in xAI, revealing that Elon Musk had offered the investment opportunity to the chipmaker. “He (Musk) gave us the opportunity to invest in xAI. I’m just delighted by that,” Huang stated.

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AI investment boom

Huang contrasted today’s AI-driven economy with the early days of the internet. “Back then, all the internet companies combined were maybe $30 or $40 billion in size,” he said. “If you look at the hyperscalers now, that’s about $2.5 trillion of business already operating today.”

He also stated that the ongoing shift from CPU-based computing to GPU-powered generative AI represents a “multi-trillion-dollar buildout” that Nvidia is looking to support. Huang added that every Nvidia engineer now works with AI coding assistants such as Cursor, which he called his “favorite enterprise AI service,” and it has led to a major productivity boost across the company.

Watch Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s CNBC interview in the video below.

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Investor's Corner

Stifel raises Tesla price target by 9.8% over FSD, Robotaxi advancements

Stifel also maintained a “Buy” rating for the electric vehicle maker.

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Credit: Tesla China

Investment firm Stifel has raised its price target for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares to $483 from $440 over increased confidence in the company’s self-driving and Robotaxi programs. The new price target suggests an 11.5% upside from Tesla’s closing price on Tuesday.

Stifel also maintained a “Buy” rating despite acknowledging that Tesla’s timeline for fully unsupervised driving may be ambitious.

Building confidence

In a note to clients, Stifel stated that it believes “Tesla is making progress with modest advancements in its Robotaxi network and FSD,” as noted in a report from Investing.com. The firm expects unsupervised FSD to become available for personal use in the U.S. by the end of 2025, with a wider ride-hailing rollout potentially covering half of the U.S. population by year-end.

Stifel also noted that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet could expand from “tiny to gigantic” within a short time frame, possibly making a material financial impact to the company by late 2026. The firm views Tesla’s vision-based approach to autonomy as central to this long-term growth, suggesting that continued advancements could unlock new revenue streams across both consumer and mobility sectors.

Tesla’s FSD goals still ambitious

While Stifel’s tone remains optimistic, the firm’s analysts acknowledged that Tesla’s aggressive autonomy timeline may face execution challenges. The note described the 2025 unsupervised FSD target as “a stretch,” though still achievable in the medium term.

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“We believe Tesla is making progress with modest advancements in its Robotaxi network and FSD. The company has high expectations for its camera-based approach including; 1) Unsupervised FSD to be available for personal use in the United States by year-end 2025, which appears to be a stretch but seems more likely in the medium term; 2) that it will ‘probably have ride hailing in probably half of the populations of the U.S. by the end of the year’,” the firm noted.

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Tesla Cybertruck gets Full Self-Driving v14 release date, sort of

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Tesla Cybertruck owners are wondering when they will get access to the company’s Full Self-Driving version 14.1 that rolled out to other owners today for the first time.

Cybertruck owners typically receive Full Self-Driving updates slightly later than other drivers, as the process for the all-electric pickup is different. It is a larger vehicle that requires some additional attention from Tesla before FSD versions are rolled out, so they will be slightly delayed. CEO Elon Musk said the all-wheel steering technically requires a bit more attention before rollout as well.

After some owners got access to the v14.1 Full Self-Driving suite this morning, Cybertruck owners sought out a potential timeframe for when they would be able to experience things for themselves.

Tesla owners show off improvements with new Full Self-Driving v14 rollout

They were able to get an answer from Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Head of AI, who said:

“We got you. Coming soon.”

The release of FSD v14.1 for Cybertruck will not be tempered, either. Elluswamy then confirmed that Tesla would be rolling out the full-featured FSD v14 for the pickup, meaning it would be able to reverse and park itself, among other features.

Elluswamy said it would be capable of these features, which were void in other FSD releases for Cybertruck in the past.

Tesla’s rollout of FSD v14.1 brings several extremely notable changes and improvements to the suite, including more refined operation in parking garages, a new ability to choose parking preferences upon arriving at your destination, a new driving mode called “Sloth,” which is even more reserved than “Chill,” and general operational improvements.

Those who were lucky enough to receive the suite have already started showing off the improvements, and they definitely seem to be a step up from what v13’s more recent versions were capable of.

CEO Elon Musk called v14 “sentient” a few weeks back, and it seems that it is moving toward that. However, he did state that additional releases with more capabilities would be available in the coming weeks, but many owners are still waiting for this first version.

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