Lifestyle
Tesla and fully autonomous cars will change your life
In the past decade new technology has brought about many big changes. The pace of that change has been exponential. But you’d better buckle up because we’re on the verge of another major one: autonomous cars. And while you may be tired of new technology being called “disruptive”, it really is the best way to describe the kind of change autonomous cars are about to bring about.
What could our daily lives be like in the years ahead for owners of full self-driving Teslas?
Today, you might use your Model S or Model X to get to work, where it sits in a parking lot until it’s time to come home. But with full self-driving capabilities, a Tesla could pick you up, drop you off, and even carpool the kids, all without human guidance. Autonomous vehicles can easily shuttle passengers between gaps in transit routes — and even take them door-to-door. With this level of autonomy, passengers might not need to own a car at all — they’ll just order a car when they need one, and it will drive itself over to help out.
But the possibilities for autonomous vehicles don’t stop there. Right now Tesla is developing software that will allow your car to be useful even when you’re not using it. In the future, you might be able to send your autonomous vehicle out independently to act as an autonomous taxi or delivery vehicle and earn you money.
Ultimately this could all change the way we own and use cars. For many, cars might stop being prized (and expensive) possessions. And car “ownership” may become more like a service or utility, like electricity and home internet.
Historically, cars have had a massive impact on the physical world. How will autonomous cars affect the environment?
Autonomous cars may well end up reducing the need to own a car. Many will rideshare for cost or convenience, reducing the number of cars-per-household and leading to fewer cars on the road overall.
Fewer cars means less traffic, less noise, and streets that are calmer and safer.
Street parking, parking structures, and even the suburban two-car garage could become things of the past. That will not only free up real estate, allowing for more greenery (which will obviously help the environment), but less concrete means less heat being reflected into the atmosphere, and that will help cool down cities (and, potentially, the world as a whole).
Shared or reduced vehicle ownership and more efficient use of vehicles generally (through ridesharing, ride hailing, more convenient use of transit, more efficient traffic flow/patterns capable through autonomous vehicles, etc.) will also have positive environmental effects.
In short, autonomous cars aren’t just offering a change in the way we drive, they are offering the potential for much bigger changes — and much greener changes.
What does the “autonomous future” offer in terms of safety?
Many technologies associated with autonomous driving are already common in today’s cars. In 2014 European regulations required all new vehicles to include autonomous emergency brake systems. We also have technology such as dozing driver alarms, active cruise control, and lane keeping assist. Combined, these technologies are already significantly reducing the number and severity of accidents. One study in France estimated a 15% reduction in fatal pedestrian accidents and a 38% reduction in pedestrian accidents with serious injury. This equates to thousands of lives saved every year.
Data from the NHTSA’s 2008 National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey shows that 93% of crashes are caused by “human error” and “driver error”. Does this mean we will see a 93% reduction in vehicle accidents when autonomous vehicles are the norm? Time will tell, but there is little doubt there will be a significant reduction in accidents as we are already seeing with the driver assist technologies in vehicles today.
And, of course, all this is just the beginning.
Autonomous cars will be packed with a suite of sensors that will be far more accurate and attentive than the human senses. They will have a constantly-updated picture of everything around the car at all times, be able to process this data at lightning speed, and be able to react more quickly than humans, basing decisions on more data than a human driver could ever hope to have.
Eventually autonomous cars will be able to communicate with one another in real time, coordinating their actions in an emergency. This could mean predicting and avoiding an accident – even if it occurs many cars ahead. The future for safety in autonomous cars has a great deal of potential.
However, there are also interesting debates about the ethics of autonomous vehicle technology. These include debates about what an autonomous vehicle might do in a situation where the car needs to choose between two bad options – like hitting a pedestrian or another vehicle – where both options could result in tragedy.
One thing we can expect is a gap in the perception of safety. Older drivers will probably be more suspicious of the technology than younger drivers. This has been the case with every new technology throughout history, so we should expect it with autonomous cars as well. Newer drivers are more likely to embrace new technology and accept it as normal. Once this perspective is fully adopted, car designs could be changed more dramatically. We have already seen concept cars with inward facing seats, where people could connect or catch up on work while driving. In this environment, EVE for Tesla shows us how connected, autonomous cars could allow us to re-capture lost time in our vehicles, by making the vehicle as connected as your home computer – and more.
EVE for Tesla Dashboard
It certainly sounds like a lot of changes. How long will it take before all this happens?
In some ways, the future is already here, as advanced autonomous technology is already appearing in today’s cars. And Tesla will have fully autonomous technology available next year… or maybe the following, by the time it gets through regulators.
But generally it’s going to be a gradual process spanning decades. As late as the 1940s it wouldn’t have been unusual to see horse-drawn wagon on city streets, and car-only suburbs hadn’t been invented yet. It took a very long time for society to really adapt to cars. So while some very aggressive forecasts think the autonomous future is only a decade away, that future may include mixed technology co-existing for some time.
Today’s car buyers, though, are already seeing the benefits of autonomous technology, and more and more people are expected to get on board. I have a four-year-old son who loves cars, but by the time he turns sixteen there’s a good chance he won’t get a driver’s license — not because he won’t be allowed, but because he might not need it.
The future of driving is going to be very different from what we’re used to, thanks to the adoption of self-driving cars. And the impacts will likely extend far beyond roads and parking alone. So hang on tight – ‘cuz it’s going to be quite a ride!
-Jason Taylor
Tesla’s Automatic Collision Evasion feature can be seen in one of the first owner videos of it in action.
Tesla owner Spencer (@scotsrule08) posted on Monday that the feature “worked flawlessly,” saying FSD reengaged itself just as he was about to hit a curb. Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla’s AI team, shared the clip and wrote, “A guardian angel always looking out for you.”
The video arrives in the middle of a staged rollout. Tesla first shipped Automatic Collision Evasion with FSD (Supervised) v14.3.9 in software update 2026.27.6 earlier this month, which Teslarati covered as it reached cars. Update 2026.27.10, which began going out on September 19, carried the feature improvements with FSD v14.3.10, according to release notes tracked by Not a Tesla App. The newer 2026.27.11 build is now reaching another wave of vehicles.
The new Automatic Collision Evasion feature worked flawlessly! FSD reengaged itself just as I was about to hit a curb.
Kudos @Tesla_AI team! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Fbp15HhpL2
— Spencer (@scotsrule08) September 28, 2026
The feature only runs on HW4 vehicles, and it requires an active FSD purchase or subscription with both FSD (Supervised) and Automatic Emergency Braking enabled. HW3 owners receive FSD v14.2 Lite in the same updates, but that build does not include collision evasion.
Tesla’s release notes describe two triggers. The first is an imminent frontal collision that braking alone may not prevent, in which case the car can activate FSD to steer, brake or accelerate around the hazard. That scenario is limited to highways below 85 mph, with no pedestrians or cyclists detected and no slippery road surface. The second covers a driver who appears inattentive, such as reaching into the back seat, or who seems to have switched off FSD by accident. Spencer’s curb clip appears to fall into that second category.
Tesla plans big safety improvements for Full Self-Driving v15
Once the system takes over, the accelerator is muted and light brake input will not cancel the maneuver. Drivers need to apply firm, deliberate steering force to take back control, and the car chimes to hand control back once the danger has passed.
Elluswamy recently noted that earlier hazard prediction, faster reaction time and better collision avoidance would arrive with FSD v15, the next major version.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk drops a surprise update on Boring Company’s next big dig
Musk says Boring Company could shrink the Austin to San Antonio drive to just minutes.
Elon Musk says The Boring Company is working on what he called “a simple, precursor Hyperloop” tunnel connecting Austin and San Antonio, targeting speeds above 200 mph and cutting a drive that can take up to two and a half hours down to a consistent under 30 minutes. Musk posted the idea on X Sunday, in a reply to a repost of an AI generated video imagining a science fiction future with human colonies on other worlds, which he shared with the line “This is the future we shall bring into being.”
This is the future we shall bring into being pic.twitter.com/8aD0w8MDVc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 20, 2026
The Boring Company’s own account picked up the idea in the same thread, adding a detail about how the trip would actually work: “Because Loop/Hyperloop is express (i.e. no intermediate stops), one could travel from an Austin parking lot to a favorite San Antonio restaurant in about 30 minutes. As long as they both have Loop stations.” That framing ties the proposed intercity link to the same station model the company already runs in Las Vegas, where riders enter the tunnel network through small, garage style stops rather than one central terminal.
This is not the company’s first run at the Austin to San Antonio corridor. Boring Company floated tunnels between the two cities as far back as 2021, and later competed for a separate San Antonio Loop project tied to the airport before that specific bid stalled. Pitches for tunnels in Chicago, Los Angeles, and a New York to Washington corridor have followed a similar pattern of big announcement without a shovel in the ground.
What is different this time is the balance sheet, especially since The Boring Company closed a 3 billion dollar funding round led by investors in the United Arab Emirates earlier this month at a valuation near 23 billion dollars, giving the tunneling company more capital to chase speculative projects than it had during its earlier Texas pitches. The company is also mid-build on two other intercity systems it has actually broken ground on, inc;luding a Nashville tunnel linking downtown to the airport, where a second boring machine finished commissioning in June, and its Las Vegas network, where the station count keeps climbing on paper faster than tunnels get dug.
That gap between announcement and execution is the reason to treat Sunday’s post as an opening bid rather than a project. A tunnel spanning roughly 80 miles between two metro areas, running at speeds Boring Company has not demonstrated over any real distance, would dwarf anything the company has built. For now, the Austin to San Antonio Hyperloop exists as a caption under an AI generated space video.
Elon Musk
Tesla eyes supply partners for Optimus mass production
Tesla certified three Chinese suppliers for Optimus mass production, signaling its robot timeline is accelerating.
Tesla’s robotics team traveled to Ningbo, in China’s Zhejiang province, on September 16 and spent the following day auditing component suppliers for Optimus, according to a Bloomberg report cited by RobotAIGeek. The visit moved three manufacturers from provisional status to certified mass production partners: Tuopu Group, which handles actuators and chassis components, Ningbo Joyson Electronic, a sensor supplier, and Zhejiang Sanhua Intelligent Controls, which builds thermal management systems. All three already supply parts to Tesla’s electric vehicles, and the audit reportedly came with fresh orders that supply chain reports put at an initial batch of roughly 5,000 units.
Tuopu, Joyson, and Sanhua built their manufacturing base serving the automotive industry, where tolerances and volume requirements are already close to what a mass produced humanoid robot demands. Sanhua in particular has history here. Teslarati reported last October that the company had received a roughly $685 million order for linear actuators tied to Optimus, a volume industry watchers estimated could cover around 180,000 robots once production ramped.
Supply chain reports tied to this week’s audit put Tesla’s near term production goal at about 1,000 Optimus units a week by late September, rising to 2,000 to 2,500 units a week by the end of the year. That pace would put real weight behind the timeline Tesla has been building toward since May, when it wound down Model S and Model X production at Fremont to convert that floor space into a dedicated Optimus line targeting one million units annually. JPMorgan analysts who toured the factory in August confirmed the conversion took roughly four months, a pace Musk has called unprecedented for a facility that size.
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
Fremont is only the first phase. A second, larger Optimus plant is rising at Gigafactory Texas, where drone footage shared by Joe Tegtmeyer last week showed the structural steel nearing completion on the north end of the building. Tesla has said that facility is meant to eventually support production of up to 10 million units a year, though volume output there is not expected before 2027.
Commercial sales of Optimus are still targeted for the second half of 2027, but production is expected to start well before then. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta has said Tesla’s “Optimus Academy” program, which uses early units to collect real world training data inside Tesla’s own facilities, is expected to be running later this year. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Ian Ma described the Ningbo audits as “a positive commercialization signal for China’s humanoid supply chain,” noting that sentiment could improve further if the visit leads to confirmed supplier nominations and larger orders. The Solactive China Humanoid Robotics Index rose about 1.4% on the news, though it remains down roughly 30% for the year.
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