Tesla and other companies are actively developing self-driving technologies and driverless ride-hailing platforms, and with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team already focused on autonomous vehicles, the tech is highly expected to be a major theme in 2025.
According to a Reuters Breakingviews prediction report on Monday, Trump’s moves to minimize regulations surrounding autonomous vehicles and create a federal framework for the technology are expected to supercharge the industry—as increased competition emerges in the U.S. and beyond.
With Tesla CEO Elon Musk also set to play a large role in Trump’s administration, heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the company’s own developments in the sector could also stand to benefit substantially. Reuters also predicts that self-driving pilots could expand under the administration, especially as developers aim to increase the amount of data used to train their systems.
READ MORE ON SELF-DRIVING REGULATIONS: U.S. agency proposes rules for self-driving vehicle incident reporting
Last month, the Trump transition team said that it was already aiming to create a federal self-driving vehicle framework. Additionally, the team earlier this month was reported to be ditching federal requirements on automated driving tech crash reporting, coming as one example of the administration’s aims to streamline regulatory processes in the industry.
Internationally, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) categorizes vehicle automation into five automation levels, which are generally adopted in conversations about robotaxis in the U.S. market as well. You can see these categories below, with Level 3 and above generally considered to be full automation, at least at times, while Level 2 and below are considered partial automation.
Credit: SAE International
According to the data firm Canalys, just 5.5 percent of vehicles sold this year have included Level 2 or more assistance features, such as cruise control and automated lane changes. By 2025, however, Citi research has suggested that models in China below 200,000 yuan (about $28,000) will have these features, playing a major role in consumer demand.
In China, at least 19 companies are currently testing fully autonomous vehicles, and Goldman Sachs expects the country to see as many as 90 percent of consumer sales to have features of Level 3 autonomy or greaterby 2040, compared to just 65 percent in the U.S.
While these technologies are emerging, McKinsey predicts that self-driving could become a $400 billion industry by 2035. Google parent company Alphabet runs Waymo, a Level 4 driverless ride-hailing service that already offers paid rides, while others, including Pony AI and Baidu also offer rentable self-driving vehicles in select areas.
BYD has invested $14 billion into self-driving, Toyota has around 1.7 trillion yen ($11.3 billion) going toward software, while Volkswagen has invested $700 million into China’s Xpeng Motors. Li Auto and Xiami are also considered potential competitors in these spaces, and 2025 could prove a big year for commercial self-driving hopefuls.
Tesla’s Supervised FSD program, Cybercab unveiled
Meanwhile, Tesla isn’t yet operating a paid ride-hailing service, though it gathers data through owner use of its Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. Tesla has touted the potential scalability of its Supervised FSD in the past, given that it’s available at least in some form in all of the company’s vehicles.
Musk has also regularly talked about a future in which owners of its vehicles could use an Unsupervised FSD to generate money by giving robotaxi rides while not normally in use.
On that theme, Tesla unveiled the Cybercab in October, a fully autonomous, two-seat vehicle with no pedals, set to eventually make it to the market as a driverless ride-hailing vehicle. It’s also set to be equipped with wireless charging and make use of an automated cleaning robot, offering top-to-bottom autonomy for owners.
MORE ON FSD SUPERVISED: Watch Tesla’s FSD v13.2 navigate away from park in a tricky situation
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Despite the unveiling, some have shared skepticism around how long the vehicles could take to reach the market, especially given that production isn’t set to begin until 2026 with commercial deliveries aiming for “before 2027,” according to Musk during the October 10 “We, Robot” unveiling event.
On Monday, analyst Gary Black also predicted that fewer than 50 percent of Tesla owners would join the company’s robotaxi fleet, while a Guggenheim researcher in October said Tesla was “extremely unlikely” to reveal a credible path to robotaxi commercialization in the next 12 to 24 months.
Others like Waymo are some of the first companies operating paid driverless ride-hails, and the Google-run firm said in August that its robotaxis were already giving 100,000 paid self-driving rides per week. Meanwhile, General Motors (GM) announced this month that it will officially end funding for its commercial self-driving arm Cruise, after one of the company’s driverless vehicles last year ran over and pinned a pedestrian in San Francisco.
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What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
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Elon Musk flew under the radar with his recent purchase of a $1 billion energy company, according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents.
Transaction number 202612350 listed Tesla and SpaceX frontman Elon Musk as the acquiring party and CF APR Super Holdings LLC as the seller, with New APR Energy, LLC as the acquired entity. The deal, which closed without public announcement, came to light on May 14.
BREAKING: Elon Musk acquires Jacksonville power company APR Energy in a deal valued at more than $1,000,000,000.00.
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) July 15, 2026
Analysts inferred the deal’s scale from minority stakeholder disclosures, including one report of a 5 percent interest sold for approximately $50.4 million. Fortress Investment Group had purchased APR’s assets in late 2024, rebranded the operation as New APR Energy, and subsequently transferred ownership to Musk.
APR Energy specializes in rapidly deployable power infrastructure. The company maintains one of the world’s largest fleets of mobile gas and diesel turbines, with more than 1.1 gigawatts of generation capacity. Its modular units, which are often trailer-mounted, enable turnkey installations ranging from 20 MW to over 500 MW.
APR provides full engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance services for behind-the-meter power plants, serving everything from data centers, utilities, and industrial clients.
The firm has expanded aggressively to meet surging demand, recently adding turbines and deploying over 100 MW for a major AI hyperscaler. Its solutions bridge critical gaps where grid interconnections face delays of two to five years, according to Yahoo.
The acquisition means something more for Musk. As he continues to expand projects in artificial intelligence, especially xAI, his AI venture, there is a greater need to supply energy-intensive supercomputing clusters, including the Colossus project, with what they need: reliable and high-capacity power.
Ownership of APR provides immediate access to flexible generation assets that can be deployed adjacent to data centers, reducing dependence on a strained infrastructure. It also complements Tesla’s energy storage business, so Musk will be able to pull from his own entities to address the rapid scaling demands of AI training and compute.
Tesla had a petition protesting a recall to fix a potential issue with 2017-2023 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles’ headlights was denied, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disagreed with the company’s opinion of things.
The recall covers approximately 19,917 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles built from 2017 to 2023. Tesla initially submitted a noncompliance report for the headlights on these vehicles on March 15, 2024. Tesla then petitioned for an exemption from the fix, which violated FMVSS No. 108 (40 CFR 571.108), arguing that the “noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety.
🚨 Tesla was denied a petition by the NHTSA to avoid a recall of 19,900 2017-2023 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
The NHTSA found that the vehicles’ headlights may exceed maximum lighting levels. Tesla argued it was inconsequential and did not require a recall. pic.twitter.com/m8Jmm1teLL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 16, 2026
The NHTSA disagreed, stating that Tesla’s conclusion that the headlights do not increase any risk was not an opinion it shared. The agency said it disagreed with Tesla’s assumption that glare is not increased to surrounding traffic. This issue could be highlighted even more in certain weather conditions.
Tesla will be required to remedy the issue, the NHTSA ruled:
“In consideration of the foregoing, NHTSA has decided that Tesla has not met its burden of persuasion that the subject FMVSS No. 108 noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety. Accordingly, Tesla’s petition is hereby denied, and Tesla is consequently obligated to provide notification of and free remedy for that noncompliance under 49 U.S.C. 30118 and 30120.”
The issue here appears to be the angle of the headlights and the brightness they emit during operation. The NHTSA report states that:
“Tesla’s headlamp supplier, Marelli Automotive Lighting, tested 25 right-hand and 25 left-hand lamps, and for this sample, found the maximum photometric intensity measured in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone was between 136.2 cd and 230.1 cd for the right-hand lamps and between 117.5 cd and 160.3 cd for the left-hand lamps. According to Tesla, these tests revealed that the photometric intensity of the right-hand and left-hand headlamp lower beam on the subject vehicles may measure as much as 230.1 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone, exceeding the maximum photometric intensity by 105.1 cd. Additionally, Tesla states that a left-hand lamp tested by a Transport Canada recognized laboratory measured a maximum of 171.27 cd in the 10°U to 90°U and 90°L to 90°R zone. Despite these measurements exceeding the allowed photometric maximum of 125 cd, Tesla believes that the subject noncompliance is inconsequential to motor vehicle safety.”
Tesla also argued at some points that the headlights had not been deemed responsible for any complaints, accidents, or injuries related to the noncompliance.
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NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk secretly acquires $1B energy company to power the AI future
Tesla has to fix a big problem with its old headlights, NHTSA says
