Most people don’t realize Tesla has been solving for self-driving for almost 10 years.
They keep harping on missed deadlines - but they’re only missed because Elon was too optimistic.
The reality is that in the last 10 years, Tesla has built a lead so vast it’s almost comical.
Almost all of it was completely hidden from the general public, because the solution was so unique.
There weren’t fancy sensors for people to notice and be impressed by. All the progress was digital using Neural Nets and compute clusters.
AKA Artificial Intelligence.
The reality is Tesla is the only physical-world company - period - that has a product that is only possible using AI.
There are many in the digital space. Tesla is the only one in the physical space.
A car that drives itself, anywhere, that costs less than $40k, that can be manufactured at millions of units per year, is ONLY POSSIBLE using AI.
This is because AI is what allows Tesla to only use cameras and an on-board computer, not tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
It’s way way way way easier and less expensive to build cameras and chips than it is all the sensors needed for a non-AI solution.
It’s like a VHS vs a .mov video file. They are both capable of showing you a video, but .mov is so much easier to scale because you don’t have to make an entire tape every time you want to make a copy. You just right click.
This is so dumbfounding, most people think it’s impossibly crazy.
But the reality is that it’s already happened, it’s just hard to see.
Literally.
TESLA OUTSOLD THE NEXT 10 EV BRANDS COMBINED IN Q1 2025
Tesla remained far ahead of the competition in Q1 2025, selling 128,100 EVs — more than the next 10 brands combined.
The Model Y and Model 3 continued to lead the charts, showing Tesla’s strong grip on the U.S. electric vehicle market.
Overall, EV sales in the U.S. grew to nearly 300,000 units, with Tesla driving the momentum forward.
Source: Teslarati