Elon Musk Is Still Trying to Get Other Carmakers to License "Full Self-Driving," But Not a Single One Has Taken Him Up On It

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been pushing his EV maker's so-called "Full Self-Driving" advanced driver assist software even harder than usual.

He's recently mandated all Tesla employees to install and demo the beta to new buyers, for instance, even though it's already led to plenty of close calls and collisions. The company also released a free demo of the $15,000 add-on to existing Tesla owners, leading to reports of rims scraping on curbs and other chaos.

And that isn't all. As Quartz reports, Musk has been trying to push the feature on other automakers as well — none of which have so far taken him up on the offer. (Tesla confirmed in January that it hadn't entered into any agreements.)

That's not for a lack of trying. This week, the mercurial CEO declared that "Tesla would be happy to do such deals," replying to a tweet suggesting other automakers could "integrate [FSD] into any car for free or at cost."

Given the multiple government investigations and countless horrifying videos showing close calls and erratic behavior while the feature was turned on, who can blame Tesla's competitors for turning Musk down?

His comments once again highlight how desperate he's become to turn the ultra-expensive software into a profit driver. Tesla is in deep financial trouble, with investors expecting a "nightmare" year ahead.

In other words, a highly ambitious and still considerably flawed attempt to make fully self-driving Teslas a reality remains far more of a distraction than a solution to the company's ongoing woes.

Despite Musk promising that self-driving cars will be a thing by "next year" every single year for a full decade, Teslas still very much require customers to be able to take over at all times.

In June 2023, he first suggested Tesla was looking to license FSD, saying that he was willing to share the tech with other automakers, per CarScoops.

In January, Musk claimed during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call that other automakers "don't believe it's real quite yet."

"I do want to emphasize that if I were CEO of another car company, I would definitely be calling Tesla and asking to license Tesla full self-driving technology," he added at the time.

What Musk has seemingly failed to notice, however, is that other carmakers are having just as much, or even more success, in developing their own advanced driver assistance technologies, including Ford's BlueCruise and Cadillac's Super Cruise.

Meanwhile, Tesla's FSD software has become a highly contentious topic. Case in point, earlier this year, Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard blasted the feature.

"I think it's a mistake to think of a car as a software platform — you know, like an iPhone or something," he told Business Insider.

Regulators have balked at Tesla's ongoing efforts to have its customers beta test the feature on public roads.

Since 2021, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating Tesla's Autopilot software as well, including a series of collisions involving Teslas smashing into emergency response vehicles.

The Justice Department is also investigating the carmaker's misleading marketing, which critics have long pointed out could give drivers a false sense of security.

In short, while Musk would prefer to live in a world where competition doesn't exist, it's no wonder that other carmakers aren't exactly jumping at the opportunity to adopt Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.

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