FSD & Autopilot

Waymo began carrying paying passengers in Las Vegas on 14 September 2026, its 15th metro area, across roughly 24 square miles under a Nevada permit for 1,000 vehicles. Tesla holds a 5,000-vehicle permit for the same county, granted on the same day as Waymo's, and has not yet opened to the public.

Tesla has added an insurance estimator beneath the FSD option on its order page. Not a Tesla App's example puts a 2026 Model Y RWD in Austin at $205 a month without FSD and $148 with 95% FSD use — a 28% gap that is far wider than the up-to-10% discount Tesla publishes, with no methodology given.

Zurich Insurance said on 14 September 2026 it will discount premiums for Australian Tesla owners who use FSD (Supervised), after its underwriters found lower accident frequency among drivers using the system. It is the first time FSD has been a risk-rating factor in Australia and, Zurich believes, only the second time globally. The discount size was not disclosed.

Zurich Airport took the safety drivers out of its two WeRide electric shuttle buses in early September 2026, moving the staff route between Gate 101 and Gate 130 to SAE Level 4. The buses are not unsupervised: a remote cockpit at the ZRH Innovation Hub watches them and can step in. They are running empty for about four weeks before staff ride again, and the trial is funded only to the end of 2026.

From mid-September 2026 BMW collects up to 120 seconds of camera and sensor data from consenting iX3, i3, X5 and 7 Series owners across the EU, triggered by emergency braking, hard braking, evasive swerves or a lane-change intervention. Faces and plates are blurred only when staff play a clip back; the machine learning itself uses the unaltered footage.

Elon Musk quote-posted a clip of Larry, a 98-year-old Model Y owner from New Mexico who says he trusts FSD 100% and does not look at intersections. The clip passed 9 million views. Tesla's defence in roughly two dozen crash cases, including the $243 million Benavides verdict upheld in February 2026, rests on the driver being responsible for supervising.

Pony.ai and Rimac-backed Verne began fully driverless robotaxi test rides with passengers in Zagreb on 10 September 2026, with no safety operator on board, on a 22 km route to Franjo Tuđman Airport. Croatia's April 2026 commercial service had an operator in the car. Waymo is targeting driverless Munich service only by end-2027.

A 2024 Model Y left Interstate 35 near Pattonsburg, Missouri on 14 April 2025 and struck a guardrail, killing its 64-year-old driver. Missouri troopers logged a single-vehicle departure with no mention of software; Tesla's NHTSA filing records driver assistance engaged at 73 mph in a 70 mph zone. Tesla redacted the narrative and the software versions.

A 2024 Model Y struck scaffolding on East 42nd Street in Manhattan on 9 September 2026, killing its passenger. The driver faces vehicular manslaughter, leaving-the-scene and impaired-driving charges. Musk attacked ABC News over the coverage — but ABC's article never mentioned Autopilot; a since-deleted social post did.

Tesla's NHTSA filing records driver assistance as Verified Engaged at 55 mph in a December 2025 road departure on Alabama Highway 157 that killed 29-year-old Kayleigh Page. Her seven-month-old daughter was rescued from the burning car. Troopers logged a routine single-vehicle wreck; the narrative, software version and operating-area fields are redacted.

Electrek has matched a July 2025 fatal crash in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey, to Tesla's own NHTSA crash filing, which records the Level 2 system as "Verified Engaged" at a logged pre-crash speed of 4 mph. The police report described a routine stop-sign violation and never mentioned driver assistance.

Tesla Europe confirmed on 7 September 2026 that FSD (Supervised) has been approved in Slovenia, with rollout to begin soon. Slovenia is the sixth European country to clear the system and the first since Belgium in June, ending a two-month pause in fresh national approvals.

A robot*irl video published on 6 September 2026 shows FSD (Supervised) driving roughly two hours through Brussels and on to Charleroi Airport. It handled tram tracks, a reversing car and an unprotected left turn, circled a roadworks junction twice, took a wrong lane one passenger called illegal, and finally missed the airport drop-off lane, forcing a manual takeover.

Ashok Elluswamy told the Cybercab launch event on 3 September 2026 that Tesla's robotaxi programme has completed 1 million unsupervised miles, up from the 380,000 the company had quoted since its Q2 earnings call in July. What the million counts, why almost none of it was driven by a Cybercab, and how it sits against the 220 million fully autonomous miles Waymo had logged by the end of March.

Tesla unveiled the production Cybercab at an invite-only Austin event on 3 September 2026 and added it to the paying Robotaxi service, letting riders choose between the two-seat Cybercab and a Model Y. It also opened a fleet-purchase interest form. No retail price was announced. For Europe the blocker is not the type-approval route, which now exists, but the FSD Supervised approval vote set for 6 October.

Tesla has added Automatic Collision Evasion, which hands control to Full Self-Driving (Supervised) for a moment to swerve around a hazard during a manual drive when braking alone will not prevent the crash. It also intervenes if the driver stops paying attention between 22.5 and 85 mph. The setting sits under Controls > Self-Driving, requires FSD (Supervised), and is North America only for now.

Hours before the Austin launch event on 3 September 2026, Tesla published the Cybercab Rider Guide. It reveals a physical Stop button between the overhead dome lights engraved with Braille, a mechanical door release that halts the car in lane if a rider is in danger, door and seatbelt interlocks that end autonomous driving, two-way audio with Robotaxi Support that can escalate to 911, and at least ten airbags.

A 2024 Model X struck and killed 55-year-old Leonidas Davis on a three-wheeled motorcycle in Moraine, Ohio in July 2025. Tesla's report to NHTSA marks the driver-assist system "Verified Engaged" at 49 mph, but redacts which system it was, the software version and the crash narrative as confidential business information.

Tesla has updated the Robotaxi listing in the App Store to show two vehicles side by side: the two-seat Cybercab and the four-seat Model Y. Riders pick before they book, with the Cybercab listed for Austin first. It is the first sign the driverless fleet is becoming a mixed one.

Uber and Wayve began carrying passengers in Ford Mustang Mach-Es running Wayve's AI Driver in London on 3 September 2026 — Britain's first public robotaxi service, ahead of Waymo and Baidu. A TfL-licensed safety driver stays behind the wheel, fares are unchanged, and 15 vehicles are licensed. Wayve's mapless, camera-first architecture is the same wager Tesla makes with FSD, which is still waiting on the EU's 6 October vote.

A well-known Tesla creator forwarded a speeding ticket to Tesla on 2 September 2026, arguing that FSD (Supervised) chose a speed he had no way to cap. Since FSD v14 removed the custom speed offset in October 2025, drivers pick one of five presets instead of a number — while remaining fully liable for the result.

Tesla has confidentially settled the wrongful-death claim over a 2023 crash in which a Model S on Autopilot hit a parked fire truck at about 70 mph, killing Genesis Mendoza Martinez. The settlement ends a case in which a federal judge had ruled the Autopilot name plausibly misleading and Musk's safety statements legally actionable, weeks before EU states vote on FSD approval.

Zoox starts mapping and autonomous testing in Houston and San Diego this month, its 11th and 12th US markets, using retrofitted Toyota Highlanders with safety drivers. Only Las Vegas is a paid service; San Francisco, Austin and Miami carry the public for free; the other eight are testing only. As the closest no-controls analogue to Cybercab, Zoox is building the safety-case precedent Tesla will need.

Waymo began carrying public riders in Denver, San Diego and Tampa on 1 September 2026, taking it to 14 US cities and more than 4,000 vehicles. Tampa matters most: Tesla has run a Robotaxi service there since 21 July, so for the first time the two approaches are selling rides in the same city on the same day. Munich and London are next on Waymo's list.