Why do you figure it's going to take that long ? the AI version of FSD is low to no interventions at this point and Cruise and Waymo have paved the way against most/several Regulatory hurdles. What's left over other than a bit more fine tuning ? I'm no AI expert but on the earnings call they all had a "swagger in their voices" when they talked about how close FSD is to release. I have a feeling it's months not years away.
See
Make your robotaxi predictions for the 8/8 reveal and what I quoted, for starters.
Let's assume Cruise was a fraud, See Waymo's miles between disengagements at
2022 Disengagement Report from California and
2023 Disengagement Reports from California at about 17,000. Waymo (formerly Google's self-driving car effort) has been at this for a very long time and they're not ready for customers use w/no drivers beyond some geo-fenced areas.
Look at what was shown off in 2012 by Google and a non-leader in the space Nissan in 2017 at
Autonomous Car Progress. The 2015 and 2016 CA disengagements reports links no longer work but these copies should work:
web.archive.org
web.archive.org
For "Cruise and Waymo have paved the way against most/several Regulatory hurdle", I guess you've missed a lot of news (e.g. push back from numerous communities, blow back and scrutiny that Cruise has been under in SF, for starters).
If Tesla were so close, they'd have actual robotaxi services with no safety drivers actually running around picking up passengers and would actually be reporting driving and incidents to
Autonomous Vehicles - California DMV instead of that 0 or basically 0 that they've been submitting virtually every year.
Can you define what is "months" away? How many months? What will it do? Geofenced and within where? Picking up and dropping off in parking structures, garages, underground parking, parking lots and airports too? Weather conditions? What about construction zones and stopped vehicles (e.g. emergency and non-emergency, crashed vehicles, etc.)? What type of roads is it limited to? Safety driver at the wheel always ready to take over if things go south? If no safety driver, where's the infrastructure to get the cars unstuck? And, Tesla's assuming all legal and financial liability for accidents and car damage?