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If you’ve been following Tesla for long, you probably know that CEO Elon Musk said in 2016 that they would do a completely autonomous drive from Los Angeles to New York City in 2017. Funny enough, the tech wasn’t even close to ready for that — not even close to close. The drive didn’t take place in 2017, or in 2018, or in 2019, or in 2020, or in 2021, or in 2022, or in 2023, or in 2024.
Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) technology has gotten better over the years, but it’s still not adequate for a completely safe and legal coast-to-coast drive. That said, many Tesla fans think it is. One popular Tesla YouTuber and his friend decided to show it was ready by attempting to make the trip fully autonomously this month. (Well, almost the same trip — they started in San Diego in this case.) Unfortunately, as you can see from the headline, things haven’t gone perfectly….
Screenshot from Bearded Tesla Guy video.
A few days ago, a friend sent me the short clip of “Bearded Tesla Guy” and his friend hitting something hard on the highway about 60 miles into the trip, bouncing up in the air quite spectacularly, and throwing around an expletive or two. It was pretty wild to see, but I couldn’t tell what they hit even zooming in, and it was sent as a standalone video clip on text message, so I didn’t have much more context. I thought, “That’s crazy/funny,” but then moved on without thinking too much of it. I didn’t realize the damage the strike made. It didn’t even cross my mind that the car would suffer more than a minor boo-boo. But it did.
Bearded Tesla Guy has published six videos since hitting the road on this coast-to-coast FSD attempt. Here’s a summary of key info regarding this incident:
Apparently, that was a metal ramp that they hit, while driving 75 mph.
The Tesla, with FSD (Supervised) activated, did not brake or swerve at all at the sight of the road hazard.
Getting the car off the road and onto a car lift showed that a front sway bar bracket was heavily damaged, as well as some plastic in that area.
After they moved on from there, though, they got to a Supercharger and the Tesla wouldn’t charge.
So, they slowly got the car over to the Tesla Service Center in Tucson, Arizona.
The car’s large high-voltage battery was damaged. The cost to repair everything: $22,275.82.
Reportedly, the Tesla service techs found that there was a pre-existing problem with the battery cells, so they decided the battery replacement would be covered under warranty. Well, isn’t that nice?
There are many wild things about that story. I won’t ramble or rant about them all. Honestly, I don’t even know what else to say. That said, though, I am skeptical that a normal Tesla owner (rather than a famed YouTuber) would have received a new battery “under warranty.” Maybe I’m just too old and cynical at this point.
The adventure is still going on. You can keep following Bearded Tesla Guy and his cross-country-road trip using FSD on YouTube. Let us know if you spot anything interesting….
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