FSD (Supervised) vs driverless: what's the difference?
Driver-assistance and driverless robotaxis get mixed up in headlines. Here's how to tell them apart.
Tesla sells a feature called Full Self-Driving (Supervised). The name matters: with it, the car can steer, brake and accelerate on its own along a route, but the driver must stay attentive and be ready to take over at any moment. Legally the driver is still in charge, and the system counts as driver assistance.
Driverless (unsupervised)
A driverless robotaxi carries passengers with nobody in the driver's seat ready to take control. Companies running these services usually have remote staff who can help a car that gets stuck, but they don't drive it all the time. This is the setup Tesla's Cybercab is designed for, since it has no steering wheel or pedals.
Approval is country by country
Driver-assistance systems have to be approved by each market's regulator before they can be switched on. In Europe that means type-approval authorities approve them one country at a time, which is why availability differs across borders.
Reading the headlines
- Does the story describe supervised driver assistance or a driverless service?
- Who was legally responsible for driving at the time?
- Is the claim based on official findings, or a guess about how a system works?