Tesla is in discussions with a big car manufacturer to license its so-called Full Self-Driving driving assistance feature, the EV brand’s CEO Elon Musk said during the Q2 2023 Earnings Call yesterday.
Last month, Musk wrote on his Twitter account that Tesla made its patents freely available in 2014 and that it’s currently allowing other companies to use the Supercharging network. In that same tweet (embedded below), he stated that the Austin-based EV marque is also happy to license its Autopilot/FSD systems to other automakers.
Well, a month and a half later, it looks like there are some negotiations going on, with Musk saying during yesterday’s webcast that Tesla is already in early discussions with “a major OEM” about using FSD.
“Something I want to emphasize strongly, this is a very important point, is that Tesla – as with the North American Charging Standard (NACS) – although we’re not licensing it, we’re just making it available, but we are very open to licensing our full self-driving software and hardware to other car companies, and we are already in early discussions with a major OEM about using the Tesla FSD,” the CEO said.
“So, we’re not trying to keep this to ourselves, we’re more than happy to license it to others.”
No details or hints about what OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) is involved, but it’s interesting to see where this possible collaboration will lead. In the same conference call, Musk said that cars enrolled in the FSD Beta program have traveled over 300 million miles.
If we were to guess, we’d say that Ford, General Motors, and Mercedes-Benz are out of the question when it comes to licensing FSD, as their proprietary driving assistance systems – into which millions of dollars have been invested – have been ranked among the best by Consumer Reports.
What would be your guess? Head over to the comments section below to give us your thoughts on this.
