Tesla Full Self Driving (Supervised) in action overseas. Photo: Tesla Australia.
‘Autopilot’ might have been ground-breaking tech when Tesla brought it to market about 10 years ago in October 2015, but nowadays, your average Kia can steer itself, park itself, and even – with a flick of the indicator – change lanes itself on the highway.
So Tesla has had to up its game.
This month, the US carmaker became the first to launch full self-driving on Australian roads. Yep, simply enter your destination in the navigation, and the car literally takes it from there.
It’s called “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” and a handful of journalists and content creators were the first to test the system on Brisbane streets last week, with mostly positive reviews.
Tesla says the tech “intelligently and accurately completes driving manoeuvres for you, including route navigation, steering, lane changes, parking and more under your active supervision”.
The self-parking feature has also been upgraded to allow owners to use the Tesla app on their smartphones to “summon” their cars further than before, including through complex parking lots and tight spaces.
“Cameras don’t blink, feel tired or get distracted,” Tesla says.
“Full Self-Driving (Supervised) helps you drive better by taking care of the most common and error-prone driving tasks.”
Globally, the tech has racked up 3.8 billion miles of training across four countries “and counting”, with Tesla claiming it’s 54 per cent safer than a human driver.
“Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is trained on what amounts to over 100 years of anonymous real-world driving scenarios from our fleet of over six million vehicles. Our fleet collectively experiences a lifetime of driving scenarios in 10 minutes.
“Over-the-air software updates ensure each Tesla vehicle has access to the latest safety improvements.”
However, there’s a caveat.
As the name implies, the “currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous”, according to Tesla.
And in a separate advertising video, the company also says FSD (Supervised) “requires that the driver pay attention to the road and be prepared to take over”.
Some of the feedback from the local launch noted that the car was slow to indicate at intersections and roundabouts, hesitant to make decisions, and drove slower than the flow of traffic.
CarExpert’s Paul Maric noted two alarming moments during his test, first when the car breezed through a roundabout without giving way to a motorbike, and later when it tried to turn right from a left-turn lane – before he intervened.
All new cars already include partial automation in the form of their ‘Advanced Driver Safety Assistance’ (ADAS) features. For instance, lane-keeping assist and autonomous emergency braking have been mandatory in Australia since March 2025.
But anything more than this remains illegal. As in Tesla’s case, every vehicle must still have a licensed driver at the wheel.
But times are changing. In consultation with the states and territories, the Federal Government is working on the ‘Automated Vehicle Safety Law’ (AVSL), designed to provide a national framework for safe automated vehicle (AV) use.
Crucially, it will shift responsibility from drivers to the companies operating self-driving systems, to be known as ‘Automated Driving System Entities’.
“The AVSL will place the responsibility for the safety of an automated driving system on a corporation and not the human driver,” the Department of Infrastructure says.
This is unlike the US, where Tesla has repeatedly been quick to blame the drivers after crashes involving self-driving vehicles, some of which have resulted in fatalities.
Public consultation on the proposed laws finished mid-2024, and the government is still “analysing the feedback”.
Owners will be able to purchase the software through the app. Photo: Tesla Australia.
But Tesla’s latest system effectively brings Level 3 automation – or cars that can self-drive under limited conditions – to the road for the first time, and the government expects we might see the likes of Tesla’s fully autonomous ‘Robotaxi’ or ‘Cybercab’ in the early 2030s.
Tesla hasn’t given a date on when Full Self-Driving (Supervised) will be available for Tesla owners to purchase as a subscription through the app, except to say it’s “very close”.
It will also be initially limited to newer vehicles built over the past 18 months to two years.
