A quiet revolution is happening on Bay Area roads as a vast number of privately owned cars are now driving themselves. https://t.co/AqbPwrWDHw

Teslas are quietly driving themselves all over the Bay Area

Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/tesla-self-driving-car-22384520.php?taid=6a8091bad297630001e6ac62&utm_campaign=trueanthem%2B3988&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter Rohullah Hashimi sits in the driver seat with his hands free of the steering wheel as he uses the self-driving mode in his Tesla Model Y in San Francisco. Hashimi said the technology is life-changing.

Lea Suzuki/S.F. ChronicleOn a gray Tuesday afternoon,Rohullah Hashimi’sTesladrove itself all over San Francisco. It prowled through neighborhoods on the west side, skirted a construction site on Geary Boulevard, climbed Twin Peaks and parked at Christmas Tree Point.

All the while, Hashimi sat behind the wheel, doing literally everything except steering. His 2026 base Model Y, outfitted with a dashboard screen and nine cameras, is more rudimentary than a Waymo or Zoox but sophisticated enough to navigate streets and freeways with little apparent input from him.

Hashimi, who drives full time for Uber, stressed that he always watches the road when carrying passengers. But he has become an evangelist for the technology, eagerly demonstrating it to riders who, he said, react with delight and curiosity when they realize the car is handling the driving.

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Off the clock, Hashimi’s faith in the system goes much further. He sometimes activates “full self-driving (supervised)” to eat lunch, scroll his phone or even catch theoccasional nap.

“This car is designed to change your life,” said Hashimi, who estimates he relies on Tesla’s advanced driver assistance about “95%” of the time.

In doing so, he stands at the frontier of a quiet revolution happening on Bay Area roads. Whether or not we want to acknowledge it, a vast number of cars are now driving themselves. These are not commercial state-regulated autonomous ride-hail vehicles. These are personal robo-cars that sit in home garages at night, bringing us closer to a vision that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promoted for years: that privately owned vehicles could soon be sent out to ferry passengers, generating passive income for their owners.

How do you feel driving next to so many vehicles using self-driving or driver-less technology?

Between robotaxis and Tesla’s enhanced self-driving feature, there are fewer humans actually behind the wheel. Are you concerned about your safety?

Dan F

Jacksonville, FL

08/16/26

FSD is safer than the average diver. By far. I see what it does and what it avoids daily. Perfect? No. Dangerous? Not in the last 12,o00 miles Roads would be safe. Not just safer if all drives were FSD or AV. The sooner there are fewer humans driving the better. Think about how the dangers of smoking only slowly became obvious and regulated up to and including second hand smoke. Replace ‘smoking’ with driving. ‘Secondhand’ with human driving and fast forward 5-10 years!

Prodan S

San Mateo, CA

08/15/26

Given how much safer self driving cars are for everyone (riders, other cars, pedestrians, cyclists), it’s morally wrong not to a accelerate their deployment

Rick S

San Jose, CA

08/15/26

The statistics indicate that FSD is 8x SAFER than human driving, and improving with each software update. I am currently showing 98% FSD in my own Model 3. The fewer humans driving, the BETTER.

Thomas S

San Jose, CA

08/15/26

I sure wouldn’t want to be driving near any of these people.

Harriet H

Los Gatos, CA

08/15/26

1000% safer! Self-driving cars take human error out of the picture, making the roads much safer from everyone.

We’re not quite there yet. But the rapid proliferation of driver assistance software and the growing number of people driving totally hands-free have captivated and unsettled observers and experts alike.

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Some worry that the complacency the technology breeds could lead to casualties. Under California law, motorists are allowed to use advanced driver assistance systems with the understanding that they aren’t replacing the human driver. Activities like texting while driving are still illegal.

“There’s an interesting choice that we have to come to terms with,” said Scott Moura, faculty director of California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology at UC Berkeley. “All this automation of vehicles, is it for safety, or is it for convenience? Those two aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

Many Tesla owners, however, see enormous promise in self-driving capability. Representatives of the company did not respond to a request for comment.

“You have all this freedom,” said Joe Jefferson, president of the automotive clubs Tesla Owners San Joaquin Valley and Tesla Owners Nor Cal-Reno. He had answered a call from the Chronicle while being chauffeured through Tracy by his 2024 Cybertruck. Jefferson has used different versions of Tesla’s FSD supervised feature since 2020 and has traced its evolution. In the beginning, drivers would get a series of escalating warnings — colloquially known as “the nag” — if they let go of the wheel for too long. Now Tesla instead relies on dashboard cameras to make sure a human is monitoring road conditions. That change has given Tesla drivers latitude to move around in their seats and do other things.

“Like if you’re having a conversation now you can really look at the person and engage with them without getting nagged,” Jefferson said. “And that’s why you see all theseTikToksof women putting on makeup in their Teslas.”

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Jefferson envisions a day, not far off, he said, when anyone can climb into the back seat of a personal autonomous vehicle, call out a destination and let the car take it from there. Every car could serve as a roving private space — part transportation pod, part home office, part man cave.

Rohullah Hashimi gets into his Tesla Model Y in San Francisco.

Lea Suzuki/S.F. ChronicleTesla’s whole philosophy of autonomous vehicle development is quite different fromWaymo, the AV standard-bearer. Waymo is operating at Level 4 in theSAE Internationalindex for self-driving technology. That means it operates within pre-mapped geographic regions with no human driver necessary. It uses intricate sensor stacks to perceive the world not only through cameras, but via electromagnetic radiation. Importantly, the company has permits in California with both the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Public Utilities Commission, and it follows guidelines laid out by both entities (DMV approval is required of any company operating at Level 3 or higher in the state; the CPUC oversees passenger service).

By contrast, Tesla is operating at Level 2 — “partial driving automation,” meaning the human driver is responsible for what happens at all times. This rule extends to Tesla’s “Robotaxi” app, which provides ride-hails in Model Ys with a human “supervisor,” similar to what Hashimi is doing on his own. Tesla has a CPUC permit to run ride-hails, but not to operate them autonomously.

All of which is to say that Tesla lies at the lower end of the automation spectrum. Level 5 is considered the north star, requiring cars to function in any terrain or weather conditions, with no human intervention necessary. To date, no company has attained that degree of autonomy.

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Musk has openly accepted that Tesla’s self-driving hardware and software is simpler than what his competitors are deploying. But on earnings calls, he’s touted simplicity as a financial advantage. He’s betting on scale: Build on the cheap, flood the roads with self-driving cars and trucks, harvest tons of data, use it to achieve superior performance.

That relentless approach has triggered clashes with regulators. Earlier this year, Tesla agreed to stop using terms like “Autopilot” in California after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles threatened to suspend the company’s business over claims of misleading advertising. Members of Congress havecriticized Musk and Teslafor overhyping the safety and reliability of self-driving technology, and for redacting details when the company reports crashes to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Unsurprisingly, questions about self-driving software nearly always surface after a high-profile wreck involving a Tesla, such as the one involving San Francisco 49ers coachKyle Shanahan. He said he was using autopilot before his 2023 Model S swerved over a double yellow line on Alma Street in Palo Alto, hitting a Mercedes-Benz.

Hashimi insists that his Model Y drives better than most humans — himself included — and he has the receipts to back it up. Uber monitors drivers remotely through an analytics system installed in the app. When Hashimi let the Model Y take over, his score on braking, acceleration and other behaviors rose from 70% to 98%.

“You see?” he said, pointing through the windshield to two pedestrians crossing Turk Street and Roselyn Terrace. “I didn’t see them. The car did, and it stopped. And now one of them is giving me the thank-you wave.”

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Yet the software product also seems to condone bad driving habits. The latest version of FSD supervised software includes five modes of aggression. “Mad Max” is for the person who weaves through traffic and flouts speed limits. It appears on the dash screen as a mustachioed cowboy cartoon. “Hurry” is for the frazzled parent trying to drop kids off at school; standard is for normies; “chill” has a beach umbrella logo. Last is “sloth,” or grandparent mode, which Hashimi generally avoids.

The Model Y’s different personalities, all available by tapping a screen, give the impression that driving isn’t a very serious activity. Which might explain why Moura has seen so many people in Teslas with sunglasses on, neck tilted “like the person sitting next to you on an airplane.” Hashimi said he dozed for 10 minutes at a time while driving his family from their home in Brentwood to Santa Cruz. To demonstrate how easy it is, he plucked a pair of sunglasses from a case, put them on, and reclined his seat. His head had to list pretty far to one side before the car’s safety apparatus kicked in. It flashed a warning on the screen and slowed to a stop.

For a user accustomed to driving an old-style car with a transmission and no assisted driving option, this experience can be harrowing. Flipping to Mad Max mode means conjuring the jerk who consistently blasts 33 miles per hour in a 25 zone. (Hashimi assured that his Tesla has memorized the location of every speed camera in San Francisco). At times, though, the Model Y’s powers can feel like a form of sorcery. Stopping at Christmas Tree Point on Twin Peaks, Hashimi got out of the vehicle, walked about a hundred yards to a grove of cypress trees in the upper lot, pushed a button and “summoned” his car. Like an obedient puppy — or frankly, a Waymo — it tentatively glided toward him, pulling up at his feet.

Different self-driving speed profiles are seen on the touch screen of Rohullah Hashimi’s Tesla Model Y.

Lea Suzuki/S.F. ChronicleDespite putting Tesla under scrutiny as a researcher, Moura remains captivated by the company and its products. He’s owned Model 3s equipped with FSD supervised software since 2020. According to his vehicle’s data, Moura has used the software for about half the miles he’s driven in the past 16 months, mostly on long freeway trips.

“My eyes are on the road the entire time, and I’m constantly scanning for strange things that might happen,” Moura said. “I’m trying to anticipate how I would react, and observing what the vehicle does.”

Most of the time the Tesla behaves a lot like a responsible human, he noted. But in some instances, it’s more impatient or more inclined to take risks than Moura. Take freeway exits, for example. Moura tries to merge into the slow lanes about a mile before reaching the off-ramp, creating enough of a “time buffer” to find an open spot. The Tesla, by contrast, waits until much later to change lanes.

“It makes me anxious,” Moura said. Still, he can’t recall a time when the car didn’t reach its destination.