Tesla has offered to license its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to established automakers, but most have shown little interest and negotiations have largely failed to gain traction,
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Monday. Writing on social media platform X, Musk said discussions with other manufacturers have been slowed by lengthy development cycles and conditions Tesla considers unrealistic.
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Musk’s latest comments contrast with earlier statements this year, when he said Tesla was in active negotiations with at least one major automaker to integrate FSD into third-party vehicles. During Tesla’s first-quarter 2024 earnings call, Musk said there was a strong chance the company could sign one or two licensing deals within the year, though he cautioned that broad deployment would still take time.
“They’re talking years before they will put it in their product. We might have a licensing deal earlier than that, but it takes a while. This is where the big difference between us and them is,” Musk said at the time.
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He attributed the slow progress to fundamental differences between Tesla and traditional automakers in development speed, risk appetite and product cycles. While Tesla regularly pushes software updates to vehicles already in customers’ hands, legacy manufacturers typically follow multi-year product planning timelines, making rapid adoption of advanced autonomous systems more complex.
Musk has previously said Tesla’s licensing approach would extend beyond software to include its proprietary autonomy hardware, such as cameras and onboard artificial intelligence computers. That requirement would force automakers to modify their vehicle architectures, a factor that could be contributing to industry hesitation, both for technical and competitive reasons.
