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Elon Musk suggests Tesla’s self-driving tech will be released in Australia in early 2025.

Posted on by darion

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been leading the company toward an autonomous future for years, in which cars will navigate cities and towns on their own thanks to fully autonomous driving (FSD) software, should regulators allow it.

In left-hand drive markets such as the US, this capability has been available to many Tesla owners, but no timetable has been given for bringing the feature to right-hand drive markets such as Australia.

Now, Musk has told X that right-hand drive customers will be able to start receiving the FSD software in their cars as early as the first quarter of 2025.

This comes just after the Tesla AI team released a roadmap for the products and features they are working on.

In that update, Tesla said FSD will launch in Europe and China in the first quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.

FSD software is available with the purchase of any new Tesla in Australia. At the time of writing, the price was $10,100.

In the US, access to the FSD feature is also available by purchasing a subscription for $199 per month.

The news of FSD being made available outside the United States comes more than a year after Tesla began recruiting “ADAS test operators” outside of North America in Europe as part of what was believed to be an expansion of its Autopilot suite to fully autonomous driving (FSD).

Working in FSD testing in EuropeWorking in FSD testing in Europe
Photo: Tesla Europe

Shortly after, in July 2023, Tesla began recruiting for a “vehicle operator” position here in Australia, with the aim of collecting data on local roads.

As Tesla described it at the time, the local roles were to “accelerate vehicle-level data collection” in “designated regions.” Those regions referred to four states, including Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia.

In recent months, Tesla has achieved numerous breakthroughs in areas related to its FSD program.

fsd beta autonomous drivingfsd beta autonomous driving
Source: Tesla

This includes making the beta software widely available to everyday drivers who purchased the software in the U.S.

Musk’s latest reports suggest that the Tesla model will hit right-hand drive markets as early as 2025, allowing many Tesla owners to experience the car’s full capabilities in the near future.

We hope that the barrier to using the software will disappear with the move to a monthly subscription instead of the upfront fee that is currently charged in Australia.