I am new to commenting on the forum but a long time lurker. I think it is important to understand the impact Full self driving is going to have on this issue. I understand that most people have only a very limited exposure to the topic but Tesla’s full self driving is incredible. My wife and I both have been using it for over 6 months and its capabilities have been outstanding. We are both 75 and quite active and functional but still love the ease and safety that it provides. I can set a destination, push a button and have it back out of my garage and deliver me to my second home 310 miles away with almost no intervention (it will find and pull into a charging spot on its own if needed although I do have to plug it in). Construction and detours occasionally require some intervention to manage but the competence of the driving is far better than what I see from the other drivers on the road. My wife, while a good driver, is far more comfortable with the self driving than her own. The pace of improvement with the incredible amount of data obtained from the Teslas on the road is excellent as it is all fed into an AI model to continue the ‘learning’ process of the software.
As a nerd, I love this stuff…but the impact it will have on people growing older directly impacts this issue of declining driving ability. It will allow people to stay in their preferred setting far longer if they have access to this and be much safer and not requiring others to help them out. But the Robotaxi, when fully deployed in the near future is going to make transportation much much cheaper and convenient for the general population in cities due to the low cost. These are relatively low cost vehicles and without the need for a driver, the low cost will allow a major limiting factor for mobility of older people to be minimized.
Yes, we are not there quite yet, but it is so close - months rather than years or decades. Now getting older folks to use it, that may be a problem but that one is for another day.
If you haven’t had any real life exposure to this technology, just go to YouTube and search for Tesla FSD and you will get a lot of real life rides to show the realities. The software is always being updated in the background so the most recent ones are the best for evaluation.
Comments
I am new to commenting on the forum but a long time lurker. I think it is important to understand the impact Full self driving is going to have on this issue. I understand that most people have only a very limited exposure to the topic but Tesla’s full self driving is incredible. My wife and I both have been using it for over 6 months and its capabilities have been outstanding. We are both 75 and quite active and functional but still love the ease and safety that it provides. I can set a destination, push a button and have it back out of my garage and deliver me to my second home 310 miles away with almost no intervention (it will find and pull into a charging spot on its own if needed although I do have to plug it in). Construction and detours occasionally require some intervention to manage but the competence of the driving is far better than what I see from the other drivers on the road. My wife, while a good driver, is far more comfortable with the self driving than her own. The pace of improvement with the incredible amount of data obtained from the Teslas on the road is excellent as it is all fed into an AI model to continue the ‘learning’ process of the software. As a nerd, I love this stuff…but the impact it will have on people growing older directly impacts this issue of declining driving ability. It will allow people to stay in their preferred setting far longer if they have access to this and be much safer and not requiring others to help them out. But the Robotaxi, when fully deployed in the near future is going to make transportation much much cheaper and convenient for the general population in cities due to the low cost. These are relatively low cost vehicles and without the need for a driver, the low cost will allow a major limiting factor for mobility of older people to be minimized. Yes, we are not there quite yet, but it is so close - months rather than years or decades. Now getting older folks to use it, that may be a problem but that one is for another day. If you haven’t had any real life exposure to this technology, just go to YouTube and search for Tesla FSD and you will get a lot of real life rides to show the realities. The software is always being updated in the background so the most recent ones are the best for evaluation.
Post: What would you do if you couldn’t drive?
Link to comment from November 25, 2025