With Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) back to being all in on autonomy, analysts at Bernstein said in a note Wednesday that they believe widespread deployment of Full-Self Driving (FSD) is five to ten years away.
Tesla reported its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday after the close, missing consensus estimates.
Bernstein acknowledged that Elon has a long history of being overly optimistic about FSD.
However, contrary to Musk's view that 'there will not be significant regulatory barriers,' analysts continue to suspect that regulators may serve as the bottleneck for FSD adoption, even once it reaches the point where it is generally safer than human drivers across a broad range of conditions.
"We further note that regulatory approval in the space has been slow," said Bernstein."Regulators have commented that Tesla has not even begun the process to test self-driving cars on the road, and as a result both FSD and a full robotaxi service could be years away."
In addition, the firm believes FSD "may not be a winner-take-all market, and if it is, it is not clear that Tesla will win."
"We suspect FSD may not be a winner take all market, given the wide range of tech companies, auto OEMs, and well funded start-ups developing competing offerings in the space," wrote Bernstein.
"Even if FSD does turn out to be a winner-take-all market, it is not clear that Tesla will be a winner, given that the company does not yet have an L3 autonomy solution (when a Robotaxi would likely require L4) and continues to lag behind leading players on key self-driving metrics like disengagement rates."