At the end of September, Tesla’s deferred revenue balance was at $2.8 billion. While the company said then that it expected to recognize $1.09 billion of deferred revenue in the coming 12 months, Tesla has for years overestimated this figure.
Musk has taken advantage of a relatively light-touch approach to regulating automated-driving technology in the U.S.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said shortly before Tesla’s first fatal crash involving Autopilot in 2016 that existing laws in the country posed few barriers to driver-assistance systems.
When asked in March when Europeans will get to test FSD, Musk told fans at the plant Tesla was opening near Berlin that the company was holding off because regulators in the region were less permissive.
“In the U.S., things are legal by default,” Musk said. “In Europe, they are illegal by default. So we have to get approval beforehand, whereas in the U.S., you can kind of do it on your own cognizance, more or less.”
The National Highway Transportation Safety Board, which lacks the power to compel automakers to follow its recommendations, has been critical of Tesla’s deployment of Autopilot and FSD.
“We essentially have the Wild West on our roads right now,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told Bloomberg earlier this year. “It is a disaster waiting to happen.”
