98-Year-Old Owner Buys Model Y for Daily FSD Supervision; His First Car Was a 1931 Ford Model A, Elon Musk Retweets and Likes the Story
98-year-old owner Larry recently purchased a Tesla Model Y, using the Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature for daily supervision and the onboard Grok navigation system. His first car was a 1931 Ford Model A. He stated that the system had no issues, having automatically braked when a squirrel crossed the road, with no other vehicles present. Elon Musk retweeted and liked this account.
In an interview, Larry mentioned he has been driving for about two to three months without errors, and the vehicle stopped for small animals when there was no oncoming traffic. FSD is still classified as supervised driving, requiring the driver to maintain the ability to take over. Concurrent reports indicate that FSD is spreading among older drivers: a 78-year-old former General Motors engineer claimed to use FSD for about 98% of his mileage; 92-year-old and 95-year-old owners have also been recorded using it for interstate and daily trips; additionally, an 88-year-old and a 93-year-old woman purchased Model Ys and reduced their reliance on others for transportation using FSD and Grok.
The Grok system can now execute voice commands in bulk, including folding mirrors, windshield wipers, air conditioning, and opening the autonomous driving interface and glove compartment. The current main versions of FSD are v14 and the distilled v14 Lite for older hardware, with Model 3 and Model Y being prioritized for rollout in North America, while Model S and Model X with Hardware 3 experienced delays. The system processes pedestrians, cyclists, and smaller obstacles using an end-to-end neural network, with the squirrel case cited as verbal evidence of small target response rather than official evaluation.
In market dynamics, the buyers are older individuals with declining vision and reflexes who still want to retain the right to drive, while the sellers are Model Ys equipped with FSD subscriptions and Grok cabins; the driving force is supervised autonomous driving transforming "not daring to drive" into "sitting and supervising." Funds flow from car purchases and software subscriptions to Tesla, rather than ride-hailing commissions. Beneficiaries include older owners wishing to travel independently and the penetration rate of FSD, while traditional transportation and child pick-up services face pressure, as do car manufacturers that have yet to integrate voice cabins and supervised autonomous driving into a single product.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Tesla is selling FSD to the aging population not by waiting for autonomous driving licenses, but by promoting "supervised driving with fewer errors." Alphabet initially tied the narrative of autonomous vehicles to independent travel for the elderly but ended up focusing on Robotaxi fleets; Tesla's approach is to install the same neural network in privately owned cars already sold, using owner mileage to train the system. Musk has repeatedly discussed licensing FSD to traditional automakers without success, thus using videos of older users to replace regulatory roadshows: the first car was a hand-cranked Ford, making supervised autonomous driving more relatable than lab mileage.
The capital path involves one-time hardware sales plus software subscriptions. The Model Y is a volume model, and FSD along with Grok extends the average transaction value from metal to ongoing reasoning. The cabin assistant lowers the touchscreen barrier, allowing a 98-year-old user to navigate without searching through menus. The data flywheel requires more ordinary road conditions, including animal crossings, rather than just highway data. The commercialization of Robotaxi is still constrained by areas without networks and regulatory issues, while private car FSD is already collecting subscriptions.
Comparatively, hearing aids, electric mobility scooters, and ride-hailing services are all competing for the elderly travel budget, but only private cars retain the identity of "one's own car." The industry phase is shifting from early adopters to functional compensation: supervised autonomous driving compensates for reaction and night vision, rather than completely shifting responsibility. Waymo sells operational mileage, while Tesla sells the sense of security that the owner still has their hands on the wheel.
Structurally, this reflects an expansion of demand under technological substitution: declining driving ability would typically push people out of the car-owning demographic, but supervised autonomous driving keeps this demographic in the new car market. The mechanism is that the social costs of accidents and losing one's license exceed the costs of FSD subscriptions, and stories like the small animal stopping reduce skepticism about the system's ability to operate only on highways, thus transforming aging from a reduction in automotive demand to an increase in software premium.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Technology must first serve those with slowed reactions before it can be widely adopted.
Supervised autonomous driving sells independence, not autonomy.
Only when minimal obstacles are recognized does trust begin to be monetized.