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