Car rental giant Turo will start advertising which Teslas on its marketplace are outfitted with the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system, Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — or FSD, a collaboration that could boost further adoption of the driving software. Eligible Turo “hosts” who rent out their cars on the platform will also receive a free one-month trial of FSD. Turo said it is working with Tesla to directly access the automaker’s API to verify which cars have FSD enabled.
The announcement comes just a few days after Tesla offered updated figures that show the carmaker is finally getting more customers to pay for the software, which can handle most driving tasks but still requires human supervision. Last week, Tesla revealed that around 1.7 million customers have paid for FSD globally, out of more than 10 million cars built and sold to date. The company said more than 75% of customers who took delivery of a car in North America during the third-quarter paid for an FSD subscription.
That was a roughly 20% increase from the second quarter, though the company’s U.S. sales have been in decline. Tesla has spent much of the last year re-working some of its showrooms to focus more on FSD as a selling point. In a post last week, the company’s chief executive Elon Musk said the effort is working.
For Turo, the addition of FSD rentals gives the company a chance to boost what are already some of its most heavily-rented vehicles. Turo said Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y are the third and fourth-most popular vehicles on its platform this year. Our own research shows that 55% of Americans are interested in driverless technology for travel, growing to 71% for Gen Z.
Turo’s marketplace model is uniquely positioned to close the gap between consumer curiosity and hands-on access.” Customers who rent an FSD-enabled Tesla through Turo will be served cautionary language that requires drivers to monitor the software, and be ready to take over at any moment. Drivers will also have the option to view a Tesla-created tutorial. The listings themselves, meanwhile, allow owners to promote their cars as “Self-Driving,” according to another screenshot provided by Turo.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
