Musk said he was highly confident Tesla's cars would drive themselves with reliability in excess of a human in 2021.

Judged at 31 Dec 2021. True: by the end of 2021, Tesla cars were driving themselves, without needing a human to supervise or take over, at a reliability shown to exceed a human driver's. That reliability must be shown by data such as crash or disengagement rates in self-driving mode compared with human drivers under comparable conditions. Mostly true: such capability was shown in 2021 but only with a small, minor gap in the evidence (for example, the comparison was published just after year-end but covers 2021 driving). Mostly false: in 2021 Tesla offered only supervised driver assistance (Autopilot or FSD Beta needing an attentive driver and frequent interventions), or showed a capability that drops the 'drives itself' or 'better than human' part. The same applies if the capability arrived only after 2021. False: dated evidence from late 2021 or early 2022 (Tesla's own descriptions of FSD as Level 2, regulatory filings, disengagement reports or independent reporting) shows the cars could not drive themselves without supervision at better-than-human reliability.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 California's AV Testing Rules Apply to Tesla's "FSD" Stanford Center for Internet and Society (cyberlaw blog) · 17 December 2021

   “Tesla's use of "FSD" is, shall we say, very misleading. After all, its "full self-driving" cars still need human drivers. In a letter to the California DMV, the company characterized "FSD" as a level two driver assistance feature.”

2. E2 Tesla privately admits Elon Musk has been exaggerating about 'full self-driving' The Verge · 7 May 2021

   ““Elon’s tweet does not match engineering reality per CJ. Tesla is at Level 2 currently,” the California DMV said in the memo about its March 9th conference call with Tesla representatives, including the director of Autopilot software CJ Moore.”

3. E3 Tesla privately admits Elon Musk has been exaggerating about 'full self-driving' The Verge · 7 May 2021

   “Tesla is unlikely to achieve Level 5 (L5) autonomy, in which its cars can drive themselves anywhere, under any conditions, without any human supervision, by the end of 2021, Tesla representatives told the DMV.”

4. E4 Q4 and FY2021 Update Tesla, Inc. (SEC Exhibit 99.1) Own record

   “The team continued to iterate on FSD Beta software, releasing seven updates throughout the quarter. We successfully increased the number of FSD Beta vehicles from a couple of thousand in Q3 to nearly 60,000 vehicles in the US today.”

A Stanford CIS post from December 2021 [E1] reports that Tesla's "full self-driving" cars still needed human drivers, and that Tesla described FSD to the California DMV as a Level 2 driver-assistance feature. In May 2021, The Verge reported that Tesla told the DMV it was at Level 2 [E2]. Tesla representatives also told the DMV that Level 5 autonomy, in which cars drive themselves anywhere under any conditions without human supervision, was unlikely by the end of 2021 [E3]. Tesla's own Q4 2021 update describes FSD as a Beta still being iterated on [E4]. This evidence, including a December 2021 item [E1], shows Tesla's cars still needed human drivers and that Tesla described FSD as Level 2, so the cars did not drive themselves without supervision in 2021 and the claim resolved false.