Tesla turns to Turo to boost adoption of Full Self-Driving (Supervised)

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.

“People are buying FSD with a car attached, not the other way around,” wrote Musk.

“Customers are now coming in and saying: ‘Can we get into an FSD drive?’ They’re not asking for [Model] 3, [Model] Y, or Cybertruck,” Tesla’s finance chief Vaibhav Taneja said on last week’s earnings call.

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. “[T]his integration further increases host earning opportunities as interest in self-driving technology grows,” said Turo.

“This industry-first integration with Tesla is another example of how Turo is redefining what car rental and access can look like,” Turo chief executive Andre Haddad said in a statement. “Most travelers have had limited opportunity to experience driver’s assistance technology, but the demand is clear. 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.

“When enabled, your vehicle will drive you almost anywhere with your active supervision, requiring minimal intervention,” a screenshot of the Turo app reads.

The listings themselves, meanwhile, allow owners to promote their cars as “Self-Driving,” according to another screenshot provided by Turo.

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Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.

You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.