It doesn’t seem at all guaranteed that Tesla can ever achieve Level 5 autonomy, in any timeline, using the hardware deployed into Tesla vehicles today which were sold with “Full Self Driving” (FSD) as the $$$ expensive upgrade option.

I doled out ~$5000 for FSD on a Model 3 Performance bought 2018 which has now had a new computer fitted (at no cost to me) and always considered FSD pretty much a “bet”, which is not IMHO a complete loss since the HW3 upgrade got me more Level 2 features on a 2018 MY vehicle, something which is quite unprecedented in the auto industry.

I suspect Elon may be wrong about LIDAR and for any manufacturer to get to Level 5, it may be required and cannot be replaced entirely by cameras and computer vision. Since it is not present on any Tesla today and cannot be sanely retrofitted, barring what feels like a miracle to me, the “Defects per Million Miles” (e.g. disengagements, and accidents leading to property damage or non-fatal injury) and the “Fatalities per Million Miles” (where one was enough to tank others Autonomous Driving programs) will probably continue too high for public and regulatory acceptance that Tesla has attained Level 5 autonomy with their current vehicles and their current hardware.