" Considering what’s at Tesla, I don’t think it makes sense to assume they’ll be constraining themselves to text/LLM. " Tesla is losing money and cant fulfill its promises about AI. What do you mean?
Could you name the competing self driving systems (as in currently competing, with similar performance) that are available to the public, for private transport, that you have in mind?
Waymo is operating and doing passenger miles commercially with no one behind the wheel. Tesla hasn't yet done that even for the controlled Vegas loop they said they would do it in. Waymo still has remote operators who can handle unusual situations but they handle multiple cars and only the car itself responds to sudden events. They are operating at level 4.
Tesla still has one local operator per car who has to be able to have twitch reactions at all times.
Competitors like Honda and Mercedes also let you take your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road in certain areas (level 3), which Tesla hasn't yet achieved.
Many are not available in the US. Audi have a leading system and Mercedes have the highest rated system available in the US and are officially at level 3. The problem is Musk sucks up so much air marketing Tesla as leading people have come to believe it. The leading systems aren’t super impressive yet but Musks lies about his system which doesn’t work aren’t proof of anything but hubris. He’s just pumping stock to the ignorant.