Tesla will begin rolling out a beta version of its "full self-driving" (FSD) mode next week. CEO Elon Musk confirmed in a Tweet that the beta will start with a small number of expert drivers. This feature has been long anticipated amongst Tesla owners and electric vehicle fans alike, and has only existed with limited capabilities up to this point.
Beginning in 2014, all Teslas were shipped with sensors and software to Autopilot. Those sensors were upgraded in 2016 to eventually full self-driving. Tesla and Elon Musk previously anticipated a demonstration of full autonomy in 2017, but that completion date has been pushed back several times since then. This has left plenty of time for people to squirm in anticipation of one day sleeping while their car drives them around. Last month, Tesla pushed the beta testing to next week which has now (finally) been confirmed by Musk as a go.
According to an August still a beta version after all, and the technology being tested could mean life or death not only for the driver within the Tesla, but for the other drivers sharing the road. The beta is just the beginning of course, but the potential of this technology as it actually merges into real traffic is tremendous.
The Future Of Self-Driving Is Bright... & Costly
As of April of this year, all Tesla's came with the Autopilot feature included. This new standard assists drivers with safety features like emergency braking, collision warning and blind-spot monitoring. However, to obtain the ability for FSD, it will cost an additional $8,000. The current FSD upgrade offers a plethora of futuristic capabilities including automatic highway interchanges, overtaking slower cars, automatic lane changes, auto parking, and the "summon" feature. Summon allows a parked Tesla to come find its owner anywhere in a parking lot. On Tesla's website, there's a note that the FSD capabilities will eventually include "Autosteer on city streets." This is more than likely what is going into beta and moving Tesla's fleet closer to full automotive autonomy.
According to Elon Musk, the beta update will not only be able to sense the three-dimensional world around it, but predict changes in spatial factors like location, direction, and speed. Musk claims it will essentially take the feature from 2D to 4D in its analysis of a given environment. Regardless of these cool new features and the prospect of an FSD beta, Tesla drivers must still remain in the driver's seat and remain alert at all times. While full autonomy has recently become more of a "when" rather than an "if," it is still miles away from becoming transportation commonplace in society. Right now however, it seems Tesla will be the name bringing it from science-fiction to reality.
Source: Elon Musk/Twitter