Tesla Releases Full Self-Driving Beta to Everyone in North America
Tesla has been promising its Full Self-Driving feature would be available “soon” for the last several years, and today might finally be the day. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tweeted that the Full Self-Driving Beta is now live for anyone in North America who wants it — minus the most important feature. Of course, you need to have paid for Full Self-Driving in order to access it. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with the lesser Autopilot features.
Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode has been in testing for years — most of those who bought the package with their cars have never even been able to use it. During the limited test, drivers had to log over 100 hours with Autopilot and hit a minimum driver safety score with Tesla’s integrated behavior tracking features. Only then would cars in North America unlock the Full Self-Driving beta. Why so much red tape? Because Full Self-Driving isn’t really what it sounds like. It is more capable than regular Autopilot, but you won’t be napping in the backseat.
Autopilot is one of the features that helped Tesla make its name among the more established automakers. All the company’s vehicles have basic Autopilot features like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping — today, that’s not much of a differentiator, but a $6,000 upgrade adds Enhanced Autopilot to Tesla’s cars. This package includes Autopilot navigation on the highway, automatic lane changes, smart summon, and more.
At the top of Tesla’s self-driving pyramid is Full Self-Driving, which costs a whopping $15,000 upfront or $199 per month. This feature allows the car to see and react to traffic signals, and theoretically allows it to navigate autonomously on surface streets in addition to highways. However, that feature is still not available even in the beta. Still, Musk says anyone with the Full Self-Driving package in North America can opt into the beta now.
Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who requests it from the car screen, assuming you have bought this option.
Congrats to Tesla Autopilot/AI team on achieving a major milestone!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022
Tesla says that FSD is reliable, but safety advocates question that. Full Self-Driving is still just a “level 2” system, which means drivers are supposed to remain attentive at all times, but research has shown people using Autopilot spend less time looking at the road. It may be just good enough to make people think the car is driving itself. Some demonstrations also suggest pedestrian detection may be particularly bad at identifying children (and therefore stopping before hitting them).
Tesla is also facing increased scrutiny from regulators over the way it designs and markets its autonomous driving features. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a series of accidents in which Tesla vehicles in Autopilot mode collided with stationary emergency vehicles, and the Department of Justice has launched a parallel criminal investigation. Meanwhile, California is suing Tesla for misleading marketing around Full Self-Driving. It’s possible these cases could force changes to Full Self-Driving before the city street navigation feature debuts. Tesla has not given any indication of when that will be.
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