Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta has various new features that make driving a more personal and customizable experience for owners. One of the newest additions to the Beta is the ability to travel at a set speed over a speed limit, which gives drivers a more comfortable feel of how fast they’d like their car to navigate over the recommended rate of travel.
FSD Beta user and Model 3 owner James Locke has posted several photos and videos of his all-electric sedan with the new Self-Driving capabilities. One of the most interesting and personalized features has to do with a new “Speed Limit Offset” feature, which allows drivers to set either a fixed speed or percentage Miles Per Hour or Kilometers Per Hour rate over the speed limit. It is customizable up to 30% and gives a more realistic and customized feel for FSD users.
The “Fixed” setting would allow owners to choose how many MPH or km/h they would be comfortable traveling over. For example, if the speed limit is 35 MPH, and their fixed amount was set to 5 MPH, the FSD software would never travel above 40 MPH. This will adjust with the speed limit as it changes.
However, the percentage function will allow owners to travel at faster set rates as the speed limit increases. As low as 5% and as high as 30%, this feature gives a truly customized driving experience, allowing for a controllable speed variation and a more comfortable ride for drivers and passengers. If the speed limit is 35 MPH, and the percentage is set to 20% above, the travel rate will increase by 7 MPH, and the car will not travel above 42 MPH. Locke also said that the speed could be adjusted with the scroll wheel on the steering wheel.
Traveling above the speed limit, of course, subjects owners to the possibility of being pulled over and receiving a ticket for speeding. However, many interstates and highways are full of cars traveling around 5-10 MPH above the speed limit. Keeping up with the rate of travel is expected when driving along a busy stretch of roadway, and usually, it is expected that most of the cars on the road will be operating at speeds slightly higher than what is posted.
To keep drivers aware that they are traveling above the posted speed recommendations, there is a setting for a “Speed Limit Warning” that will either chime or pop up on the car’s display.
The customization doesn’t only benefit drivers, but pedestrians as well. The appropriate speeds for residential areas compared to highways are different and should be handled in separate manners. While driving on the highway above the posted speed limit is somewhat expected, residential areas with pedestrians are more suitably traveled at slower speeds. This makes the entire experience safer for everyone on, or near, the road.