The wait is finally over. In a recent post on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who purchased the FSD suite and who drives a qualified vehicle. Musk credited Tesla’s Autopilot/AI team for the milestone.
“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!” Musk wrote.
Elon Musk has predicted the wide release of FSD Beta several times in the past, and for the most part, his estimates have been inaccurate. This was one of the reasons why his prediction during the Q3 2022 earnings call, which suggested that FSD Beta’s wide release could happen this quarter, was met with much skepticism.
“This quarter, we expect to go to a wide release of Full Self-Driving Beta in North America. So, anyone who has ordered Full Self-Driving will have access to the FSD Beta program this year, probably about a month from now. So — and then obviously, anyone who buys a car and purchases the Full Self-Driving option will immediately have that available to them,” Musk said in the third quarter earnings call.
Interestingly enough, the Q3 2022 earnings call was just over a month ago. So in this sense, Musk’s estimate then of FSD Beta seeing a wide release in about a month turned out to be accurate.
Reports of FSD Beta’s wide release were reported by numerous Tesla owners and software tracking services such as Teslascope hours before the CEO confirmed the update. A number of Tesla owners who recently received FSD Beta commented that they were surprised to receive the update since their cars had less than 100 Autopilot miles. Other owners with Safety Scores of less than 80 in their vehicles also reported receiving FSD Beta.
For now, it appears that Tesla FSD Beta’s wide release involves the rollout of V10.69.3.1. Elon Musk has previously confirmed that FSD Beta V11 — which utilizes a single software stack for both inner city and highway driving — already started its rollout earlier this month. This version of FSD Beta is expected to see a wider release soon as well, though it would likely be rolled out to veteran testers who have been with the program for years.
Tesla’s FSD Beta is one of the electric vehicle maker’s most important projects. During a previous podcast appearance, the CEO noted that Tesla’s capability to solve self-driving would be “the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.” FSD Beta’s wide release, if any, should provide Tesla with a lot more training data, which should help the company develop and improve the system further.
Tesla owners who are only starting out with FSD Beta are advised to be extremely cautious when operating the system. While FSD Beta allows vehicles to navigate both inner city streets and highways, it is not a hands-free autonomous driving solution at its current state. Thus, drivers must still be ready to take over their vehicles’ controls at any time, similar to Basic Autopilot. FSD Beta users could also be suspended if the system detects improper use.
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