Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite is poised for a wide-release by the end of 2020 to all drivers who purchased the capability, Elon Musk said, during its Q3 Earnings Call.
“We’re starting very slow and very cautiously because the world is a very complex and messy place,” Musk said when talking about the Beta rollout of the FSD suite to a minimal group of people, which began late Tuesday night. “We put it out there last night, and then we’ll see how it goes, and then probably release it to more people this weekend or early next week. Then gradually step it up until we hopefully have a wide-release by the end of this year.”
On October 8th, Musk stated that the latest build of the FSD software would be capable of “zero-intervention drives. Will release limited beta in a few weeks.”
Four days later, Musk announced that the FSD suite’s limited release would be available on October 20th. Tesla kept its word, and some lucky drivers received the capability on Tuesday evening.
However, Musk is already looking toward wider releases of the FSD software if things go well. It is unknown who currently has the software or how they were selected to receive it. Still, the cautious build of the autonomous driving functionality will utilize Tesla’s Neural Network to improve its performance.
“Of course, as the system collects more data, it becomes more robust,” Musk said. “It’s sort of like ‘How does Google, as a search engine, get better?’ It’s because people are programming it by asking it questions all the time and clicking on particular links.”
Tesla’s Neural Network operates in the same fashion. With every mile driven, the software gets more complex and accurate with its maneuvers. The constantly-learning Neural Net has received information from over 3 billion miles of Autopilot-assisted driving, according to Tesla’s Head of Artificial Intelligence, Andrej Karpathy.
Musk’s estimations for the end-of-year rollout of FSD lineup with his timeline for introducing Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet. The ride-hailing service would require a zero-intervention FSD suite that could operate without a driver. In order for the Robotaxi fleet to take shape by 2021, FSD would have to be completed beforehand.
With the pending release of the widely-anticipated technology, Tesla is setting itself up for the biggest year in company history. After marking a fifth-consecutive profitable quarter that showed production numbers are rising, Tesla is poised to produce 1 million vehicles a year. With more cars on the road, the FSD suite will only become more complex thanks to its partnership with the Neural Network.
Tesla production capacity is nearing 1M vehicles produced globally
Whether FSD actually makes its way to all customers by the end of the year remains to be seen. However, with Tesla’s recent ability to maintain timely and accurate releases of its new software, owners and enthusiasts have every reason to believe the electric automaker will get FSD out to all capable cars by the time 2021 rolls in.
