Tesla launched its Full Self-Driving feature five months ago, which offers a bit of autonomous capabilities without actually being, y’know, full self-driving. The confusing name has resulted in some bad behavior and dangerous driving. But instead of rethinking the name, CEO Elon Musk has indicated that Tesla will be “adding “Download Beta” button to Service section of car display in ~10 days.”
As many things do, Musk’s announcement has come via Twitter soon after he’d told his followers that he’d offer FSD Beta to anyone who asked. He added the caveat to “still be careful” with the tech—but didn’t clarify that, again, the Tesla is still not capable of totally driving itself.
Musk has been awfully chatty about FSD on Twitter lately, hinting that Full Self-Driving needs some upgrades that will be coming soon, “hopefully next month,” and that the goal is to have the tech offered “much more widely.” It sounds like Musk will be offering it to anyone that currently drives a Tesla with the over-the-air update.
Well, anyone he can reach. Musk did acknowledge that the rollout will be varied by region “due to regulatory approval delays and/or Tesla internal development & testing.”
And in a twist of irony, Musk admitted that word choices do matter when he acknowledged the decision to name the software “FSD Beta” “to reduce complacency in usage & set expectations appropriately.” Unfortunately, that ‘Beta’ bit is often dropped, and the term is used to connote a technology that has been released to the public but which is still being developed. It seems like an unfortunate mix of words to make the Tesla sound more capable than it currently is.
Whatever the case, you might be seeing some new upgrades available on your Tesla sometime in the next two weeks. Maybe. Possibly.
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