There are already 100,000 Tesla owners included in the “Full Self Driving” (FSD) beta program and with a new decision access to version 10.69.2.2. will be granted to additional 60,000 owners.
According to Tesla, after the final update, there is a new ‘deep lane guidance’ module that achieves a 44 percent lower error rate on lane topology, improved overall driving smoothness thanks to better modeling of the system and actuation latency in trajectory planning, added control for arbitrary low-speed moving volumes, improved unprotected left turns and increased smoothness for protected right turns.
Tesla claims, that together with a number of other updates, it has reduced false slowdowns near crosswalks, made speed profiles more comfortable when creeping, improved the recall of animals by 34 percent and improved the recall of objects, eliminating 26 percent of missed detections from far away.
“Full Self Driving” Beta program enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination upon vehicle’s navigation system, though the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times. It is a controversial program due to the potential danger of testing software with passengers on board, that is why Tesla has been cautious in making it gradually expand.
Since the responsibility lies with the driver and not Tesla’s system, FSD Beta is still considered a Level 2 autonomous driving technology despite its name. In that way, Tesla uses its customer fleet to test the feature’s capabilities and gather data to move toward its goals of making the system truly self-driving and shifting responsibility for driving safety to Tesla.
Elon Musk has admitted that Tesla is basically worthless without “Full Self Driving”, but in his style he’ll also say that the company is close to “solving” FSD by the end of this year. However, despite actually dangerous mistakes the software has made, FSD still seems to fail at reaching human-levels for certain basic driving tasks. Musk also noted on Twitter that the Autopilot/AI team is also borrowed to work on Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, alongside “actually smart summon/autopark,” both of which have end of month deadlines.
Tesla’s AI Day is scheduled for September 30, and Elon Musk is expected to provide updates on a range of technology.