Tesla news this week has been a big hype over the FSD beta version released to a few select customers. While there was criticism of testing being placed in the hands of normal customers out on public roads, Tesla Raj has given us the first look at what Tesla’s new FSD software is all about.
Tesla Raj, who is an enthusiastic participant in the Tesla community and a Tesla subject matter expert published his video online, which makes very entertaining viewing.
As he explains, “we're going to be looking at my first-hand experience with full self-driving beta, which just launched 24 hours ago.”
Tesla Raj gives a full breakdown of how the software works and the key highlights from the video has been transcribed below:
“So, when getting into the car, we didn't initially get presented with full self-driving until you were out of your driveway, but still in a residential court. It was at that moment that the screen changed into a computerized graphic from the future that basically looked like you were seeing what the computer sees. It was recognizing all objects including cars that were parked on the curb. This was most impressive to me was that it was seeing those cars and on a residential street, there were no lane markers yet it was staying on the right side. It was avoiding the cars parked on the curb and still driving and navigating and that was shocking to me. You'll see my reaction here as it turned and we'll get into the turn. It was kind of a little scary because we're not used to that.”
“Till today, full self-driving has been a feature that was basically keeping you in your lane, merging you out of lane, and doing traffic aware cruise control. Most recently, it's doing stopping at stoplights with confirmation on city streets and stop signs. So, it hasn't really turned or worked on residential streets, it was highly dependent on lane markers. So, to see this working without lane markers and on residential streets was a little freaky. But it worked. And it worked so well. The one thing I will highlight is that full self-driving beta is a very, very limited release. And that's because it needs to be used with extreme caution. This is beta and, in some cases, you might take this as might even be alpha because of the small amount of people that actually have this software today. Elon and the team are very focused on making this very, very safe, and secure before rolling it out to more but now that it's rolled out, keep in mind full self-driving is currently today $8,000. Elon just tweeted that it's going to go up by $2,000 on Monday, because it's officially in beta and you're able to see the capabilities, which we’re going through here. Now, just like the other full self-driving features, when you're on the freeway, you need to keep your hand on the steering wheel, you need to be aware and it does require the acknowledgement of the steering wheel and your hand present. The same thing works with street level full self-driving. Now after seeing the navigation through the residential streets, it then proceeded to take its first turn and this was crazy because the Tesla has never taken a turn on its own.”
“So, making turns was crazy. But it turned and it worked and it stayed on its side and it avoided the cars that were parked. The next area where I thought it was shocking was, we came to a light. And at that light, it crossed traffic and made a left. There were no lines on the road for it to follow but it knew where to go. It listened to the light, it stopped when it needed to stop and it went when it needed to go.”
The video is well-worth watching two Tesla fans getting their mind-blown.
