FSD (Full Self Driving), which translates to Chinese is "fully autonomous driving."
If taken literally, Tesla now has 60,000 vehicles testing the FSD Beta version, which is probably the world's largest self-driving fleet.
As Tesla expands its range of testers, that number will double at a rate visible to the naked eye.
01
To become an owner of the FSD Beta test, you must first pass the exam
Tesla's continuous iteration of the FSD Beta version has allowed Tesla's die-hard fans to experience the excitement and surprises brought by autopilot again and again.
I think you'll also be curious: What is it like to be an FSD tester for Tesla?
First you have to pass Tesla's "exam." To become a user of the Tesla FSD Beta, Tesla will evaluate the owner's behavior to decide whether to grant the FSD beta version permission.
Simply put, car owners who want to use the FSD beta version need to prove that they are a good "old driver".
How to prove itself? Tesla evaluates the driver's driving behavior through the vehicle's built-in insurance calculator.
To this end, Tesla launched a beta version of the "Safety Scoring System" to evaluate applicants for safe driving.
Tesla's "safety scoring system" evaluates the driving behavior of the owner based on five "safety factors" indicators, including: collision warning every 1000 miles forward, emergency braking, sharp turns, unsafe follow-up, and forced release of Autopilot, and then comprehensively considers the various factors to predict the possibility of collision caused by the owner's driving behavior, and gives a comprehensive evaluation score.
The system calculates the total safety score (out of 100 points) based on the owner's daily safety score (up to 30 days), and the higher the score, the safer the owner's driving behavior.
While Tesla doesn't specify a scoring threshold for accessing FSD Beta, most eligible owners score above 80.
After more than a year of expansion, Tesla FSD Beta has now accumulated more than 60,000 active users in the United States.
02
Overseas car owners test FSD Beta
The ability of cities to cope with complex environments is limited
Involving car owners in self-driving tests is what makes Tesla unique.
Specifically, the current features of FSD include:
Auto-assisted navigation: Automatically drive in and out of highway ramps or overpass forks, overtaking slow-moving vehicles.
Automatic auxiliary lane change: Automatically assist in changing lanes on the highway.
Smart Summoning: In the right scenario, a vehicle parked in a parking space will respond to your call, drive out of the parking space and head to your location.
Automatic parking: parallel parking and vertical parking.
Recognize and react to traffic lights and stop signs.
Autonomously assisted driving on city streets.
As Tesla's unpaid safety supervisor, every owner who buys FSD features can help Tesla iterate on its self-driving technology. Of course, unlike the Robotaxi test, the driver can decide when and where to do the test.
Not long ago, the reporter of foreign media CNBC followed three car owners who participated in the Tesla FSD Beta test project and personally experienced an FSD Beta.
First of all, the conclusion: In general, in the suburbs and rural areas where the scene is relatively simple, the performance of vehicles accessing FSD Beta is remarkable, but in the more complex traffic scenes, especially in the urban block environment, the vehicle also encounters some glitches.
The first owner's model was the 2020 Model Y, which was installed in FSD Beta version 10.8.1 and tested in Brooklyn, New York.
After turning on the FSD Beta, the Model Y ran a red light during the drive, without braking or taking over the alarm during the process. What is even more frustrating is that halfway through, the central control screen is suddenly completely black.
In addition, under the green light situation ahead, the vehicle could have traveled normally, but a pedestrian on the side of the road suddenly slowed down, causing the vehicle to suddenly move forward and almost stop.
It can be seen that the actual measurement of FSD in urban traffic scenarios has encountered some minor problems. The owner said he has always been a big fan of Tesla, but the Brooklyn test trip made him re-examine Tesla.
For these problems in the test, he also admitted that Tesla should not let ordinary users test, should let professionals deal with unexpected situations that may occur during these tests.
The second owner is also the Model Y owner. Since his vehicle was plugged into the FSD Beta, it has traveled more than 5,000 miles.
He said, "The vehicle may have some unexpected situations at any time, and I have to be prepared." "Since I used FSD Beta, my blood pressure has not gone down."
When the CNBC reporter followed the owner to test, in the intersection scene, the vehicle can automatically brake and safely pass through the intersection, without the need for a human driver to take over the whole process. There were few surprises during the test.
The owner believes that the FSD Beta technology is advanced, but it also has limitations.
On the one hand, FSD Beta is not available in harsh weather conditions such as rain and snow, and each OTA upgrade solves one problem while also bringing a new problem.
Still, he believes that some glitches in driving are unavoidable, and these glitches can help FSD Beta optimize iterations and unlock fully autonomous driving capabilities as early as possible, and some glitches are just the cost of achieving a better version.
Let's take a look at the test of the third Model 3 owner.
In February, the owner pulled a CNBC reporter to start testing in San Francisco.
He said that he has been more focused during the use of FSD Beta and has not had security problems at present.
During the test, the vehicle was able to pass through the wide road with relative ease, but there were also some small forks.
For example, the vehicle almost hit a stop sign, and there was no alarm takeover prompt in the process, fortunately, the owner was more focused and took over in time, so there was no collision.
In addition, when driving at the roundabout, the vehicle cannot pass freely, and almost hit other vehicles when automatically changing lanes, which is also under the timely takeover of the owner of the car, which has not caused a major disaster.
Judging from the feedback of the three car owners, it is still necessary to maintain concentration and not be careless in the process of using FSD Beta; on the other hand, FSD Beta is not perfect, and the ability to cope with complex road scenes in cities is still limited.
Tesla has not currently evolved the FSD Beta version to the official version, indicating that there are still many problems that need to be tested and solved by more drivers.
Therefore, with the exception of the United States, no other country or region in the world has openly downloaded the latest version of the FSD Beta software.
03
FSD, a new driver of Tesla's growth
While FSD continues to refresh the functional experience, it has also ushered in a price increase.
In 2015, Tesla launched the FSD V7.0 version at a price of $2500/set;
In 2018, the FSD V9.0 version was launched, and the price was raised to 5000 US dollars / set;
In 2019, the third generation of FSD was released, with a one-time purchase price of 8,000 US dollars / set, and a domestic price of 64,000 yuan / set;
In 2020, Tesla launched the FSD Beta version, and the price was raised to $10,000 / set;
Starting January 17, 2022, the FSD price in the United States will be raised to $12,000.
In addition to a one-time buyout of FSDs, Tesla owners can subscribe to FSD features on a monthly basis for $199/month. Musk has previously said that when FSD is pushed on a large scale, the monthly subscription price will also rise.
Some securities companies expect tesla to increase the overall selection rate of Tesla FSD to 50% in 2025, contributing about 14% of Tesla's revenue. It has to be said that FSD will become a new driving force for Tesla's revenue growth.
The public's willingness to pay for FSD further stimulates the FSD to be constantly iteratively updated.
Earlier this year, FSD Beta was updated to version 10.10. Recently, some overseas users said on Twitter that Musk is looking for the right person to test FSD Beta 11.
Earlier, Musk revealed that Tesla FSD Beta 11 rewrote the underlying code of the neural network.
In the future, Tesla will directly use the original picture when training the neural network, rather than the labeled special picture, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of developing the automatic driving technology, and the amount of code for the future FSD will be greatly reduced.
The FSD Beta version has undergone many iterations, representing the highest level of Tesla's autopilot at present, and constantly refreshing people's expectations of Tesla technology.
Previously, Musk publicly expressed his confidence in achieving full autonomous driving in 2022, and let us wait and see.
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