Elon Musk on Tesla FSD: Will Release Zero-Intervention Limited Beta in a Few Weeks

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In mid-September, Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared new details about the totally revamped Autopilot. He wrote that the private beta release will begin in 2-4 weeks, and that the first public testing will be done by some early access owners in 4-6 weeks. Only after these two stages--and assuming no unexpected, major setbacks--all Tesla owners in the US will have access to the "new" Autopilot. According to this schedule, the new version of Autopilot could be expected by mid-December.

Today, Musk shared a few more details, and once again clarified timing. He stressed that Tesla's approach to autonomous driving is not a highly specialized solution, but, on the contrary, a general one. The latest build is capable of zero-intervention drives, which is really a must and will bring Tesla's Autopilot to a whole new level of autonomy. The limited beta will release in a few weeks.

Waymo is impressive, but a highly specialized solution. The Tesla approach is a general solution. The latest build is capable of zero intervention drives. Will release limited beta in a few weeks.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2020

This release will be a major improvement on FSD, and will instantly render a quantum leap in the development of Autopilot. Now Autopilot will receive simultaneous surround video from eight cameras--referred to by Musk as "4D." All frames will be stitched into one frame, and then video segments will be created for marking and training.

During the Earnings Call for Q2 2020, Musk said:

"It's capable of things that if you just look - looking at things as individual pictures as opposed to video - basically, like you could go from like individual pictures to surround video. So, it's fundamental.

"So, that architectural change, which has been underway for some time but has not really been rolled out to anyone in the production fleet, is what really matters for full self-driving."

Musk also reaffirmed that he uses the bleeding edge alpha build in his car, which requires almost zero interventions between home and work. This tells us that Tesla is already very close to reaching Level 5 autonomy.

 

“I’m extremely confident that level five or essentially complete autonomy will happen, and I think, will happen very quickly,” said Musk, at the 2020 World AI Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.

“I think at Tesla, I feel like we are very close to level five autonomy. I think - I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year," he elaborated.

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