Tesla Full Self-Driving Test Reveals How Close Feature-Complete FSD Is To Being Released

Featured Image Credit: Automobile Italia/Flickr [CC BY 2.0]

Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) Package was tested recently by Model 3 owner-enthusiast Dirty Tesla on his daily commute to work. Dirty Tesla wanted to show how close the company was to releasing its feature-complete FSD.

"The feature-complete just means like it has some chance of going from your home to work let's say with no interventions. So, that's -- it doesn't mean the features are working well, but it means it has above zero chance. So I think that's looking like maybe it's going to be couple of months from now," said Elon Musk during Tesla's Q4 2019 Earnings Call.

Dirty Tesla wanted to see how close FSD was to being feature-complete, so he tested it during one of his drives to work. He calculated that FSD handled the car about 91.7% of the time. His video showed FSD changing lanes, passing through green lights with no confirmation, and interacting with a stop sign.

Dirty Tesla noted that FSD still couldn't execute turns, but in the video, his car did make one turn—albeit a little precariously. By the end of his video, FSD handled most of the driving on the way to work. The Model 3 owner took over only a handful of times.

During the Q4 2019 Earnings Call, Elon Musk estimated that Tesla could release its feature-complete FSD sometime in 2020. "Well, I mean, to be precise, I said I was hoping it would be feature-complete with both FSD by the end of last year. We got pretty close. It's looking like we might be feature-complete in a few months," Musk said.

The spread of COVID-19 in the first quarter and early in the second quarter led many people to speculate that Tesla might have pushed back the release of its feature-complete FSD again. However, Tesla has continued to improve Autopilot and FSD through OTA updates, while most of the world was in quarantine.

The improvements to both Autopilot and FSD have grown apparent with each passing month in 2020. Both Autopilot and FSD have gained a multitude of useful features and functions that bring Tesla a step closer to creating a genuinely autonomous vehicle. For now, though, everyone seems excited about the release of a feature-complete version of Tesla's Full Self-Driving Package.