Tesla is about to start offering every customer in the U.S. a one-month trial of its $12,000 driver-assist system, which it calls Full Self-Driving Beta, as long as they have a car with compatible hardware. The company also reportedly requires, at the request of CEO Elon Musk, that prospective buyers receive a software demo before purchasing a new Tesla.
The push to push FSD Beta software, an improved version of the Autopilot system that comes standard on all Tesla vehicles, comes at an interesting time for the company. It’s the end of the first quarter of 2024, and Tesla is typically doing everything it can (including having executives help deliver cars to customers) to meet or beat its sales goals. Tempting customers with a new incentive could be one way to help boost sales, although it could backfire if Tesla discourages potential customers by adding extra steps to its usually simplified purchasing process.
There are also just a few weeks until Tesla goes to trial in a civil lawsuit brought by the family of Walter Huang, who died in an accident in 2018 while using autopilot. Huang was distracted at the time (investigators eventually discovered he had been playing a mobile game just before the crash), but the lawsuit focuses on how Tesla portrayed Autopilot’s capabilities and whether it did enough to prevent drivers from using it. improperly. (The NTSB investigation into the crash, which concluded in February 2020, determined that Tesla did notalthough it can only issue security recommendations).
The decision to temporarily increase access to the FSD Beta software comes as Tesla has been releasing a new “V12” version of the software that abandons the old code in favor of a system that runs entirely on neural networks. Many of Tesla’s most ardent supporters have praised the new version, as have some of its employees and executives, including policy chief Rohan Patel, who aware in X that he feels “completely comfortable telling my family to try FSD anywhere.”
But not everyone has had a good experience with the software.
By expanding access to FSD Beta beyond the few hundred thousand customers who have already paid the $12,000 price (or, if they paid a few years ago before the price cut, $15,000), Tesla will have access to more data Of video. against which you can train your neural networks. But it also means the software could end up in the hands of many more people who don’t pay as much attention to the company’s instructions that drivers should monitor the software at all times and be ready to take control if something goes wrong.