Elon Musk is beating the drum for the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) assistant for Tesla models.
FSD stands for Full Self-Driving, which it certainly isn’t. It puts the Teslas on level 2 of 5. Tesla is not the only one to reach this level. The Google sister Waymo is already circling around at level 4. The FSD package however, offers a highway assistant or autonomous parking maneuvers. However, you must not take your hands off the steering wheel.
Musk tweeted that Tesla will offer a free one-month trial for all vehicles in North America. That should happen as soon as the FSD is running safely. The test will then be extended to the rest of the world. Provided the system works well on local roads and has been approved by regulators.
FSD is technically still in beta and requires a lot of data collection to train the system. By deploying the system in every Tesla vehicle in North America, the company can collect a large amount of driving data while generating hype around it. Musk also announced that the next version of FSD will have end-to-end AI.
In other regions like Europe, Tesla is constrained by stricter regulations and only the standard ADAS called Autopilot is available. Autopilot includes features such as automatic in-lane steering, automatic braking, and automatic navigation to and from highway exits. FSD is always but not allowed on public roads.
Meanwhile, in Asian markets like China, there are reports that Tesla will soon be conducting large-scale testing of FSD. The possible full-scale adoption of FSD comes at a time when both FSD and Autopilot have been growing for Tesla in recent years legal problems led, including numerous lawsuits and Investigations by US authorities.