Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software is already being improved with learnings collected from the “cautious” drivers and owners with early access that have received the software push in the past two weeks.
Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted thanks to the “great Autopilot/AI team” for “working super hard” to make quick improvements to the system. Tesla released the new 2020.40.8.12 Friday, which observers said offered noticeable improvements for FSD and a new interface visualizations.
Musk said the company is currently measuring improvement primarily in “intervention probability.” While the car is in “Full Self-Driving” mode, drivers actually have to keep a hand on the wheel in case an intervention is necessary.
“This update addressed several issues, resulting in perhaps ~1/3 fewer interventions,” Musk said. “Many of the improvements consist of fixing silly bugs vs grand eureka moments. True for most beta releases in my experience.”
Tesla plans to update the software every 5 to 10 days before a wide release by the end of the year.
Musk admitted that the system will never be perfect, but the company believes it can prove that Autopilot is safer than a human driver, which would give them confidence to remove the need for a driver’s hand on the wheel.