Blog Tesla Looking for Good Drivers to Test Full Self-Driving System

If you want to be a beta tester of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, you’re going to need to be a good driver.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that owners will soon be able to request access via a button in the car. This will give Tesla permission to evaluate owners’ driving for seven days before they’re included in the beta testing group.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1438751064765906945

Musk also tweeted that that Version 10.1 of the FSD Beta is estimated to arrive on September 24th. The beta request button will be included in the update.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1438747500010168322

The V10 update was well-received, with some reviewers showing their cars navigating through areas that it was previously unable to complete without driver intervention. Musk has said the next version will be another noticeable step in performance for the system. 

 

[kavyboy]

Having lived in Texas eight years, am aware that much of the US is laid out in a N_S, E_W grid This leads to many sharp right-angle turns and junctions. FSD keeps you in the lane centre and aims for the centre of the lane you're turning to. This leads to sharp, uncomfortable turnings. Is it possible to have a bit more tolerance with lane positioning and thus driving in a series of gentle ogee curves? Easier on tyres, passengers and the driver. My wife (bless her) much prefers me to be driving than either FSD or cruise control. Cannot imagine how British drivers cope. Here in NZ we have much more room...

First road I ever drove I New Zealand, and first time driving on the left, was Highcliff Road on the Otago Peninsula. It seemed like the narrowest road I'd ever been on. I took Portobello Road back that night - just as narrow and winding, but with the ocean literally washing over the road in a storm. I ended up living on the North Island in Reikorangi just off the infamous Akatawara Road. I've never driven in Britain, but I can't imagine it could be narrower.
Never mind me. I'm just sitting in Texas, nostalgic as Hell now, missing NZ more every day. Enjoy a Speight's Old Dark for me.

 

[Spuzzz]

So, today’s the day! Anyone not already on the FSD beta program seen the update yet?

(To be honest, after years of blown schedules, I’m not really expecting it, but I live in hope that someday I’ll see the feature I paid for almost 5 years ago…)

Got mine sometime last night…surprised me for sure…i thought it would take a week or more for me to get the button update….since I don’t seem to get updates as soon as others do. But this one came out pretty much the moment Elon said it would.

 

[Battouttahe77]

I'm waiting to see how many people get pressed because Tesla tells them their risky driving style is risky.

 

[M109Rider]

I'm waiting to see how many people get pressed because Tesla tells them their risky driving style is risky.

This may be ugly because: Elon is taking a rational and reasonable approach to this.
“Drive well, and you likely aren’t a risky candidate for this beta”.

Unfortunately, MOST people are not rational, or reasonable these days.
So these folks will want it, even if they are risky candidates. They don’t care or likely even want to agree or own up to that fact, even if it’s not rational or reasonable for Tesla to let them use the beta.

 

[Maxpilot]

how do they get the data?

Their iOS app. I guess acceleration comes from the accelerometer in my phone and speed from the GPS sensors.

 

[Tam]

Their iOS app. I guess acceleration comes from the accelerometer in my phone and speed from the GPS sensors.

What if the phone is not in the car?

 

[Maxpilot]

What if the phone is not in the car?

Then no data is collected. Same if I log out of the app. But... after a few days, I get an email that says I must re-enable the app or lose my discount.

 

[Tam]

Then no data is collected. Same if I log out of the app. But... after a few days, I get an email that says I must re-enable the app or lose my discount.

That does make sense. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[scottf200]

This may be ugly because: Elon is taking a rational and reasonable approach to this.
“Drive well, and you likely aren’t a risky candidate for this beta”.

Unfortunately, MOST people are not rational, or reasonable these days.
So these folks will want it, even if they are risky candidates. They don’t care or likely even want to agree or own up to that fact, even if it’s not rational or reasonable for Tesla to let them use the beta.

It can be revoked at any time... see the term screen.

 

[dramsey]

This may be ugly because: Elon is taking a rational and reasonable approach to this.
“Drive well, and you likely aren’t a risky candidate for this beta”.

Unfortunately, MOST people are not rational, or reasonable these days.
So these folks will want it, even if they are risky candidates. They don’t care or likely even want to agree or own up to that fact, even if it’s not rational or reasonable for Tesla to let them use the beta.

The main problem with this is that Tesla's reserving the option to deny people the beta based on an undisclosed criteria for what they consider to be safe and responsible driving. Nobody was warned, when they bought FSD, that its use would be contingent upon this secret criteria.

The justification for this is that the software is "beta".

My problem with that is, that as far as I know, no Tesla software labeled "Beta" has _ever_ come out of Beta. My automatic windshield wipers are still "beta" even though the feature was released many years ago. I'm pretty sure the MobileEye-based Autopilot for the original HW1 Teslas is still labeled "Beta" even though it's obvious there will never be another release.

 

[scottf200]

The main problem with this is that Tesla's reserving the option to deny people the beta based on an undisclosed criteria for what they consider to be safe and responsible driving. Nobody was warned, when they bought FSD, that its use would be contingent upon this secret criteria.

The consequences are high here yet people are being cavalier about it. SMH.

Clearly it is a true beta and with much more training required. Screwing up could cause NHTSA (and other) investigations and many more months of delays.

Criteria and formula are shown in the following website. Safety score is updated daily on the phone app (iOS currently and Android still making it to the play store).

Safety Score Beta | Tesla Support

The Safety Score Beta is an assessment of your driving behavior based on several metrics called Safety Factors. These are combined to estimate the likelihood that your driving could result in a future collision. We combine your daily Safety Scores (up to 30 days) to calculate the aggregated...

www.tesla.com

 

[dramsey]

The consequences are high here yet people are being cavalier about it. SMH.

Clearly it is a true beta and with much more training required. Screwing up could cause NHTSA (and other) investigations and many more months of delays.

Criteria and formula are shown in the following website. Safety score is updated daily on the phone app (iOS currently and Android still making it to the play store).

Safety Score Beta | Tesla Support

The Safety Score Beta is an assessment of your driving behavior based on several metrics called Safety Factors. These are combined to estimate the likelihood that your driving could result in a future collision. We combine your daily Safety Scores (up to 30 days) to calculate the aggregated...

www.tesla.com

Thanks for the reference to the Safety Score site! Interesting.

I don't think people are being "cavalier"; I think a lot of it's just frustration due to years of missed deadlines and moved goal posts. Elon's been promising a wider release of FSD for many months now, and the "Safety Score" limitation was never mentioned until a couple of days ago.

 

[Spuzzz]

Safety score alerts are highly sensitive in the “follow distance” and “hard braking” categories. I feel like I’m driving overly cautiously and have been dinged multiple times on follow distance. A couple of time on hard braking. And I’m not even sure that I’ve touched my brakes except to shift into gear. I’m pretty much using regenerative only.

 

[EVNow]

Thanks for the reference to the Safety Score site! Interesting.

I don't think people are being "cavalier"; I think a lot of it's just frustration due to years of missed deadlines and moved goal posts. Elon's been promising a wider release of FSD for many months now, and the "Safety Score" limitation was never mentioned until a couple of days ago.

There must have been a lot of hand-wringing in Tesla on how to widen the beta without getting accidents and thus negative publicity. We all know Billions of dollars bet on Tesla failing ... and even otherwise, Tesla has a lot of enemies. I mean a LOT. I guess, they came up with the idea of using safety score to make sure the beta test drivers are safe and will monitor properly. This also shows their confidence level too - and I think thats appropriate.

In other words, FSD Beta is still too buggy to be ready for general release - even as a beta.

 

[scottf200]

Safety score alerts are highly sensitive in the “follow distance” and “hard braking” categories. I feel like I’m driving overly cautiously and have been dinged multiple times on follow distance. A couple of time on hard braking. And I’m not even sure that I’ve touched my brakes except to shift into gear. I’m pretty much using regenerative only.

They provide the criteria on all of them. Are you saying it is not accurate?

 

[scottf200]

I guess, they came up with the idea of using safety score to make sure the beta test drivers are safe and will monitor properly. This also shows their confidence level too - and I think thats appropriate.

I would guess it is a subset of their existing criteria for Tesla insurance rating/pricing.

 

[Maxpilot]

It's interesting that acceleration is not one of the safety factors.

 

[techlogik]

I guess just don’t use AP or FSD at all if you apply for Beta and hand drive as careful as possible. For anybody to ever claim that autosteer, basic AP and even FSD at times does stupid and dangerous things which will self destruct your rating is clearly an Elon and Tesla apologist and must own their stock.

Next lesson, insurance companies don’t really care about safety. They care about massive profits and as small payouts as possible for the execs, board and stakeholders.

 

[EVNow]

I would guess it is a subset of their existing criteria for Tesla insurance rating/pricing.

Sure - they are reusing it because its available already. I expect them to evolve the criteria rapidly as they get a lot more data - and that improvement will feed into insurance.

Unlike many people here - I think Musk wants to be fair and demand that the dev team make the rating as fair as possible.

 

[KArnold]

It's interesting that acceleration is not one of the safety factors.

"Acceleration variance" is. Still don't know what this means though. Take the words literally and it's CHANGES in how quickly you accelerate is. If so, if you always drive like a bat-out-of-heck, without variation, to any speed (speeding does not appear to be a criteria), you might be good.

But I suspect it does mean something else. Maybe how frequently you accelerate quickly.