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The unofficial "when do I get my FSD beta update" FAQ

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Here's the problem at its core: FSD Beta is a serious commitment - it's much more stressful to drive on FSD Beta than to drive normally or even on AP. It demands quality drivers who take safety very seriously. Yet so many people are bitching about having to alter their driving habits to get a high safety score for the hope/chance of being invited into the FSD Beta.

This bears repeating: People are changing their driving habits to get into the Beta.

This is the equivalent of lying on your resume to get an interview, cheating on a test to get accepted into a university, etc. FSD Beta needs people who are, by nature, safe drivers.

If you are using terms like "Safety Score Jail", or "I have to drive like a grandma", or "I miss driving the car like I want to", then you really shouldn't be in the FSD Beta.

It's not a ride at Disneyland - FSD Beta is stressful and arduous. Constant disengagements and re-engagements to ensure the car is performing safely. Constant reporting to Tesla on conditions that the car did not handle correctly (I average about 4-5 reports daily when driving). Constant stress when other drivers are tailgating you, knowing that your car may suddenly brake or take a turn very oddly or jerky. I have two very large bumper stickers that I've custom made to warn people behind me that I'm a Self-Driving Test Vehicle and to use caution around me.

So, everyone who is complaining that they have to change how they drive, and are resenting the Safety Score, and missing how they used to drive, the FSD Beta is not for you. Go, drive and enjoy your car - it's an amazing car! Have fun with it. You will eventually get FSD on city streets when it rolls out to the general public - and without all the stress and serious commitment that's required to be a FSD Beta Tester.
It would be nice just to be let in….I have over 1200 miles of driving… 99 safety score… still nothing
 
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It would be nice just to be let in….I have over 1200 miles of driving… 99 safety score… still nothing
There's no announcement from Tesla that the FSD Beta program is infinite. They never said they will accept everyone that wants in. They have just said they are accepting people starting at 100, then they lowered to 99, then they lowered to 98 - then they stopped. We know they have about 60,000 people in Beta. Will they need more testers? We don't know. They are being smart and leaving the door open for more testers in the future, but they may have all they need for now.

So you have a choice: Keep it up - a 99 score is excellent and you're making yourself a better driver in general. If they need more testers in the future, you may likely be invited to join. Or cancel your request to join and drive the car the way you want, not worrying about your safety score.

Again, be careful what you wish for. Being in the Beta is not "fun" - it's a serious commitment and full of stress. You can't "tune out" and listen to music, driving on your brain's version of autopilot. It takes complete concentration. I wish more people understood this. Yes, it's exciting to get into the Beta. You feel like you're on the cutting edge and can brag to your friends that your car can drive itself. But you quickly learn it's not all fun and games.

Another comment I heard from someone in Beta was "It's very difficult to drive on Beta, and I don't like how it turns. I almost hit a parked car, and I thought it was going to run a red light." I asked them how they are adjusting to the Beta given these issues, and they said "I just don't use Beta much anymore. I use AP on the freeway, but not on city streets." I'm sure they wish they knew what to expect before accepting the invite into Beta.

Here's another way to look at it: For those of you trying to get into Beta, think of it as a job. You are applying for a job, and a serious one that could mean injury or death if you don't do your job right. Do you want that kind of stress and responsibility? If you do legitimately want the job, and are fighting to prove you can do it well to help further Telsa's goal of the future of driving, then I wish you the best and sincerely hope you get admitted as soon as Tesla needs more testers.
 
Here's another way to look at it: For those of you trying to get into Beta, think of it as a job. You are applying for a job, and a serious one that could mean injury or death if you don't do your job right. Do you want that kind of stress and responsibility? If you do legitimately want the job, and are fighting to prove you can do it well to help further Telsa's goal of the future of driving, then I wish you the best and sincerely hope you get admitted as soon as Tesla needs more testers.

Interesting. As a corporate pilot, I fall under this catigory. I am used to flying with the autopilot engaged. In our required recurrent training, we are required to demonstrate our airmanship with the autopilot both coupled and hand flown. If an aircraft AP behaved like the AP in the Tesla, we would be required to notify the FAA, which is part of the DOT. I consider myself a safe driver and pilot. I have a clean driving and flying record. My complaint with the “Safety Score” system is, just like when AP is engaged, it is producing false signals. Engaged, it is an absolute safety hazard. Disengaged, it produces a false low score.(95). My last ding for hard braking was when a saw a child’s ball headed to the street in my neighborhood. I used the brakes, but not to hard to come to a safe defensive driver stop. The child did come after the ball.
It is sort of ironic, antiquated technology is required to be functional in an aircraft or removed. Radar is not antiquated, yet Tesla has disabled it and has, as a result, induced a safety hazard that not only affects FSD, but also affects AP and TACC. TACC is not in beta and is part of the certified systems of the car by DOT.
I love the car, but, when my wife is in the car, she doesn’t want me using TACC, let alone AP or FSD. (Her Y has FSD since she drives about 100 miles per month. She doesn’t drive when there is traffic on the road, unless out of absolute necessity.)
 
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There's no announcement from Tesla that the FSD Beta program is infinite. They never said they will accept everyone that wants in
Well they did say that at least once to everyone who passes the safety test.

Beta button will request permission to assess driving behavior using Tesla insurance calculator. If driving behavior is good for 7 days, beta access will be granted.

 
Yet so many people are bitching about having to alter their driving habits to get a high safety score
And rightfully so. If you're driving on a road with a 55 MPH speed limit and a traffic light turns yellow, you are screwed. Braking at 0.3 Gs will require 8.5 seconds to come to a stop, and there's no traffic light in the US that stays yellow for that long. You either have to approach a green light 20 MPH below the speed limit, or run the red.
 
And rightfully so. If you're driving on a road with a 55 MPH speed limit and a traffic light turns yellow, you are screwed. Braking at 0.3 Gs will require 8.5 seconds to come to a stop, and there's no traffic light in the US that stays yellow for that long. You either have to approach a green light 20 MPH below the speed limit, or run the red.
I'm not sure what others experienced. I rarely had to slam on the brakes for a yellow light, maybe a few times in the past but not recently. Yellow lights have a threshold - a point-of-no return, so to speak - if you're travelling fast enough and the light changes to yellow, and you're near or at that threshold, you simply go through the yellow light. As long as your car is in the intersection when the light turns red, you're fine. If you are before that threshold, you can choose to slow down and stop, or accelerate rapidly to "run the yellow". I don't recall ever getting dinged on Safety Score for "Hard Braking", at least not enough to lower my score.
 
I'm not sure what others experienced. I rarely had to slam on the brakes for a yellow light, maybe a few times in the past but not recently. Yellow lights have a threshold - a point-of-no return, so to speak - if you're travelling fast enough and the light changes to yellow, and you're near or at that threshold, you simply go through the yellow light. As long as your car is in the intersection when the light turns red, you're fine. If you are before that threshold, you can choose to slow down and stop, or accelerate rapidly to "run the yellow". I don't recall ever getting dinged on Safety Score for "Hard Braking", at least not enough to lower my score.
I don't think it has much to do with "Slamming on the Brakes".. if you see a yellow and do anything other then a regen slow down, you get dinged. Happened to me the other day, just used the brake mildly to avoid having to entering intersection and got dinged. It is WAY too sensitive.
 
I don't think it has much to do with "Slamming on the Brakes".. if you see a yellow and do anything other then a regen slow down, you get dinged. Happened to me the other day, just used the brake mildly to avoid having to entering intersection and got dinged. It is WAY too sensitive.
By dinged, what are we talking about? If you look at your Hard Braking section, it is yellow or red, or still green? Did you overall score drop from the one braking event?
 
By dinged, what are we talking about? If you look at your Hard Braking section, it is yellow or red, or still green? Did you overall score drop from the one braking event?
By dinged, I mean reduction in score due to Hard Braking. It goes from Green to yellow for just one light needing some mild braking. I was going on a drive 35 miles each way. Got 100% on the way out, and 97% on the way back because I slowed for a yellow light in what I would call normal braking (not slow roll regen braking).

You overall score is based on averages over 30 days. So if you have enough high score miles, it is not a big drop. But it shouldn't be any drop unless you were slamming on the brakes in the "oh sh*t" stop mode.
 
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By dinged, I mean reduction in score due to Hard Braking. It goes from Green to yellow for just one light needing some mild braking. I was going on a drive 35 miles each way. Got 100% on the way out, and 97% on the way back because I slowed for a yellow light in what I would call normal braking (not slow roll regen braking).

You overall score is based on averages over 30 days. So if you have enough high score miles, it is not a big drop. But it shouldn't be any drop unless you were slamming on the brakes in the "oh sh*t" stop mode.
I've read some posts where people think Tesla has modified their Safety Score program to make it more difficult to achieve high scores. Perhaps this is the case here. I was on Safety Score for about a month in November and December of 2021, and the only yellow I had was following distance from time to time, which is common in high-traffic areas like Southern California. I normally never touch the brakes, allowing regen to slow me down for intersections. However, I do recall a few times having to mildly apply brakes, but I was never dinged for it. If I was dinged, perhaps I drove enough where it averaged out quickly and wasn't a problem keeping a 99 score.
 
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I'm not sure what others experienced. I rarely had to slam on the brakes for a yellow light
A great thing about basic arithmetic is it doesn't care about what someone claims to have experienced.

Federal guidelines are 6 seconds for a yellow light for 55 MPH. Most drivers will be driving 65, but let's go with 60MPH. A driver is going to need more than 9 seconds to come to a stop without exceeding the 0.3g limit. And this is assuming the driver can perfectly brake at that limit. At 60mph, that's more than 300 feet of road you need to traverse where the federal guidelines say you are expected to be able to stop safely, while Tesla disagrees. Again, this is just basic math pointing out that the safety scoring is bogus, and it's not based on anyone's experience.

Tesla has modified their Safety Score program to make it more difficult to achieve high scores. Perhaps this is the case here

Nope. This hasn't changed since it was introduced in September last year:
"Hard braking is defined as backward acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, in excess of 0.3g. This is the same as a decrease in the vehicle’s speed larger than 6.7 mph, in one second"
 
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I apologize in advance if this has already been answered but does the operator need to "do" something like pressing a button accepting admittance into the FSD-Beta? Does additional software need to be downloaded? I already know about requesting to participate in the FSD-Beta program (I have) and the nuances of the Safety Score including how to keep the Safety Score high.
 
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A great thing about basic arithmetic is it doesn't care about what someone claims to have experienced.

Federal guidelines are 6 seconds for a yellow light for 55 MPH. Most drivers will be driving 65, but let's go with 60MPH. A driver is going to need more than 9 seconds to come to a stop without exceeding the 0.3g limit. And this is assuming the driver can perfectly brake at that limit. At 60mph, that's more than 300 feet of road you need to traverse where the federal guidelines say you are expected to be able to stop safely, while Tesla disagrees. Again, this is just basic math pointing out that the safety scoring is bogus, and it's not based on anyone's experience.



Nope. This hasn't changed since it was introduced in September last year:
"Hard braking is defined as backward acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, in excess of 0.3g. This is the same as a decrease in the vehicle’s speed larger than 6.7 mph, in one second"
All I can do is give you my experience. Based on your math, I should have been dinged quite a bit during my Safety Score timeframe, however I never noticed Hard Braking ever coming out of the green range. I definitely wasn't zero (0), there was always a small number in that field, but it was always green. Not sure why I had a different experience than others, especially if what you say is correct - that nothing has changed in scoring.

Perhaps nothing has changed in the verbiage, but perhaps there was a bug in the telemetry software collecting the data, and it was allowing for more than 0.3g, and now they've corrected it? I'm guessing at this point,
 
I apologize in advance if this has already been answered but does the operator need to "do" something like pressing a button accepting admittance into the FSD-Beta? Does additional software need to be downloaded? I already know about requesting to participate in the FSD-Beta program (I have) and the nuances of the Safety Score including how to keep the Safety Score high.
Once you're in the queue, and if Tesla admits you, you'll get a software update on your car (just like any firmware update), and when you get in your car after the update it will say Welcome to FSD Beta and give you the number of your beta version. Then go into Settings - Autopilot and you'll see a new toggle called "FSD Beta" which you need to enable.
 
And rightfully so. If you're driving on a road with a 55 MPH speed limit and a traffic light turns yellow, you are screwed. Braking at 0.3 Gs will require 8.5 seconds to come to a stop, and there's no traffic light in the US that stays yellow for that long. You either have to approach a green light 20 MPH below the speed limit, or run the red.
Or be on autopilot and let it do it. When I see a yellow, I double tap the stalk and have it brake for me. Problem solved. 99 score over 4500 miles
 
Thanks for that info as well as all the preceding info Dewg. I am now at Safety Score 99 and officially in the FSD-Beta queue with no expectations about when I'll get the FSD-Beta software update. Earlier today I installed a software update after reaching a 30 day Safety Score of 99 yesterday but sadly I did not get the Welcome to FSD Beta greeting after the install.

I would like to share that in my FSD-Beta Safety Score experiences and without realizing it, Tesla has made me a safer driver. I don't mind waiting as long as it takes to get the FSD Beta software because I am not so eager to test it like the drivers in the YouTube videos I've watched (a lot). These are interesting times because until FSD Beta achieves near-zero interventions and near-zero cancellations I am not inclined to use it on city streets unless I am in an unfamiliar area and need actual driving assistance to get to where I need to go. I wholly feel capable of supervising FSD Beta within limits. I think this because I already drive to avoid potholes which is a road precondition I use to decide whether or not to use Autopilot on highways. In my opinion, all driving is conditional even FSD Beta. Thanks again.
 
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Thanks for that info as well as all the preceding info Dewg. I am now at Safety Score 99 and officially in the FSD-Beta queue with no expectations about when I'll get the FSD-Beta software update. Earlier today I installed a software update after reaching a 30 day Safety Score of 99 yesterday but sadly I did not get the Welcome to FSD Beta greeting after the install.

I would like to share that in my FSD-Beta Safety Score experiences and without realizing it, Tesla has made me a safer driver. I don't mind waiting as long as it takes to get the FSD Beta software because I am not so eager to test it like the drivers in the YouTube videos I've watched (a lot). These are interesting times because until FSD Beta achieves near-zero interventions and near-zero cancellations I am not inclined to use it on city streets unless I am in an unfamiliar area and need actual driving assistance to get to where I need to go. I wholly feel capable of supervising FSD Beta within limits. I think this because I already drive to avoid potholes which is a road precondition I use to decide whether or not to use Autopilot on highways. In my opinion, all driving is conditional even FSD Beta. Thanks again.
What version number. Not a single persons gotten beta since Christmas. Hard to believe. I’m at 4800 miles since opting in and a 99 score
 
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