If you’re a Tesla owner who’s purchased FSD and are watching those FSD beta 9 videos on YouTube, you’ll likely be asking yourself, when can I get that? The software is still in development and has some ways to go before a public release would be viable, but now we have a timeline from Elon.
After being asked about the wider rollout timeline, Elon replied that a wide beta may happen with FSD Beta 10, but definitely with FSD Beta 11.
Typically agile software development sprints are two weeks (insert meme here), however the development cycle would need to pass internal testing, then go to the early release beta testers, I imagined this would likely take a month per release. Turns out Elon confirmed that timeline is ‘roughly’ correct.
Given today is the 17th July (in Australia) a month for V10 places us at mid-August, while the more likely and ‘definitely’ reference of V11, places us at mid-September for the FSD Beta functionality to reach broader release. It is expected at this point that everyone who has purchased (or subscribed) to the FSD Capability, would have the ability to opt-in to public beta and access the new features.
Those features include functionality we’ve not experienced in cars before, like automatically indicating, turning corners, taking roundabouts, and navigating driveable space, without lane lines.
As you go about watching FSD Beta 9 videos, I can’t stress enough, how important it is that you watch content from multiple FSD Beta participants, as outlined in my post back in March. Currently, there’s a group of around 2,000 early access beta testers and a subset of those that are allowed to share their experiences on social media.
Here in Australia, it’s exciting to see the development of FSD and while the focus is on the US right now, it is important to remember that Tesla has sold FSD to customers across the world, so the commitment to deliver needs to be a worldwide one.
Tesla has discussed international expansion in the past, but so far we have not seen any RHD markets included. Let’s hope Australia gets their time soon.
It is worth pointing out that currently drivers are expected to be responsible for the car, so need to pay attention. The goal of Tesla’s autonomous efforts is to iterate the software, solve the edge cases and ultimately deliver a car that can navigate its way through our complex world, without humans at the wheel.
Can’t wait for the Australian release!
I always assumed that Australian regulations would prevent the timely adoption of FSD, until I once had the opportunity to ask this question to Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm. She appeared surprisingly unconcerned about obtaining regulatory approvals for higher levels of autonomous driving, saying in effect, that if you have the data to demonstrate the safety of the new technology, regulators are very cooperative.
I do hope that she is right.
For Tesla to be successful at autonomy, they will need regulatory approval across the world. They need to be able to demonstrate that the software is safer than a human (by some margin). Once they have the data to do that, anyone who doesn’t approve will essentially be costing lives.. a pretty compelling argument.
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