Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 10 could roll out as early as next week
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweets that Beta 10 of the company's driver-assistance software might only be a week away.
After admitting recently that its Full Self-Driving Beta 9.2 was "not great,", Tesla head honcho Elon Musk announced in a tweet Wednesday that the next Beta 10 update for the automaker's driver-assistance software could arrive as early as next week.
The ambitiously named Tesla Full Self-Driving technology is not currently capable of actual full self-driving. Recently, at its AI Day event, Tesla demonstrated its progress towards full autonomy and gave us a peek behind the scenes at how it's working to speed up autonomous driving development. During the event, Musk was bullish that his tech would eventually be better than the average driver. For now, it is not, and FSD is most accurately described as an SAE Level 2 driver assistance tech that still requires a human driver to actively monitor the vehicle's progress and be ready to intervene at any time.
But the next beta version of the driver aid software could arrive in vehicles via over-the-air update as early as Sept. 10, with Musk tweeting this evening that "FSD Beta 10 rolls out midnight Friday next week." This may be a closed beta, perhaps limited to drivers who have already opted into the FSD Beta program. However, a broader release might be just around the corner.
Tweeting a followup, Musk added that it "looks promising that Beta 10.1, about 2 weeks later, will be good enough for [a] public opt in request button." So, all things going smoothly, Tesla drivers who have paid for FSD may find a prompt somewhere in the infotainment menu granting them access to the latest beta version sometime around Sept. 25.
These are exciting times for fans of Tesla and fans of advancing car technology. Of course, delays happen and a reshuffling of the rollout is always a very real possibility, so don't get too excited just yet. And as is the case with all beta software, expect at least the possibility of a few bugs -- so don't get too comfortable and keep those eyes on the road.