Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Autopilot add-on is still in a beta format and testers are still eagerly awaiting the next version known as ‘beta 9’, which has been continuously teased by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. On early Friday morning, Musk said the ‘beta 9’ update is “just a week away.”
In response to being questioned about Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions and FSD beta 9, Elon Musk said that he was driving “alpha 9,” for which Tesla needed to make some fixes before unveiling beta 9, which he said would happen “hopefully next week.”
Tesla’s FSD Beta 9 is the sought-after update that will switch to using Pure Vision and no radar, according to earlier statements by Musk.
I’m driving “alpha” 9, but we need to fix some obvious issues before releasing beta 9, hopefully next week. FSD subscription capability should be turning on via the Tesla app.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021
Last month, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said it was reviewing Tesla’s FSD, just a few weeks after Tesla said the feature may not be fully released until the end of 2021.
The news also comes following Tesla’s production switch from using radar to camera-based vision last month, affecting its Model 3 and Y vehicles produced in May or after.
The timeline for the expansion of FSD beta is definitely on ‘Elon time’, as the timeframe keeps on changing. Back in March, Musk said FSD beta 9 and the ‘download button’ for FSD expansion would arrive in April, but that never happened.
In late May, Musk said FSD beta 9 and FSD subscriptions would be coming in a week, but that never happened either. It appears you need to be really patient when it comes to Tesla’s software release timeline.
While Tesla’s Pure Vision has a ways to go before being as powerful as the company’s radar-based Autopilot, Musk has praised the hardware’s capabilities immensely, while also claiming the radar is inferior to camera-based vision sensors.
