Meeting minimum safety requirements, the Tesla self-driving vehicle is now available for those who have paid for it. Elon Musk’s firm’s “full autonomous driving” beta version is available for North America. The firm’s CEO tweeted that “Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta is available.” In his tweet, Musk acknowledged that “assuming you have purchased this option” they can order this new version in its testing stage.
By 2020, a small number of customers had access to the beta release of the software. From there, it expanded to some 160,000 drivers by October of this year. A minimum of security is required to access this beta version. The same is linked to Tesla’s integrated safety-linked score. In addition, it should log about 100 “miles,” about 100 kilometers, of use of the company’s advanced Autopilot driver-assist feature.
During the last few weeks, according to different reports, these requirements have been “softened” for drivers in accessing this software. The Tesleratti portal reported that the beta version of “full autonomous driving” can be accessed without meeting minimum requirements. The feature, in Musk’s words, is available to “anyone” who requests it in North America. The Verge site attempted to contact Tesla, via email, but the company has been without a press department since 2020.
Self-driving car looking north
Tesla’s driver assistance technology faces intense scrutiny from regulators. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating incidents involving Tesla cars. Many of these crashes involved stationary emergency vehicles while using the autopilot. The California Department of Motor Vehicles accused the company of “false and misleading” claims. This is linked to situations of the self-driving capabilities of their cars that have not been verified or confirmed.
The initial fee, for this beta version of Tesla’s “Total Autonomous Driving”, is at $15,000 US dollars, when buying a car. Subsequently, the subscription can go up to two hundred dollars to receive functionality upgrades. Tesla’s website reported that this new feature, includes the ability to identify traffic lights and stop signs. Tesla cars include “autopilot” driver assistance features, such as traffic-aware cruise control.
Controls for safe driving
From Musk’s company it has been confirmed that the traffic-aware cruise control has had improvements. As also noted what regarding the “enhanced autopilot” functionality. The latter sells for about six thousand dollars. As well as other functions such as automatic parking and intelligent calling.
Despite the brand, Tesla’s self-driving car software has been moving toward Level 2 in terms of an advanced driver assistance system. It must, however, be actively monitored by the driver at all times.
