Tesla haters often decry the brand for releasing “beta” software into the public. The days of that status are coming toward an eventual close it seems. Elon Musk just declared that Full Self-Driving Version 12 will graduate out of beta status and that indicates a big shift is coming.
Musk made the statement about his autonomous-driving baby on his other baby, Twitter. In response to Tesla-centric account While Mars Catalog’s comment “FSB Beta 12 “maybe later this year”, Musk simply replied, “Version 12 won’t be beta.” To be clear, that’s not just the loss of a word and the introduction of a stable version.
Tesla still calls Autopilot a beta product and generally speaking it’s quite good. Dropping the beta tag could potentially open Tesla up to even more litigation than it’s already facing for autonomous driving tech. With that in mind, it would suggest that Tesla is seriously confident in its abilities.
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This isn’t the first time that Musk has hinted at how close Full Self-Driving might be to getting out of beta. Back in May of this year he talked about how version 11.4.1 had “major architectural improvements” and how it “should arguably be v12.0.” At the time he said that v12 was reserved for when “FSD is fully AI from video in to control out.”
Evidently, that time is fairly close but it’s worth noting that Musk wasn’t quick to give a timeline. The same account that initiated the conversation responded to Musk by asking “Do you think it will launch this year, or in 2024?” Elon, for his part, hasn’t responded as of this writing. For all we know version 12 won’t show up til 2025.
More responses highlighted just how far Full Self-Driving has come since its introduction in 2020. Taking those into account there’s little question that the system is dramatically improved.