{"id":22430,"date":"2022-05-17T09:07:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T13:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=22430"},"modified":"2022-05-17T09:07:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T13:07:31","slug":"tesla-1-million-robotaxis-fsd-beta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=22430","title":{"rendered":"Tesla’s 1 million robotaxis by end of the year becomes ‘1 million people in FSD Beta’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk\u2019s claim that Tesla will have \u201c1 million robotaxis by end of the year\u201d has now become \u201c1 million people in Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk has a long history of making claims about Tesla\u2019s self-driving effort that haven\u2019t come through, especially when it comes to the timing. The biggest claim has been that \u201cTesla will have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of the year.\u201d That year was originally 2020, but it has since been pushed several times.<\/p>\n

Until somewhat recently, Musk was still claiming that this was the goal in 2022, but he has now greatly changed it. Instead of \u201c1 million robotaxis\u201d on the road, now, the CEO is talking about Tesla having 1 million people in its FSD Beta program.<\/p>\n

Musk said this week during the All-in Summit:<\/p>\n

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The Full Self-Driving Beta at this point can very often take you with zero intervention across the Bay Area from San Jose to Marin through complex traffic. It\u2019s really quite sophisticated. I invited anyone to join the Beta or look at the videos of those in the beta. We got over 100,000 in the beta, so it\u2019s not tiny, and we will be expanding that to probably 1 million people by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tesla FSD Beta\u00a0enables the vehicle to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car\u2019s navigation system, but the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times.<\/p>\n

Since the responsibility lies with the driver and not Tesla\u2019s system, it is still considered a level two driver-assist system despite its name. It has been sort of a \u201ctwo steps forward, one step back\u201d type of program, as some updates have seen regressions in terms of the driving capabilities.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that FSD beta is capable of driving impressive distances without driver interventions, but it has also been known to be inconsistent, and most objective people who have been using the Beta believe that it is still far from being operated without driver supervision, which would be required to have a robotaxi.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have a lot of data to show if the system is improving beyond the anecdotal videos mentioned by Musk.<\/p>\n

When asked to share more data about the program, especially the driver intervention rate, the CEO instead said that people should just join the FSD Beta program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In order to have access to the FSD Beta program, you first need to have purchased or subscribed to the FSD package, which costs up to $12,000 depending on when youe bought it. Then, you need to have a high enough \u201cDriver Safety Score,\u201d and even then, Tesla has been known to not include everyone with a high enough score.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

To be fair, an order of magnitude (10x) increase in people in the Beta program by the end of the year would be impressive. I don\u2019t even know if there are currently 1 million Tesla owners who purchased the FSD package.<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s a giant gap between a robotaxi and FSD Beta. A giant gap. <\/p>\n

I know I sound like a broken record, but I think Tesla and Musk have been wrong so many times about their publicized timelines and goals when it comes to FSD that they need to do two things to regain some goodwill. <\/p>\n

I think Tesla needs to offer refunds on the FSD package for those who want it, and it needs to start relating concrete disengagement and driver intervention data. It would help track actual progress with the program.<\/p>\n

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