On Thursday, May 19, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk said that the automaker plans to roll out its full self-driving beta software to all customers in North America in 2022.
The customers who are eligible for the rollout have plunked down $12,000 for the controversial version of its driver assistance system.
Tesla to Roll Out Full Self-Driving Beta Software
Musk made the announcement while wearing a black cowboy hat during the Tesla Cyber Rodeo, an event to celebrate the grand opening of Tesla's factory in Austin, Texas.
Musk praised the Tesla Autopilot team and the AI team during his speech, according to TechCrunch.
Full Self Driving, or FSD as it is often branded, has been available as an option for years now. But Tesla vehicles are not self-driving.
Tesla cars come standard with a driver assistance system called Autopilot. For an additional $12,000, Tesla owners can buy FSD, which is a feature that Musk, as repeatedly promised, will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities.
FSD includes the parking feature called Summon and the feature Navigate on Autopilot, an active guidance system that navigates a vehicle from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp, including interchanges making lane changes.
Tesla has released FSD to some of its customers who have paid for the product. The automaker launched a safety score toll in 2021 to determine whether owners can access the beta version of its Full Self-Driving software.
Tesla said in its Q4 shareholder letter that 60,000 Tesla car owners paid for the FSD beta software in 2021 so they could have early access to it, according to Electrek.
Several videos have been posted since the FSD beta software was first released.
It showed the owners either pushing the boundaries of the system's capabilities or, in some cases, highlighting the software's limitations.
This included making sudden turns, attempting to drive the wrong way, or turning toward pedestrians.
Tesla's New Factory
Musk only talked about the FSD rollout once, and he did not elaborate further. He only hinted that 2022 would be the year of "cool stuff."
But Musk did share a couple of stats about the new Tesla factory.
The plant costing $1.1 billion, is Tesla's sixth gigafactory and the automaker's new global headquarters. It will produce Model Ys, Semis, Roadsters, and Cybertrucks in 2023. The factory is also expected to produce 4680 battery cells, according to Teslarati.
Musk said that 2022 is the year about scaling up, and 2023 is the year when a massive wave of products will be released.
New products such as the "dedicated robotaxi," which is expected to look futuristic, and the first version of the Tesla humanoid robot, Optimus, the concept for which was revealed in 2021, is said to be released by Tesla in 2023.
Musk stated that Optimus would "obviate what an economy means," and would be able to do anything that humans don't want to do.
The Tesla CEO said that the release of Optimus will begin the age of abundance, and it will transform the world to a degree even greater than cars.
However, the billionaire did not say whether Optimus would be produced at the factory in Austin, Texas.
The Austin factory differs from Tesla's other five factories because everything needed to manufacture a vehicle is already under one roof.
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Written by Sophie Webster
