Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 🚗 Tesla shares a video of a hands-free Full Self-Driving (FSD) demonstration in Austin, Texas.
- 📹 The video showcases the capabilities of Software Version 11.4.7, the current version of the FSD Beta program.
- 🧠 Tesla’s FSD suite uses neural networks to perceive and understand the world, learning from extensive anonymized data collected from its vehicles.
- 🚫 Although shown in the video, Tesla’s FSD suite does not currently support hands-free operation for customers.
- 📜 Tesla includes a disclaimer, emphasizing that the cabin camera monitoring was active in the demo, but the hands-on steering wheel requirement was disabled, and drivers must remain attentive and ready to take over.
- 📈 Tesla continues to refine its FSD software and demonstrate its potential, despite ongoing scrutiny and regulatory challenges.
- 🤖 Tesla’s FSD suite operates at Level 2 autonomy according to SAE’s Levels of Autonomy.
Tesla has shared a video of a hands-free drive demonstration of its Full Self-Driving suite in Austin. The FSD suite is not available to customers in a hands-free nature, but Tesla disabled the requirement for a new video it shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Tesla shared the video to demonstrate the capabilities of Software Version 11.4.7, which is the current version of the FSD Beta program.
The automaker describes in the Tweet in put up how the Full Self-Driving suite improves through data-driven techniques that refine the capabilities through analysis of other drivers’ behavior and normal navigation habits.
Tesla has used Neural Networks through the years to accumulate the data, which then is computed and helps refine the way FSD works, making it more accurate with every mile driven. Of course, software is far from perfect, and there are times that drivers notice steps back in the suite’s progress.
“Via our unique fleet learning approach, we are able to collect anonymized data from our vehicles—meaning the neural nets have learned from a few orders of magnitude more driving scenarios than the average human driver (including unusual & weird ones!),” Tesla wrote.
Additionally, it is interesting to see the company put out a video of a hands-free demo of the FSD suite, considering it does not support this capability with consumer vehicles.
Tesla put a disclaimer at the bottom of the video stating:
“This video shows current driving capabilities of FSD Beta, which began deploying around 8-23-2023 as software update version 11.4.7 or later. For demonstrative purposes, the cabin camera monitoring remained active but the hands-on steering wheel requirement was disabled (customers cannot disable this feature). All drivers must remain attentive and be ready to take over at any time.”
With stones consistently thrown in the direction of the Full Self-Driving program, Tesla’s new video shows the capabilities of a company vehicle, although what is displayed in the clip is not recommended or even available for drivers.
A report from Bloomberg earlier this year claimed that a 2016 video that “exaggerated” FSD’s abilities was overseen by CEO Elon Musk. The FSD suite is under constant scrutiny from government agencies, including the NHTSA, which has attempted to determine whether the suite has caused accidents involving emergency vehicles.
In late August, Tesla received a Special Order from the NHTSA, requesting more information on Full Self-Driving and software updates.
Tesla could be using the video as an opportunity to display the potential capabilities of FSD as it continues to refine the software. Earlier this year, Musk said he believes Tesla could solve FSD in 2023, but this is a goal he has also set for many years in the past.
Tesla has gotten closer with improvements, but the FSD suite still is operating at Level 2, according to the SAE’s Levels of Autonomy.
