Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday night the company plans to hit the market this year beta software ‘fully self-driving’ for all North American customers who’ve dropped up to $12,000 on a controversial version of the driver assistance system.
The CEO made the announcement while wearing a black cowboy hat during the Tesla Cyber Rodeo event, an event that celebrates the opening of its factory in Austin.
“Tesla Autopilot and AI team have done an incredible job in building real-world AI, and we are able to go to a broad beta for all fully self-driving customers in the United States. North America this year,” Musk said in a live broadcast.
Full self-driving, or FSD as it’s commonly branded, has been available as an option for many years. However, Tesla cars are not self-driving. Tesla vehicles come standard with a driver assistance system called Autopilot. For an extra $12,000, owners can buy FSD — a feature Musk has repeatedly promised will one day offer full autonomous driving capabilities. FSD includes a Summon parking feature as well as Autopilot Navigation, a guidance system that proactively navigates the car from the highway on ramps to shortcuts, including intersections and making turns. road lane. It is currently operating on the streets of the city.
Tesla has issued FSD to some, but not all, paying customers. The company has launched a Tool “safety point” last year to determine if owners could access a beta version of the “Full Self-Driving” software. Tesla said in Shareholder letter Q460,000 Tesla owners already have access to the beta FSD software.
Numerous videos have been posted since the FSD beta software was first released, showing owners pushing the boundaries of the system’s capabilities or in many cases highlighting the software’s limitations, including including sudden turns, attempts to drive in the wrong direction, or turns toward pedestrians.
Other Cyber Rodeo tidbits
Elon Musk and Franz von Holzhausen with the Tesla Cybertruck at the factory opening ceremony in Austin.
Aside from a sentence uttered by the executive when he could get a lucid word, which has so many loving fans shouting and even crying, Musk said nothing more about the rollout. This FSD. He also didn’t share many tangible updates, only hinting that next year will be the year of “some interesting stuff that we haven’t even talked about yet.”
However, he did share a few stats about the new factory.
A mile-long, $1.1 billion factoryThe sixth Gigafactory of Tesla and company new global headquarterswill not only produce the Model Y, is currently Tesla’s most popular vehicle, plus, starting in 2023, the Semi, Roadster and Cybertruck are highly anticipated. It will also produce 4680 battery cells.
“This year is all about scaling, and next year there’s going to be a huge wave of new products,” Musk said.
New products like the “specialized robotaxi” look “quite futuristic” and are the first versions of Tesla humanoid robot, Optimus, the concept was announced last year.
“Optimus will change the meaning of an economy,” Musk said. “Basically it will be able to do anything humans don’t want to do, Optimus will do. It will be an age of abundance… I think it will truly transform the world to an even greater degree than cars. ”
Musk did not say whether the Optimus is made at the Texas giga plant, which Musk calls “The most advanced car factory the Earth has ever seen.”
The Austin plant is different from Tesla’s five other factories because everything needed to make a car is under one roof, Musk said.
“What we think makes sense is to really think of it like a chip, like an integrated circuit,” Musk said. “Bringing everything together in one package. This is the case where the raw materials come to be on the one hand, they are made into a cell, they are made into a package. Then we molded the front-rear body. The package itself is the structure. And then come out with a finished product. So it’s raw materials on one side, cars on the other. ”
This building design will help Tesla move to “really big scale”, part of the Musk’s plan is to grow the company to “extreme scale.”
Many thought Musk would reveal updates to the Cybertruck at the event, and some on social media reported that the rear glass was dropped to help with cargo, an updated repeater camera on the front fender and the middle fender separates the bed and the passenger seat, but the executive didn’t mention those. The only “update” Musk mentioned on stage is that the Cybertruck won’t have a door handle, because “the car can say you’re there and it just knows it needs to be open.”
Musk ended his short speech at Cyber Rodeo saying, “At Tesla, we believe in having great parties, so let’s get this party started.”
‘Literally the biggest party on Earth’
Before Musk took to the stage in a 2008 Roadster to the accompanying beat of “Still DRE,” the YouTube live stream and social media scan revealed some of the interesting things that could be found at the dinner. party, where guests were greeted with a self-guided tour of the Model Y production line.
Photos of the event shared on social media show that Tesla has truly embraced the Texas spirit in a way that goes far beyond not paying corporate taxes – Texas-style art and entertainment in the form of a car. Giant metal ten-gallon caps, a Bull machine, and 87 red, white and blue Teslas in the shape of the Texas flag were on display.
In the minutes before Musk addressed the crowd, a rather dramatic drone show took over the sky, displays the Cyber Rodeo logo in the sky one minute, a row of Cybertruck-shaped lights the next, a Shiba Inu for all Dogecoin segments, and an image of the CEO himself in a cowboy hat, looming in the sky the sky is like the Shadow Mark.
Unfortunately, not everyone who wants to be at Cyber Rodeo can attend.
Musk tweeted on Wednesday that the event’s doors “won’t be so strict,” prompting many fanboys to try to line up and get inside. Unfortunately, the poor souls have repeatedly turn away from security who said that without an invitation, no one gets inside.
