Tesla Deploys “FSD Beta Button” and “Safety Score” to Countless Tesla Owners

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After a long, often impatient wait, Tesla owners across the United States have almost obtained access to the company’s “FSD Beta” driver assistance software for city streets. As one of those owners, I will be documenting below what exactly we got over the past 24 hours.

First of all, be aware that you need to purchase the “Full Self-Driving” pack in order to get this latest update. When I bought my Tesla Model 3 two years ago, this software package cost $ 6,000. It now costs $ 10,000. (One of the main reasons I bought it was because I knew the price would go up and that could eventually make my car an asset of appreciation. At least it seemed clear that it would be an asset of appreciation. appreciation. characteristic, and I would say a 67% increase in value over two years is pretty good.)

Right now, people who bought the Full Self-Driving software package have a few notable but not life changing things that Tesla owners who didn’t buy the package don’t: cars 1) can automatically change lanes when you turn on the turn signal, 2) can navigate traffic on interstate freeways on your own from the exit ramp to the slip road (with surveillance of course), and 3) can s ” automatically stop at red lights and stop signs. However, cars still cannot turn right or left on their own, avoid potholes on their own, go from your starting point to a designated destination independently, or drive through roundabouts. -points by themselves. With the “FSD Beta” update, a Tesla can do these things (well, I’m not sure to avoid potholes, but we’ll find out soon enough).

In the past 24 hours, Tesla rolled out an update that is now generally referred to as “the button” in Tesla circles. I received the update and installed it this morning. Here’s how the process went:

Step 1 – Update the car

As with all over-the-air software updates from Tesla, they had to be downloaded via WiFi first (which can be done while driving or parking) and then installed (which typically takes around 25 minutes and should be done for parking since the car turns off then on again during the process). In the first image below, you can see a countdown until the installation begins. (There is always a 2 minute countdown that starts as soon as you press the button to install the new software, giving you some time to cancel / postpone the update in case you realize you don’t don’t want to do it at this time.)

Step 2 – Check for the updates you got

Usually, after installing a software update, when you return to the car, a box will appear on the screen explaining what you got with the update. If the update involves only bug fixes, the “release notes” will not automatically appear on the screen. Oddly enough, in this case, although it was an important update, nothing was showing on the screen. At any point, however, you can find the release notes by navigating to them from the car icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Just click on the car icon, then click “Software” at the bottom of the menu on the left side, then find the blue text / link “Release Notes” under some information about your car. When I was cruising there this morning, I saw that I had indeed gotten the “Request Full Self-Drive Beta” update. There is written how to proceed to request access, which is step 3 below.

Step 3 – “REQUEST THE FULL SELF-DRIVE BETA”

Finally – a little over two years after buying the car and a little less than a year after planning to get this exact update – I’m on my way to getting FSD Beta, which is basically drive door to door through city streets. at this stage (as long as the doors are on the public road). I clicked this button at the top of the Autopilot page on the Model 3 touchscreen and was on my way to step 4 below.

Step 4 – Give access to your data, 1st child, etc.

I had to tick three boxes to be able to enter. They are pale in the image below because I had already checked and agreed to them when I took this photo, and I didn’t want to take any chances in trying to temporarily opt out. What you can see in the photo below, however, is that I have consented to them using my car’s driving data; I understood that I had to stay alert with my hands on the wheel at all times while FSD Beta was active; and I understood that the beta of FSD could be revoked (withdrawn) at any time if Tesla felt that I didn’t deserve it.

Step 5 – Obsessively Watch Tesla’s Safety Score

Something that came up next to the “button” is a new feature in the Tesla phone app – Safety Score Beta. Johnna has written about this before, but I can provide a bit more information from a user’s perspective.

Tesla assesses driver behavior in several ways the company considers important in determining whether or not to give someone access to the beta version of FSD. Below is the instant result from the Tesla app on my phone after driving to a tennis tournament for my daughter, driving from there to the beach for a while, then driving home. In particular, I think I know exactly where I lost a point and a half for “hard braking”. I was on a fairly fast road and was approaching a light when the light turned yellow. I wasn’t close enough yet to be able to cross the intersection comfortably, but I was too close to slow down very gradually. I had to decide if I should accelerate through the intersection, maybe because the light was turning red or if I was braking harder than I hardly ever have to brake. I chose the latter and immediately complained that it might penalize me in this brand new Tesla Safety Score system. (I had just learned this scoring system by editing and posting Johnna’s article at the beach – yes, I even have to work at the beach, or I think I do.) It seems like it did. penalized for it.

Nevertheless, it is apparently a very good score. You can see how other Tesla drivers are doing via the following tweets:

There is more about this system explained on the Tesla Safety Score Beta page, but here’s the summary explanation of the five safety factors Tesla assesses:

Head-on collision warnings per 1,000 miles
Frontal Collision Warnings are audible and visual alerts provided to you, the driver, in cases where a possible collision with an object in front of the vehicle is considered likely without your intervention. Events are captured based on the “medium” sensitivity setting of the Forward Collision Warning, regardless of the user’s setting in the vehicle. Head-on collision warnings are incorporated into the safety score formula at a rate per 1,000 miles.
Hard braking
Hard braking is defined as backward acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, greater than 0.3g. It is the same as decreasing vehicle speed above 6.7 mph, in one second. Hard braking is introduced into the safety score formula as the proportion of time (expressed as a percentage) that the vehicle experiences rearward acceleration greater than 0.3g compared to the proportion of time that the vehicle experiences Backward acceleration greater than 0.1 g (2.2 mph in one second).
Aggressive turn
An aggressive turn is defined as a left / right acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, greater than 0.4g. This is the same as increasing the speed of vehicles to the left / right of more than 8.9 mph, in one second. Aggressive turns are introduced into the safety score formula as the proportion of time (expressed as a percentage) that the vehicle experiences lateral acceleration greater than 0.4g, in the left or right direction, relative to the proportion of The time the vehicle experiences an acceleration greater than 0.2 g (4.5 mph in one second), either left or right.
Dangerous tracking
Your Tesla vehicle measures its own speed, the speed of the vehicle in front of you, and the distance between the two vehicles. Based on these measurements, your vehicle calculates the number of seconds you would have to react and stop if the vehicle in front of you suddenly stopped. This measurement is called advance. Hazardous tracking is the proportion of time your vehicle’s advance is less than 1.0 seconds to the time your vehicle’s advance is less than 3.0 seconds. Hazardous tracking is only measured when your vehicle is traveling at least 80 km / h and is incorporated into the safety score formula as a percentage.
Forced disengagement of the autopilot
The autopilot system disengages for the remainder of the trip after you, the driver, have received three audible and visual warnings. These warnings occur when your Tesla vehicle has determined that you have taken your hands off the steering wheel and have become inattentive. Forced autopilot disengagement is entered in the safety score formula as a flag of 1 or 0. The value is 1 if the Autopilot system is forcibly disabled during a trip, and 0 otherwise.

Naturally, I will be obsessively monitoring my safety score over the coming week and hope it turns out good enough to get into FSD’s beta testing program. We don’t yet know what the cutoff score for inclusion will be, or if inclusion is more nuanced than that.

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