Elon Musk has mandated Tesla employees to install and demo Full Self-Driving Beta for every customer taking delivery in North America.
Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta is a level 2 Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) that automates all aspects of driving on city streets and highways, but it requires the driver’s attention at all times – hence why it is still only a level 2 system despite its name.
Tesla’s goal is to improve the system until it can eventually remove the requirement to have the driver’s attention, making it a true self-driving system.
The automaker is currently rolling out version 12 of its FSD Beta system. which has been touted has a major step forward for the system by powering vehicle controls with neural nets.
Tesla sells its Full Self-Driving package for $12,000 or a $200 a month subscription.
The automaker has never revealed the take rate of the package, but some data would point to a lower than 20% take rate in North America. It is likely much lower globally as other markets don’t have access to FSD Beta.
In order to boost the take rate, Elon Musk has informed Tesla employees this morning to install the FSD Beta software on all new cars being delivered and give short test drives to the new buyers.
The CEO wrote in an email to employees:
Going forward, it is mandatory in North America to install and activate FSD V12.3.1 and take customers on a short test ride before handing over the car.
Musk says that he wants more people to realize “FSD actually works”:
Almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works.
Over the years, Tesla has continuously cut down on the tasks related to delivering vehicles as it often becomes a bottleneck in the automaker’s operations.
It is not rare these days to take delivery of a Tesla vehicle in minutes and Tesla employees would refer you to videos available on the car’s center display in order to inform the new owners of any functionality inside the vehicle.
Requiring a demo drive with every new delivery is going to greatly increase the delivery workload at Tesla stores and delivery centers.
The CEO seems aware as he finished his email on this note:
I know this will slow down the delivery process, but it is nonetheless a hard requirement.
The new initiative also matches Tesla’s referral program incentives. If a new buyer buys a Tesla with a referral code, they get 3 months of free Full Self-Driving package.
Electrek’s Take
Sorry Tesla delivery people. This is going to create a massive backlog, especially now at the end of the quarter.
As for the effectiveness of this, I don’t know. To be fair, I have yet to try v12. Speaking of, it’s weird that Tesla is going to push it to every new car before delivery, but that many long-time FSD owners like myself have yet to receive the update.
Maybe v12 is so impressive that Elon really believes it will increase the take rate to demo it at delivery – even though everyone who buys with a referral code gets it for free for the first 3 months and presumably tries it during that period of time.
Now, I do like the fact that the first time someone is exposed to FSD Beta, it will be in the presence of a Tesla employee, who presumably is going to emphasize the fact that this is a level 2 ADAS and it requires your attention at all times. No exception.
But I think that Tesla and Elon, in particular, are again ignoring the only real thing that would significantly increase confidence in FSD Beta: strong and transparent data.
Yes, personal experience with the system is useful, but like Youtube videos, it’s all anecdotal data. Tesla is now getting close to 1 billion miles of FSD Beta data and it hasn’t released anything of value from this data.
If Tesla wants to people to realize that FSD “actually works”, it needs to show the data it does.
Because let’s be honest “supervised FSD Beta” actually works, but that’s because of the “supervised” part. There would be tens of thousands of FSD Beta crashes if it weren’t for driver supervision.