How To Get Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta In New Roll-Out & What To Expect

For Tesla owners that can’t wait to get their hands on the company’s Full Self-Driving functionality, Elon Musk has announced a much easier way to gain access to the beta program. One of the hallmark features of Teslas is the promise that they’ll eventually be 100% autonomous, and while the market is still a ways away from that becoming a standardized feature for all drivers, Tesla has been pushing hard to make its Full Self-Driving features as accessible as possible.

Prior to the announcement of the beta rolling out to more users, this was also seen with Musk’s announcement that a subscription plan for Full Self-Driving is coming in Q2 2021. Prospective Tesla customers currently need to pay $10,000 as a one-time upgrade to access existing and future self-driving features, but with the launch of a subscription, there will be the option to pay a much smaller amount month-to-month.

As far as the Full Self-Driving beta is concerned, there have been a couple of big developments. Musk Tweeted on March 5 that the beta program would be doubling in size with the 8.2 update and then increasing the size again by 10x with version 8.3. A day later on March 6, Musk followed-up by saying that a “Download Beta” button is being added to the Tesla dashboard interface to make joining as easy as possible — citing “high levels of demand” for this decision.

How To Join The Full Self-Driving Beta

For someone that owns a Tesla and is interested in joining the Full Self-Driving beta for themselves, doing so is quite simple. On the main display inside any Tesla, navigate to the Service section. From there, the Download Beta button should be available to tap to get started with it. If the button isn’t showing up quite yet, Musk notes that availability of the beta “varies by region due to regulatory approval delays and/or Tesla internal development & testing.”

After signing up for and joining the Full Self-Driving beta, Tesla owners can expect a car that’s able to deliver more of the autonomous future Tesla has been promising for years — including driving through tricky intersections, roundabouts, more complicated turns, and more. After a driver enters their destination, the Full Self-Driving beta should be able to take them there all on its own. Musk reassures that all of the features present in the beta are “first tested internally by Tesla simulation & QA drive teams,” but as one might expect, the idea of running beta software to have a car drive itself doesn’t sit right with everyone.

As for whether or not Tesla owners should sign up for the beta once it’s made available to them, that’s something that everyone will need to decide for themselves. The Full Self-Driving beta still requires drivers to pay attention to the road while it’s engaged, with drivers needing to keep their hands on the steering wheel in the event something with Full Self-Driving goes wrong.

Source: Elon Musk

About The Author

Joe Maring
(1530 Articles Published)

Joe has been actively writing and talking about consumer tech since 2012. His biggest passion lies with smartphones, but he’s happy to talk your ear off about just about anything with a CPU. He lives in Kalamazoo, MI with his wife, two cats, and pit bull/boxer mix.

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