Tesla’s new AI self-driving demo looks like a mind-reading robotaxi
Tesla has released a new video of its full self-driving capability in action.
Posted to X, the clip was filmed driving around Austin, Texas.
You can check out the full self-driving demo below:
“Tesla Full Self-Driving capability demo in Austin FSD capability features use vision neural networks to perceive & understand the world, just like humans do,” the post caption reads.
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“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!)”
The five-minute drive shows a much-longer and edited no-intervention drive as the driver sits unreactive but attentive (as per a disclaimer).
The drive begins on residential streets before graduating to heavier traffic on main roads.
It navigates some complicated lane changes and highway merging along the way.
Tesla has not currently released information on driver intervention, system failures, and accidents that would constitute a level-3 or level-4 self-driving capability sustym.
The post comes after CEO and co-founder of Tesla and owner of X, Elon Musk, hosted a livestream in August in the Bay Area of San Francisco.
The livestream was done in his Model S using an unreleased version of FSD, version 12 to showcase the new neural net-based vehicle controls.
However, poor filming and video quality coupled with issues with the self-driving capability system meant it was far from a success.
Tesla’s new and altogether more professional-looking video was a better demonstration of the brand’s latest FSD Beta capability.
Posted yesterday (17 Octboer), the video has already been viewed 3m times at the time of writing.
Bizarrely the video doesn’t confirm the exact model of FSD Beta testing the Tesla feature.
And, unlike some other Tesla functions, including the self-diagnosis tool, the EV’s self-driving capabilities have got people excited.
V12 uses end-to-end AI, making decisions and actioning them based only on visual input from cameras.
This is rather than relying on hundreds of thousands of lines of code letting it know what to do.
However, a disclaimer at the bottom of the shot states that it is “version 11.4.7 or later”.
So it’s safe to assume that the demo isn’t featuring the latest neural network-based vehicle controls.
Tesla’s over-video disclaimer also states that the “hands-on steering wheel requirement was disabled” for the demo, dubbed “Elon Mode”.
It notes that this is not how FSD Beta is meant to be used and “customers cannot disable this feature”.
“All drivers must remain attentive and be ready to take over at any time,” it said.
