Tesla Autopilot Self-Driving Beta Will Start Next Tuesday

After a complete rewrite of the system, the Tesla CEO announces that a small beta test will begin next week for a select group of 'expert & careful' drivers.

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter that the company's Full Self-Driving (FSD) will be available in a small closed beta test beginning next week.
• In April, the CEO announced that the feature would be ready by the end of 2020 and would be available via subscription.
• The company rewrote its FSD software stack so it would better recognize and label items the vehicle sees on the road.

After a complete rewrite of Autopilot and specifically the upcoming FSD (Full Self-Driving) feature, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tweeted that a closed beta test of the system will be rolling out next Tuesday, October 20. But Tesla owners shouldn't rush out next week to check their cars, because the pool of vehicles that will get this update is very small. Musk tweeted, "This will, at first, be limited to a small number of people who are expert & careful drivers."

FSD has been a long time coming for the company with promises of its release date slipping time and time again. Recently, the company almost completely rewrote the software stack, including how it labels items.

In April, Musk announced that self-driving capabilities would be available by the end of 2020 and that it would be available via subscription.