Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system has reached its fourth anniversary, marking a transformative journey from an advanced driver-assist system to a technology that’s approaching capabilities comparable to leading autonomous robotaxi services.
The Evolution of FSD Beta
When Tesla launched the FSD Beta program in October 2020, access was highly restricted to a select group of Tesla owners within the company’s early access program. These initial participants played a crucial role in gathering essential real-world data for FSD’s training and development.
From Beta to Supervised
The program has since evolved beyond its beta designation and is now officially known as FSD (Supervised), positioning itself just one step away from full autonomy. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already hinted at the next phase, dubbed “Unsupervised FSD.”
Milestone Achievement
According to Tesla’s Q3 2024 Update Letter, FSD users have collectively accumulated over 2 billion miles of driving data. Notably, approximately half of these miles were logged using FSD V12, indicating not only growing user adoption but also increased system utilization.
Looking Ahead: Version 13
During the third quarter earnings call, Musk shared ambitious projections for the upcoming FSD V13:
“Version 13 of FSD is going out soon. We expect to see roughly a five- or sixfold improvement in miles between interventions compared to 12.5. And actually, looking at the year as whole, the improvement in miles interventions, we think will be at least three orders of magnitude,” Musk stated.
He further added that Tesla expects FSD to surpass human driving performance by mid-2025: “The current total expectation, internal expectation for the Tesla FSD having longer miles between versions than human is the second quarter of next year, which means it may end up being in the third quarter, but it’s next — it seems extremely likely to be next year.”
