Electric car maker Tesla has temporarily halted further rollouts of its fully self-driving software to new beta participants, effective immediately. The news comes after the recall of 362,000 cars enrolled in Tesla’s Beta FSD program that could violate state and local highway laws because of the car’s programming.
Tesla says it has paused the FSD Beta release to everyone who has purchased the software but has not yet received it. New FSD beta participants (those who have paid but not yet installed the software in their vehicles) will not be eligible to install Tesla’s FSD software “until the version of the software containing the fix is available”. The automaker didn’t include a timeline for the fix in its recall FAQ, but notes that the fix will be available “in the coming weeks” in its official NHTSA recall notice.
Despite the recall and hiatus, you can still buy Tesla’s $15,000 full self-driving software. This is likely because Tesla intends to fix the issue before delivering new vehicles or activating driver access to the Beta FSD program. Other owners have complained that they are still allowed to purchase the $200 monthly subscription to FSD Beta, but are not receiving access to the beta due to the pause. One Reddit user even goes so far as to say he feels “scammed” by the test.
The timing of the withdrawal and hiatus could not have been much worse. The company’s annual investor event is on March 1, which means Tesla will likely have to work overtime to woo investors in one of its core products, full-autonomy, which doesn’t actually exists in nature. Tesla’s value has long been tied to its promise of affordable electric cars and range. And with other automakers catching up in both areas (and in some cases, surpassing Tesla), the automaker will have to start working overtime to remain relevant and valuable.
“So there’s a bunch of things like that that we have to fix, but the overwhelming focus is on solving full autonomous driving,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during an interview with Silicon Valley Tesla Owners in June 2022. “This is essential and really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.”
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