Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted new information about Full-Self Driving (FSD) Beta. Musk responded to a tweet about the current FSD Beta system, saying that V9.0 is almost ready and that it is a significant improvement.
What is interesting is the fact that the system stops using the radar sensor and relies only on the cameras. Teslas has one forward-facing radar sensor, eight cameras and twelve ultrasonic sensors.
The single radar sensor will no longer be used and Musk has confirmed that Tesla will abandon it from production and not use it as a backup. Musk is known for not wanting to use lidar sensors, and this is now the case with radar sensors. Musk and his team seem determined to use only cameras.
The tweet also mentions that FSD will improve with ‘strange angles and bad weather’. The bad weather section is obvious, but some are unfamiliar with strange corner cases, also known as edge cases. These are basically very difficult driving situations that the system may have never experienced before. A very extraordinary circumstance that rarely happens like strange unprotected left turns.
Unprotected turns to the left is one area where FSD Beta needs to improve. One FSD Beta tester made an entire video on one particular unprotected left turn, and it was a little scary to watch. But at the same time, FSD Beta is also making an impression. This video shows how FSD performs well in several marginal cases. If you want to see what FSD Beta “sees” on top of regular video material, watch this video.
Tesla is expanding the number of FSD Beta testers, the latest figure was 2000. Soon there will be an FSD Beta button that Tesla owners can press if they want to try the system.