Elon Musk has revealed that electric car maker Tesla will roll out its Full Self Driving (FSD) beta upgrade to Canada and Norway after the US.
Tesla’s “full-functioning” FSD beta was first rolled out to a small number of Tesla owners in the US in October, and has since successfully navigated not only roundabouts but also a slew of skeptics.
Despite the controversy associated with rolling out the beta software to drivers, global interest in the software is such that Tesla drivers in other countries are now calling for an expansion of the roll out.
Tesla fans and owners on social media streams have generated hashtags to attract interest to their cause, such as #FSDBetaAU, and #TeslaFSDCanada.
But despite the calls from fellow English-speaking countries, it was a tweet from Norway that drew Elon Musk’s interest.
The tweet, from Norwegian computer programmer Kjell Arne Rekaa, called for FSD to be rolled out in the world’s most successful EV market.
Rekaa makes the point that Tesla already has an extremely large number of vehicles on the road in Norway, saying, “Please implement all FSD functions for Norway. Norwegian laws are world-leading in acceptance for autonomous vehicles! Norway has the highest density of Tesla cars in the world.”
Musk responded that, “Canada and Norway are next after we get US out of early beta!”
Canada and Norway are next after we get US out of early beta!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2020
Tesla’s FSD beta is already into its third update. Version 2020.40.8.12 has been released, with improvements in visualisations to “better support Full Self-Driving capabilities by increasing the display size to show additional surrounding information”, according to NotaTeslaApp.
Release notes of the latest version say that now, visualisations will show the next turn, “above the visualization if the navigation turn list is covered by another app,” and certain items on the screen have been moved to allow quicker access to the backup camera and window wipers.
The notes also say that, “Autopilot set speed is now displayed directly below the speedometer and can continue to be adjusted using the right steering wheel scroll wheel. The speed will turn blue when Autopilot is engaged.”
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.