Tesla has been ramping up its efforts in full-self-driving (FSD) technology for years now with a goal to make cars multiple times safer than with human drivers. The rollout is now available to hundreds of thousands of drivers across the US.
An Australian Tesla enthusiast, and avid Driven reader Nash, has been in the US experiencing this technology for himself and has shared a video on his YouTube channel.
The video gives us a glimpse of what’s to come to Australia from Tesla. He shares how easy it is to engage FSD in a Tesla by double tapping on the steering wheel controls and allowing the vehicle to take over to navigate its way out of a car park.
“Here it is okay and then double tap and it’s taking over. This is way too cool! Oh my God, you can see the cars there and it’s now figuring out how to get out of this parking,” Nash says.
The car then finds its way out of the car park and onto a multi-lane road without any driver input. It then heads along this road with Nash summarising his first FSD experience:
“Oh my God this is too cool. Oh wow this is my first time experiencing FSD and I’m gonna say this is something which I did not expect at all.”
Tesla has now started to broaden its rollout to other international markets. Less than a month ago, “Test Operator” roles were advertised in Europe in various countries including Finland, Switzerland, Spain, Norway, Italy, Turkiye, Austria, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.
Tesla also started hiring for “Vehicle Operator” roles in Australia. This news indicated that it could be the first step into looking at enhancing the autopilot suite in preparation for the mass rollout of FSD in the future.
The FSD suite is currently being offered for $10,100 in Tesla’s Australian design studio when buying a new Tesla Model 3 or Model Y vehicle. No monthly subscription is available yet but in the US, it can also be accessed on a subscription of $US199 per month.
As seen in Nash’s video, the improvements in Tesla FSD are coming in quicker allowing the vehicles to tackle various road conditions. It’s exciting to see where this may go for hundreds of local FSD customers waiting for the software to go live in Australia in the coming years.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.