Part of today’s most interesting news is a rare admission from a CEO and innovator that some of his tech really isn’t that good.
“FSD Beta 9.2 is actually not great,” tweeted Elon Musk, as revealed in coverage by Kate Duffy at Business Insider and elsewhere.
What Musk was referring to is the current iteration of Tesla’s Full Self Driving tech. The next version, 9.3, he says, will be much better based on what he characterized as “neural network retraining.”
Musk also added in recent comments the driver “should be paranoid” about the technology, which is an enhanced version of Tesla’s autopilot.
The previous autopilot software made headlines as Tesla engineers worked slowly toward more of a self-driving model for the electric vehicle lineup. Although the initial autopilot technology could help with parking and lane departure warnings and that sort of thing, some drivers used it as a sole navigational force for the vehicle, against Tesla’s advice, and experienced crashes and even fatalities as a result.
Readers can get a rather morbid view of Tesla crash statistics at Tesladeaths.com.
“Based on conclusions from completed NHTSA investigations as well as expert testimony in court cases pertaining to the specific crashes, the total is currently seven crashes leading to seven deaths,” analysts write. “That said, there are at least seven other incidents in the US alone that the NHTSA investigated according to a FOIA request from Reuters. Our dataset features the seven likely incidents.”
The new FSD is available now for $10,000 up front or $199 per month.
Spokespersons at the site note that although some models have various fatalities attached, others have none, and that can be a guideline for buyers.
That’s the Tesla news for now – we’re not hearing much about Tesla’s massive investment in Bitcoin, or the global chip shortage or other issues that have to do with one of the top gaining tech stocks over the past two years. But only a mega-billionaire with the kind of power that Musk wields would go on record about flaws in his own creations.
TSLA is around $706 at press time.
