This Week in Tesla: FSD Beta Wider Release On the Way, Heat Pump Effectiveness Proven

FSD Beta Wider Release On the Way -

In a November 29th tweet from Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, he announced that the wider release of FSD beta will come in approximately two weeks. Currently, the feature is only accessible to a few lucky testers chosen by Tesla to carefully test the software and send feedback. Tesla is often releasing new versions of the software to the current beta testers more than once a week, each time improving the system. The reason why the process of beta testing is so crucial to a software system like this is that there are so many edge cases that rarely ever happen while driving that the software needs to be prepared for and know how to handle. There are also vastly different roads all over the country, and many difficult situations that arise. Once the system is released on a wider scale, it will only be available to those who have purchased the FSD upgrade, and have the latest version of Tesla’s hardware (included on all cars built in or after April 2019). When Navigate on Autopilot first came out, the software was a bit shaky and the lane changes were not as smooth or natural as a human driver, but over time the system improved and now is much better and more natural compared to when it first came out. This will likely be the case for FSD beta too, there will be moments when drivers have to disengage the system, but the system will improve itself with time thanks to the advanced machine learning capabilities.

Heat Pump Effectiveness Proven -

When the Model Y initially came out, one of the most important features, especially for those of us in the northeast, was the heat pump. The heat pump enables the car to keep the battery at a reasonable temperature without wasting too much battery life. The feature has now trickled down to the Model 3 as well and a recent test conducted by an owner who has a Model 3 without a heat pump in addition to a Model 3 with a heat pump to see just how much of a difference it makes. He set the heat in both of the cars to 70°F and his conclusions were that the Model 3 without a heat pump required 2,170 watts to maintain the temperature whereas the Model 3 with a heat pump only required 735 watts. The findings definitely show that the heat pump makes a difference in how much energy is required, but it will be interesting to see if there is an even larger efficiency gap if he performs the test in colder conditions.

‍