Tesla has taken a strict approach to safety with the expansion of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta testing program by kicking owners out if they don’t pay attention while using the software.
The company first notified owners by email if they were found to be abusing the system. The email was confusing however, and didn’t provide clarity on exactly how many ‘strikeouts’ they had before being kicked out.
Tesla then added a message that would pop-up on the in-car display, saying that “continued improper usage will result in the removal of Full Self-Driving (Beta)” from the vehicle. While the message was a bit clearer and more prominent, it still didn’t advise owners of how ‘bad’ they had been, or how ‘bad’ they could continue to be.
Tesla has now updated the message and added a new section to the Autopilot menu to remove any doubt.
The new version of the pop-up message displays the remaining number of strikeouts before being kicked out.
A new section has also been added to the Autopilot menu, providing essentially the same message but with a little more detail.
After being limited to about 1,000 employees and public testers for the better part of one year, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta program has grown to over 10,000 in recent months.
The large increase in testers came after the implementation of the highly anticipated ‘Request Full Self-Driving Beta’ button in September. It wasn’t as easy as hitting the button though.
Owners still had to achieve a perfect 100 ‘Safety Score’ over a period of 7 or more days to be allowed to download the software.
The threshold has since been lowered, with people with a score of 98 or higher most recently being accepting into the program.
