Customers who purchase a Tesla will now get a demonstration of the car's self-driving capabilities before being handed over their vehicle.
According to a new report by Bloomberg, the order comes directly from CEO Elon Musk.
"Going forward, it is mandatory in North America to install and activate FSD V12.3.1 and take customers on a short test ride before handing over the car," wrote Musk in an internal memo sent to Tesla employees.
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By "FSD V12.3.1" Musk means the latest version of Tesla's Full Self-Driving package, an optional $12,000 upgrade which, according to Tesla, enables your car to "be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention." Following a closed trial, Tesla opened up FSD as beta software to everyone in the U.S. in 2022, though the system still hasn't reached the levels of autonomy long promised by Musk.
In the memo, Musk recognizes that the practice of having every customer go through a test ride will "slow down the delivery process," but he reasons that "almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works."
The idea behind the move, which will sure make life harder for some Tesla staffers, is likely that more people will choose to dish out the $12,000 and upgrade to FSD after seeing what it can do.
Buyers who do opt in for the package should be wary of Musk's promises regarding FSD. In 2020, Musk claimed that, after regulatory approval, the value of FSD will be "somewhere in excess of $100,000," and that owners will be able to send their Teslas to work as robotaxis, effectively earning them money. Years have passed, though, and FSD still isn't close to that level of autonomy, with regulators increasingly looking into Tesla's self-driving features in recent years.
