According to CEO Elon Musk, Tesla plans to update its Level 2 autonomous driving technology in the coming months. European customers can also expect convenient parking features.

On May 12, Musk responded to several of his Twitter followers, answering questions about the expansion of Autopilot fully automated driving into broad beta testing. He detailed the elimination of "phantom braking" and the availability of the Smart Summon feature in the European market.

Tesla launched an ambitious full self-driving feature beta in October 2020, but made it available only to select employees and customers. Since then, Tesla fans have been eagerly awaiting a wide-ranging beta test of the technology. Musk told one particularly interested Twitter user, "I think we're a month or two away from a broad beta. But it's hard to predict these things accurately. The work that had to be done for Pure Vision Driving was necessary for the FSD. As Mask says, the difference between FSD version 8.0 and 9.0 with pure vision driving is "huge."

Pure vision driving is exactly what it sounds like. It uses cameras that act as the eyes of the car instead of other systems such as radar. As Mask explained to another Twitter follower on April 10, "When radar and vision don't match, which do you believe? Vision is much more accurate, so it is better to double down on vision than to do sensor fusion". Sensors are bitstreams, and cameras have several orders of magnitude more bits/second than radar (or lidar). Radar is not worth the complexity of integrating it without a significant increase in bitstream signal/noise. The more vision processing improves, the more radar will lag far behind."[7

Tesla owners may be able to subscribe to the FSD service faster than they can participate in the expanded beta test. Musk argued that the subscription service should begin in approximately one month instead of purchasing the FSD package outright. But it probably won't be cheap; the EV news site Electrek estimates that a subscription would cost more than $100 per month.

Some Tesla drivers have experienced what is called "phantom braking." This is when a car is about to drive under a bridge or overpass and suddenly thinks it needs to slow down and applies the brakes to avoid a non-existent hazard. According to Mask, the FSD v9's Pure Vision Driving feature eliminates that annoying tendency.

Tesla devotees on the other side of the Atlantic also have something to look forward to: the Smart Sammon. With Smart Sammon, Tesla drivers will simply tap their smartphones and the car will start moving on its own, navigating the parking lot and coming to them. Musk said on Twitter that pending regulatory approval, the Smart Summon will be part of the FSD and will be available in Europe at the end of the year.