Last October, Tesla released its FSD Beta software to a small group of public testers who have been putting it through its paces since then. FSD Beta is a version of Tesla Autopilot designed to eventually be capable of driving autonomously in virtually any situation. It’s definitely not there yet, but it has improved a lot since its initial release. Each new software update is better than the last but the change is fairly incremental from version to version. So to see the overall improvement in aggregate, we need to compare a new sofware version with a very old one.

And that’s what I did. I made a video that compares clips from two drives on the exact same route, but taken 9 months apart. You can see that one of the early sofware versions (2020.40.8.11) made a lot of mistakes, both big and small, and even gave up entirely at one point. In contrast, the most recent software version (FSD Beta 9.1) has virtually no issues in those exact same situations.

Granted, the test route is not particularly difficult, the roads are wide and well-marked. If the car had to go through busy downtown or tight alleys, it would likely still struggle in certain situations, as demonstrated by many other FSD Beta videos on YouTube. However, it’s clear that the software has improved a lot over the last 9 months and it keeps getting better with each update. The hope is that it’s just a matter of time when it becomes confident and reliable even in the most difficult scenarios. Let’s check back again in 9 more months!

The source videos were filmed by James Locke and used with permission. Check out his other videos on YouTube or follow him on Twitter.