Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta V9 Begins Shipping Saturday, July 10

Musk has finally committed to an official launch date, though he reminds owners "it is still just beta!"

By: Steven Loveday

Jul 8, 2021 at 9:28am ET

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In the wee hours of the morning, Tesla CEO Elon Musk replied a few times on Twitter confirming that Full Self-Driving Beta Version 9 is set to start rolling out this weekend. He clarified that it will start happening this Saturday, not Saturday in two weeks.

Tesla fans and owners have been waiting months for the major full self-driving update to come to cars via over-the-air-software updates. And, interestingly, though they've been asking Musk constantly when the features might launch, they've been seemingly patient. This is likely due in part to the fact that Tesla removed the radar from its Model 3 and Model Y in favor of a camera-based vision-only approach, which reportedly slowed things down.

As you can see from the tweet reply above, Musk said Beta 9 will begin uploading at "midnight California time on Friday." He also added that "it is still just beta!" The comment as well as the exclamation point can be read a number of ways, so we'll leave that for you to figure out.

We've noticed that most of Musk's critical tweets these days come as replies rather than just tweets. Of course, as soon as he sends the reply, thousands of people begin to engage and ask questions. Musk rarely replies to most of the questions, though it seems he picks and chooses a few to respond to, which brings even more attention.

Whole Mars Catalog asked for clarification in the tweet reply below. Musk sort of clarified, or perhaps not. Rather than answering which week, he just wrote "Saturday." So, one could argue that it's some Saturday in two weeks, but it seems it's going to happen this weekend.

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While this news from Musk is very exciting. The real news will be whether or not the updated version truly provides incredible improvement over the current version. Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta testers have shown us over the last few months how much the tech has improved since launch. Tesla has spent months reportedly getting this update right. If it all goes well with the Beta test group, Tesla may add the FSD Beta download button for the general public.

If FSD Beta Version 9 is as good as Musk has been saying it is, this could be a major turning point for Tesla. However, if it fails to impress, it could certainly work against the electric automaker. For now, it's just a waiting game, and those waiting for the button and the public rollout are likely going to be waiting a long time.