Tesla’s steady march towards viable full self-driving has hit another major milestone with the release of FSD Beta v12.3.1 via 2023.44.30.30. Update finally introduces Tesla’s clever new “Tap to Park” autoparking system and improved driving visualization (brand new) leveraging the company’s vision-based autonomous driving tech.
As the name implies, Tap to Park aims to deliver supremely simple self-parking by condensing the entire process into…well…a single tap. Just pinpoint an open parking spot on your Tesla’s display, and the sophisticated vision system will handle guiding the vehicle perfectly into the space with minimal human intervention.
It’s a significant quality-of-life leap for Tesla’s increasingly robust self-driving capabilities – eschewing finicky ultrasonic sensors and complex user inputs for pure intuitive parking powered by neural net smarts.
Tesla Model Y owner Joe share a video and says: “So far I’m pretty impressed. It’s way better than the old autopark.”
Robotaxi Tech Handles The Parallel Parking Pain
Under the hood, Tap to Park relies on the same core neural net architectures as Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta, granting it adroit object detection, spatial awareness, and dynamic pathing to smoothly maneuver during parking.
So while the old ultrasonic-powered Autopark systems often struggled with close-quarters parallel situations, the fresh vision-centric approach promises smoother, smarter self-parking almost on par with human intuition. At least, that’s the ambitious vision.
Just a Glimpse of the Full “Actually Smart Summon” Potential
Of course, as slick as the new Tap to Park system appears, it’s really just an aperitiffor the main course Tesla has cooking – a fully automated “Actually Smart Summon” capable of autonomously retrieving your vehicle from practically anywhere.
Musk himself teased that the fledgling end-to-end neural nets powering Tap to Park will be expanded to encompass Smart Summon’s complete functionality within a month or two. At that point, owners might rarely need to physically park and retrieve their cars again.
For now, Tap to Park represents another tantalizing peek at how rapidly Tesla is iterating its way towards attaining true full self-driving using intelligent vision. One simple parking tap at a time, the sci-fi future grows ever closer.