A beta version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) autopilot leaked online and began spreading within the hacker community. As reported by Electrek, citing unnamed sources.
According to them, binary firmware files are circulating in the Tesla root-access community, which, using root privileges, allow running FSD on any of the company’s electric cars regardless of region.
An electric vehicle owner in Ukraine published a video using the beta autopilot in Kyiv. It should be noted that Tesla develops FSD only for the US market and has not adapted it for other countries, where road signs and driving rules differ.
In the published clip, the software shows some difficulties in understanding the surroundings. This may be because FSD does not rely on high-resolution maps and geoblocking. Instead, Tesla is trying to create an autopilot based on computer vision and neural networks, which in theory could navigate in any environment.
Nevertheless, the robo-car managed several situations in an unfamiliar city: it accurately recognised traffic-signal lights, road markings, made turns at intersections autonomously and yielded to oncoming traffic.
The YouTuber used version 8.2 of FSD, released on March 4, 2021. Reports say the latest ninth version of the autopilot also fell into hackers’ hands.
The company did not comment on the FSD leak.
In September, American authorities demanded Tesla open access to autopilot data.
In August, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an official investigation into the company’s autonomous technologies after a series of crashes.
In June, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety deemed Tesla’s camera-based autopilot safe.
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