San Francisco, Apr 8 (IANS): Tech billionaire Elon Musk said that his electric vehicle company Tesla is planning to roll out "full self-driving" (FSD) beta software this year to all customers in North America who have plunked down as much as $12,000 for the controversial version of its driver assistance system.

Musk announced the expected roll out of FSD beta software during the Tesla Cyber Rodeo, an event to celebrate the grand opening of its factory in Austin, reports TechCrunch.

"The Tesla Autopilot team and AI team has done an incredible job building real world AI and we are able to go to wide beta for all full self-driving customers in North America this year," he was quoted as saying in a live-streamed speech.

FSD is a feature that Musk has promised will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities. FSD, as it is often branded, has been available as an option for years.

However, Tesla vehicles are not self-driving. They come standard with a driver assistance system branded as Autopilot, which can be bought for an additional $12,000.

FSD includes the parking feature Summon as well as Navigate on Autopilot, an active guidance system that navigates a car from a highway on-ramp to off-ramp, including interchanges and making lane changes. It is now operational on city streets, the report said.

The company has released FSD to some of the customers who have paid for the product.