What happened Shares of electric car superstar Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock had popped 2.5% as of 12:10 p.m. EDT Monday after Tesla announced over the weekend that it has activated the "request" button on its cars. By clicking on said button, a Tesla owner can apply to join the beta test of the company's Full Self-Driving software program. Image source: Getty Images. So what Not all who call will be chosen, however. As Tesla advises, it will limit FSD beta functionality to drivers who have a sufficiently high proprietary Tesla Safety Score, through which Tesla calculates "the likelihood that your driving could result in a future collision" by aggregating data collected by the company on a driver's history of driving habits including: Forward collision warnings per 1,000 miles. Hard braking. Aggressive turning. Unsafe Following. Events of forced autopilot disengagement. Now what And all of that makes sense. After all, FSD is in part a public relations program -- the better the software performs once activated (i.e., the fewer the crashes that result after it is activated), the more kindly regulators are likely to look upon FSD. Also, despite the name, FSD doesn't actually make a car fully autonomous, and the car needs to have a driver in control at all times -- the better the drivers, the better Tesla will look. FSD is also in a sense a marketing program, because the safer the software appears in the real world, the more likely Tesla owners will be to ante up $10,000 apiece (or $199 a month) to get it activated. If adopted by all persons who currently own Teslas, that works out to a potential $14 billion bonanza for the company, with billions more to follow as Tesla sells even more cars in the future. In short, there's a lot riding on the success of this program -- and today, Tesla took a step toward making it all happen. Find out why Tesla is one of the 10 best stocks to buy now Our award-winning analyst team has spent more than a decade beating the market. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* They just revealed their ten top stock picks for investors to buy right now. Tesla is on the list -- but there are nine others you may be overlooking. Click here to get access to the full list! *Stock Advisor returns as of September 17, 2021 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source