Full self driving

Full Self-Driving is one of the two Autopilot packages available for Tesla cars. Compared to Autopilot, Full Self-Driving offers more capabilities including:

Full Self-Driving is currently intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous.

Pictures of Full Self-Driving

FSD driving visualizations

Blog posts related to Full self driving

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.48.5

December 1, 2020

Tesla is rolling out the latest software update 2020.48.5 which introduces great improvements in Sentry Mode, text messaging, and navigation. Keep reading to see the 2020.48.5 release notes and 'Who gets what' table.

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.40.8

October 21, 2020

Tesla 2020.40.7 and 2020.40.8 introduce 'Improved Efficiency'. Model Y owners are seeing a ~10 mile increase in range.

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.40.3

October 7, 2020

Tesla's software update 2020.40.3 contains: Speed Assist, Glovebox PIN, Priority Bluetooth, and more. Tesla 2020.40.* started rolling out to owners a few days ago. Since yesterday, 2020.40.3 seems to be arriving to more owners in the US, Canada, and Australia.

How to tell if a Tesla has Full Self-Driving (FSD)

September 21, 2020

To know for sure if a Tesla has Full Self-Driving (FSD) either go to the Tesla App and tap on 'Upgrades' or check the 'Additional Vehicle Information' under Controls > Software in the car's touchscreen.

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.36.10

September 11, 2020

Tesla is rolling out a new software update, version 2020.36.10, which brings improvements to 'Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control' to Tesla owners in Australia and Europe. The 'go-on-green' feature has been available in the US since version 2020.24.6.

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.36

August 31, 2020

Tesla is rolling out update 2020.36 introducing 'Green Traffic Light Chime' and 'Speed Assist Improvements' (speed limit recognition with cameras), amongst others. See both in action, check out the videos.

Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, and Full Self-Driving features and cost

August 27, 2020

Are Autopilot and Enhanced Autopilot the same? What about Full Self-Driving? How much does it cost to upgrade to FSD? How do I know what I have in my Tesla? Learn more about Tesla's AP, EAP, and FSD and how to upgrade.

What’s in Tesla’s software update 2020.28.5

July 29, 2020

Tesla's latest software update, 2020.28.5, introduces some nice changes in the Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control feature in the US. The feature won't be available in Europe until 2020.28.10. Keep reading to learn more about 2020.28.5 and which Tesla models get which features.

What's in Tesla's software update 2020.12.6

April 24, 2020

Tesla's latest software update, 2020.12.6 brings everyone a new and very much expected feature: Traffic and Stop sign control. This new feature requires Autopilot HW3 (Full Self-Driving) and enables the car to stop at traffic lights and stop signs by itself. Read more and see release notes here.

Do I need MCU2 to upgrade to Hardware 3 (FSD)?

March 3, 2020

With the Infotainment upgrade available (MCU1 to MCU2 retrofit), Tesla owners with MCU1 who purchased FSD are wondering if MCU2 is going to be required and if they're going to have to pay for it.

When to expect the Autopilot Hardware 3 (FSD) retrofit

January 31, 2020

If you purchased Full Self-Driving (FSD) and are not on Autopilot Hardware 3 yet, I’m sure you must be wondering when is your retrofit going to be available. Here’s what we know.

Videos about Full self driving

Past Tesletter articles

'Green traffic light chime' and 'Visual speed limits recognition' in 2020.36

A new software update is coming soon with more improvements on Autopilot and FSD. Check out the videos in the link to see the new features in action. Here’s what you can expect:

  • Green traffic light chime (video)
  • Speed assist improvements, or introducing the usage of the cameras to detect speed limit signs (video)
  • Cruise set speed improvements
  • Autosteer stop sign and stop light warning
From issue #127

'The Button' might still be coming

Elon is an ambitious person and that can make him be overly confident with deadlines, as we have seen many times. He believes that if the v9 beta goes well during the limited testing, they might release the famous button for the rest of us to opt-in into the FSD Beta in a month or so.

From issue #172

[Video] AI for Full-Self Driving by Andrej Karpathy

Earlier this year, Andrej Karpathy talked about AI for Tesla’s FSD at the ScaledML Conference. It’s not the first talk by Karpathy that we share, you know we’re big fans. In this one, he discusses some of the work being done at Tesla around AI and Vision to improve FSD. In particular, he talks about how they’d like to train neural networks to do the planning and the prediction of the bird eye view inside the network itself vs. them being explicit predictions like they are today.

From issue #108

[Video] Real FSD with Traffic light & stop sign detection and NoAP

We’re in awe with all the progress that Tesla is making and although we’re still far from the final solution, seeing videos like with critique the good and the bad is really educational. In this 15 minute video you can see the real Full Self-Driving experience with the new auto stop feature and Navigate on Autopilot in action.

This version fixes the bug that would let you override a stop in a red light. It’s also getting pretty good at ignoring lanes and green lights which are in other sections.

From issue #110

[Video] Traffic light and stop sign detection

A few days ago, Tesla started rolling out a new version 2020.12.5.6 (EAP only) introducing the expected new Traffic light and stop sign control feature. It’s looking pretty good although it’s still not a final product e.g. it will stop at all traffic lights, no matter if green or red, unless you override it. In our opinion, Tesla is being conservative with the rollout which is good because it’s a matter of safety. In case you missed this, check out these videos we shared to see it in action.

From issue #108

11.4.3 with Elon mode

Greentheonly drove 600 miles using version 11.4.3 in Elon mode and shared his impressions. With Elon mode enabled, the car’s nag feature is disabled, and braking is gentler. Given that he didn’t have to constantly monitor the car, he was more forgiving of the differences between the car’s driving behavior and his own, making the experience much less annoying for him.

From issue #272

2020.12.6 is here and it brings as all Traffic lights and stop sign detection

Ok, not all of us, only those of you with FSD. But it’s here for everyone and it’s really exciting. While this isn’t fully autonomous, the idea of the car stopping by itself and restarting when the driver says so sounds pretty good to me! Remember to be in control of your car at all times.

From issue #109

2020.16.2.1 and Pedestrian animations

The latest software update 2020.16.2.1 brings some UI changes to the Tesla Toybox and filters for charging but it also brings pedestrian animations. @blktsla shows us it all in his new video.


From issue #113

2021.44.30.5 aka FSD beta 10.8.1 resets the suspension counter

Tesla is taking seriously enforcing proper usage of FSD Beta, and for that, they have implemented a system that, after some forced disengagements, will suspend drivers from using the FSD Beta. In the new version, the number of strikes got increased from 3 to 5, and any previous strikes were forgotten. Also, the new version now shows the counter in the Autopilot menu, under the FSD Beta button.

From issue #198

Adding FSD accelerates your delivery estimate for non-performance 3s and Ys

The rumor is that Tesla is working on their very own App Store, I can’t wait to see what developers would do with something like that.

From issue #207

All Tesla FSD visualizations and what they mean

Great compilation explaining what each figure, line colors, and attribute mean. Worth using as a reference when watching the v10.5 video above 😊

From issue #191

Alphabet's Waymo and Tesla's Autopilot FSD make a trip to the store

Both cars make it to the store with zero disengagements. Tesla’s FSD Beta makes the exact same trip in almost 3 minutes less. It would be great to see the same drive during the daytime with some traffic.

From issue #154

Andrej Karpathy on the visionary AI in Tesla's autonomous driving

Super interesting (and rare) interview to Andrej Karpathy, Director of AI at Tesla, where he talks about how he immigrated to Canada, came to Stanford to do his Ph.D., started the class about deep learning, and of course his experience at Tesla. It is always great to hear Andrej talking about AI, he makes it sound so simple. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world!

From issue #157

Antioch, CA through the eyes of FSD Beta

I love projecting the FSD visualization on top of what he is recording. Really nice video.

From issue #157

Anyone who purchased full self-driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free

After a few weeks of rumors Elon was crystal about it on Twitter. He also clarified that retrofits will start when the software is able to take meaningful advantage of the Tesla FSD computer, which is an order of magnitude more capable than the current one.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #53

AP improvements on residential roads with 2020.28.5 update

Cool video by ‘Black Tesla’ showing Autopilot on residential roads with the latest update 2020.28.5. The update introduces the ability to increase the speed limit up to +5 mph when ‘Traffic and Stop sign detection’ is enabled to make the driving experience more natural. And looking at this video, it seems like it does the job!

From issue #122

AP to make lane changes automatically on city streets

It seems like AP can already make automatic lane changes on city streets in alpha. Production release coming up in ‘a few months’ (in Elon’s time 😉). So exciting to see this happening and our cars becoming smarter!

From issue #121

Auto-shift will come to all cars with FSD

Since it got introduced, we have been speculating about the addition of smart-shift to other cars other than the new Model S (after all, it seemed just a software update). Well, this week, Elon confirmed that it is in fact going to happen.

From issue #173

Autopark after you leave the car (in the Model 3)

This feature was available in the Model S but just got added to the Model 3. Pretty helpful when you need to park in a tight spot and there isn’t much space left to get out of the car.

From issue #97

Autopilot 2020.36.11

Testing the latest Autopilot update 2020.36.11. Chime on green, stopping for red lights and challenges with lightning, beeps when driving by people, smoother freeway exiting, keeping in the center of the lane in city roads without lights, and in the freeway with blinding lights, and more! Overall, 💪 progress.

From issue #131

Autopilot available to purchase for $2,000 until July 1st

Autopilot is available at $2,000 via Tesla in-app purchases until July 1st. In addition, if you have EAP, you can also purchase FSD for $3,000 until the same date. After July 1st, FSD price will go up to $4,000 for owners with EAP.

The question is, should you get AP or FSD? If you ask me, I think Autopilot is worth it if you have a long commute o travel often in your Tesla. It definitely makes driving safer and more relaxed- or less stressful, depends on your personality and how much you like to drive. Basic Autopilot does not include Navigate on Autopilot, lane changes, summon, Autopark, or traffic and stop sign control. If those are the features you’re looking for, then go for the FSD before its price increases.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #117

Autopilot is doing tire thread depth estimation

Greentheonly reported that someone discovered that Autopilot is doing tire thread estimation, probably to understand if the weather conditions, speed, etc. are safe with the current state of the tires.

From issue #156

Autopilot rewrite with 3D labeling is only starting to use FSD computer’s potential

In the recent Elon Musk interview by Thirdrow Tesla Part 2, we learned that the Autopilot team is going through a foundational rewrite that goes from different networks for different cameras to combine all of them, planning, and perception. This reddit post goes over why this is a big deal and why the change was needed.

Read more: Reddit

From issue #98

Autopilot team keynote

Ashok, Director of Autopilot at Tesla for over three years now, seems to have taken over at presenting at conferences from Andrej. In this keynote, Ashok talks about many things, including Occupancy Networks, which is Tesla’s solution to predicting free space on the road. Really interesting!

From issue #230

Autopilot team worked last weekend to do a limit release of 10.12

And hopefully, if everything goes well with the limited release, they will do a point release (10.12.1) and broaden the release.

From issue #216

Autopilot thinks the smoke-obscured sun is a big yellow light

Full self-driving has gone a long way but it’s still a few edge cases away from its final version. In this video, you can see how AP identifies the sun (obscured by the smoke) as a yellow traffic light. Now that Tesla has the info needed to train the system on this, I’m sure it will get fixed soon.

From issue #126

Beta expanding to safety scores above 80

If you have a safety score above 80 and more than 100 miles in the last 30 days, you should have gotten the latest version of FSD by now. If this is like previous rollouts, you needed to have those by the time they extended the release. If you didn’t have those two, chances are that in a new release you will be included.

From issue #234

Betta Button access will be based on good driving behavior

According to Elon, the ‘Beta Button’ will request permission to assess driving behavior using the Tesla insurance calculator, and only if the driving behavior is good for 7 days after you allow Tesla to monitor your driving activity, access to the FSD Beta will be granted.

From issue #182

Big changes on 11.4.2

Our favorite Tesla hacker, Greentheonly, mentioned that despite the version number only increasing by .1. there are substantial differences in the new beta. There seems to be a new auto wiper version (v4), AEB for cut-in traffic, and the FSD Beta suspension was reduced to one week for two weeks before.

From issue #269

Bikes, speeders, and construction with FSD Beta & a trip to Santa Cruz without interventions

We love FSD Beta videos, here’s two more from last week:

From issue #138

Birdseye view coming soon

Birdseye view, please? Coming right up if you have FSD, or so said Elon Musk on Twitter this week after being asked by @teslaownerssv. This is a pretty standard feature in other vehicles, so the community has been asking about this for a while now.

From issue #132

Canada and Norway will be the next ones in receiving the FSD beta

Good news for Tesla owners in Norway and Canada since, according to Elon Musk on Twitter, they will be the next ones in receiving the FSD beta after the US goes out of the early beta phase. Nice!

From issue #136

Cars with AP2.5 will be able to upgrade to AP3 and get the FSD Subscription

The FSD Subscription is supposed to land sometime in May and Elon just confirmed on Twitter that cars with AP2.5 will be able to subscribe and get the retrofit to AP3. What he didn’t mention is if there will be some type of minimum subscription required. We should know soon!

From issue #161

Comparing Tesla FSD Beta chill, average, and assertive modes

Great comparison by DirtyTesla. After watching the video, I need to give chill a try.

From issue #208

Details about Model Y

Unannounced details about the upcoming Model Y from a little birdie:

  • AWD only
  • $35-$40k base price
  • 250+ mile base model
  • Autopilot HW 3.5 (with the possibility of a Tesla-designed Radar system, more cameras than current AP, no LIDAR)
  • L4 FSD-ready from launch

Still some risk these change, but apparently these are the engineering targets.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #41

Dirty Teslas FSD Beta 11.3.1 drive

In Dirty Tesla’s first FSD Beta 11.3.1 test drive, he explores various road types, including dirt roads, and highways, and navigates exits and roundabouts. While the beta version performs well in most scenarios, it still has some issues, such as inaccuracies in speed limits, not stopping at stop signs and yellow lights, and awkward lane transitions. One addition in this version is lane change notifications, as well as an option to activate minimal lane changes during the current drive.

From issue #258

Early FSD drives 2020.40.8.11

By the time you read this you’ll probably have watched a bunch of FSD videos but here are my favorite ones so far (apart from the ones I already shared last week):

From issue #135

Elon answers questions about FSD beta updates

Once more, not only Tesla but Elon Musk himself is listeting to what participants of the FSD beta are sharing after experiencing the beta and he’s highly engaged answering questions.

  • Builts being rolled out every 5-10 days
  • Focus is on minimizing number of interventions
From issue #136

Elon confirms Tesla FSD v12 is rolling out to employees

Tesla’s FSD version 12 (v12) is now being internally rolled out to employees, as part of the update 2023.38.10. This version is expected to remove the “beta” label from FSD. The rollout coincides with upcoming major Tesla events, potentially showcasing v12’s improvements. A key change in v12 is the elimination of over 300,000 lines of code, replaced by a greater reliance on neural networks for vehicle control, marking a significant shift in Tesla’s approach to autonomous driving technology. v12 aims at taking a big step forward in FSD, having a system that is more human-like and can adapt better to all driving conditions.

From issue #293

Elon just took FSD 11.3 for a spin

Elon Musk stated on Twitter that he test-drove FSD version 11.3 through San Francisco and Los Angeles, and he believes it is very close to being released to a limited number of customers. According to pages that track software updates released to Tesla vehicles, some employees have already received the update.

From issue #254

Elon Musk: Starting May 1st, the price of the FSD option will increase

As Tesla starts delivering FSD features - hopefully this will start soon - they have the plan to increase the price of the software package. We are looking forward to see what thew show in their webcast on Monday.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #55

Elon Musk: The Recode interview

Kara Swisher from Recode Decode did an awesome interview to Elon. He talks about everything from Tesla’s close to death earlier this year, to what is down the pipe for Tesla, to rockets, Mars, and others. A few Tesla related highlights:

  • NoA comes to a halt at the intersection after the off-ramp. I didn’t know about it until I listed to this podcast.
  • Tesla is now integrating stop signs, traffic lights, hard right turns, or hairpin bends.
  • Elon Musk thinks Tesla would archive full self-driving in 2019 and no other competitor is close to it, although it also seems like he doesn’t worry much about competitors.
  • The future Tesla pickup truck is going to be a really futuristic-like cyberpunk, “Blade Runner”, pickup truck. Elon is really excited about it.

Listen to the interview: Recode Decode

From issue #32

Elon Tested FSD v12 Alpha

Elon mentioned on Twitter that he tested the version 12 alpha of FSD and in his own words, “it’s mind-blowing”. According to what we have heard in the past, v12 will be almost purely neural nets, although it might take a while to be released to us, mere mortals.

From issue #278

End-to-end networks coming soon to the Tesla FSD stack

This video from Ashok - Director of Autopilot at Tesla - talks about how Tesla is working on replacing hundreds of small models with one large model that interfaces with everything and uses Generative AI to predict and output what the car should do.

From issue #276

Enhanced Autopilot now available for purchase for $6k

The best bang for your money Autopilot package is now back for all cars in all (most?) countries. In the US, you can add it to your Tesla for $6k, this would give you all the features that the FSD package offers today, except for traffic and stop sign control, potential access to the FSD Beta, or in the future, autosteering in city streets. If you purchase this package, you can add FSD for $6k until Tesla raises the price again, or subscribe for $99 / month. You can buy it directly on your Tesla app, under Upgrades, Software Updates.

From issue #222

Expect new FSD Beta releases every two weeks

This has been true for the last two releases, but Elon just announced on Twitter that Tesla is doing releases every other week on Fridays at midnight Pacific Time.

From issue #175

Extended FSD transfer for late March deliveries

Tesla addresses delivery delays by offering customers, whose delivery dates have moved past March 31st, the ability to transfer their Full Self-Driving (FSD) package to the new vehicle. This is great news for some of you. Last week, some of you reached out to us because Tesla was not committing to honor these if the car was delivered after the initial end date. This is another case of Tesla doing the right thing and taking the blame when it’s due.

From issue #307

Extending the FSD Beta program using the safety rating

As we said above, Tesla released the safety score almost a week ago. Elon tweeted this week that they will start adding around 1,000 people/day to the FSD Beta and they will start with the ones with the highest scores.

From issue #183

First impressions of FSD Beta v11.4.3 by Chuck Cook

Another fantastic video by Chuck Cook, whose initial impression was that the drive was exceptionally smooth. It also includes an unprotected left turn where the car maneuvered through a pretty tight gap. Thanks for the videos, Chuck, and keep up the great work.

From issue #271

First look at the FSD Beta

As promised, the FSD Beta arrived yesterday night to the cars of some lucky Tesla owners. In this fun video, @tesla_raj and John from @teslaownerssv recorded their first impressions. Musk hasn’t even waited for 24h to share that the price of FSD is going up. Next Monday, the FSD price will go up by $2,000. Finally, here’s a recap where you can see a few more videos as well as the recap. Enjoy!

From issue #134

First zero-intervention drive in Chicago

Impressive drive in Chicago with FSD Beta version 10.5! Still not perfect, but this version seems to be doing much better than previous builds.

From issue #192

Folks not paying attention are getting warnings and will be kicked out of FSD Beta if it repeats

Tesla is taking seriously enforcing people paying attention to the road when using FSD Beta and seems to be sending warning emails to folks who aren’t paying enough attention to the nags.

From issue #187

FSB Beta is getting more exposure and soon it'll be possible to download the Beta from your car

This past week Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla’s FSD Beta is maturing and thus it’s going to get to more and more cars. Some clubs have been collecting requests for owners to get access to it, and demand has been so high that Tesla has decided to add a ‘Download Beta’ button in the Service section of the car display by the end of next week. On tapping the button, the user would have to agree with some legal stuff, but after that, the car will download the latest FSD Beta as soon as it connects to WiFi. Woot?!

From issue #154

FSD (Beta) V12.2.1 rollout to Tesla employees and more non-employees

Tesla keeps releasing new versions and expanding the pool of people who get it. Let’s hope they continue to increase it and think of us as worthy testers soon 🙂

From issue #305

FSD 10.16 is on track for 8/20

At least that is what Elon said on Monday in a response to our friend John. 10.69 is what it was supposed to be 10.13, but according to Elon will be so much better that will be worth the .69 name.

From issue #229

FSD 10.69.3 coming out this week?

In a response to our friend John, Elon said that 10.69.3 is a major release and they need more internal testing. Let’s see if it actually starts going out this week, I hope so.

From issue #239

FSD 12 won't be Beta

In a response on Twitter, Elon mentioned that FSD 12 will lose the ‘beta’ tag. This likely means that Tesla will continue refining FSD Beta 11 until they are satisfied with its stability and reliability.

From issue #273

FSD Beta 10.69.1.1 release notes

Tesla keeps iterating on their version 10.69 and they just dropped 10.69.1.1 a few days ago. At this time, I’m still waitting to get 10.69.X, but many folks on Twitter area really happy with the improvements.

From issue #232

FSD BETA 10 over the Model Y limits in San Francisco

FSD Beta v10 dropped last Friday. Here is a great drive pushing the limits (of the driver) in SF.

From issue #181

FSD Beta 10.1

This video is showing a bit more disengagements than what we have seen before, still impressive to see what the beta software can do.

From issue #184

FSD Beta 10.11.12 Autopilot max speed increased to 90mph

Since Tesla shifted to a pure vision system, they reduced their AP max speed to 80 mph from 90 mph from the previous system. Well, it seems that the newer version just got it increased back to 90 mph.

From issue #210

FSD Beta 10.12 release notes

Finally, FSD Beta 10.12 is here, and with it a long list of improvements. A few highlights:

  • Increased safety of turns with crossing traffic by improving the architecture of the lanes neural network which greatly boosted recall and geometric accuracy of crossing lanes.
  • Added 180k video clips to the training set to improve the recall and geometric accuracy of lane predictions.
  • Solved 48% of failure ‘is parked’ cases captured by our telemetry of 10.11.
  • The car will now render vehicles with open doors and it has improved its behaviors when maneuvering around them.
From issue #217

FSD Beta 10.12 will have major improvements for tricky unprotected lefts & heavy traffic in general

According to Elon, FSD Beta 10.12 will come with major improvements in these two areas, he also mentioned they are making good progress with a single stack. Now I want to see 10.12 😄

From issue #209

FSD Beta 10.12 will increment the max speed for Autopilot

Even since Tesla introduced their Autopilot version that was a vision only, they reduced the max speed of the system from 90mph to 80mph. Now, it seems that the next release (dropping this weekend 🤞) will raise the limit, hopefully back to 90mph.

From issue #216

FSD Beta 10.2 and tester expansion tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 8th)

Elon mentioned last week they will start with folks with the perfect score and open it to more daily, hopefully starting this Friday.

From issue #184

FSD Beta 10.3 adds vision-based auto park

Cool to see this extending beyond the refreshed Model S.

From issue #187

FSD Beta 10.3 release notes

I love seeing pretty extensive release notes for the new firmware. Hopefully, the team does that for public releases as well.

From issue #187

FSD Beta 10.3 releasing to all cars with 99 and 100 scores

This Friday, Tesla plans to extend the FSD Beta to all cars with 99 and 100 safety scores. From what I’ve seen this week, if you get 100, Tesla send you FSD Beta soon after.

From issue #186

FSD Beta 10.5 voxel net compared to the previous version

A few weeks ago, we included some videos with the rendering of the Voxel neural nets. This week the same person, @rice_fry, is comparing the neural network in 10.5 vs. a previous version. It is kind of amazing how much more detail is in there now.

From issue #192

FSD Beta 10.69 release notes

The initial release of FSD beta 10.69 is here and it comes with very rich release notes, as Tesla has been doing lately, some interesting bits are:

  • Added a new “deep lane guidance” to achieve a 44% lower error on lane topology and enable smoother control.
  • Improved overall driving smoothness.
  • Improved unprotected left turns, including “Chuck Cook style”.
  • Updated to a new two-stage architecture, achieving improvements of velocity estimates for far away crossing vehicles by 20%, while using one-tenth of the compute.
  • Reduced false slowdowns near crosswalks.
From issue #230

FSD Beta 10.69.3 - First Drive & Impressions

First look into 10.69.3. Maybe it is just my impression after watching this video, but it seems that the car slows closer to the stop and is not way ahead of it, as it did in the previous version. I recommend taking a look at 7:07 to see FSD handling an interesting and confusing situation.

From issue #241

FSD Beta 10.69.3 release notes

FSD beta 10.69.3 is now going to Tesla employees for testing, here are some interesting bits from the release notes:

  • Reduced false slowdowns for pedestrians near crosswalks.
  • Improved decision-making for short-deadline lane changes.
  • New “road markings” module which improves the topology error at intersections.
  • Reduced incorrect lane assignment of crossing vehicles by 45% and reduced incorrect parked predictions by 15%.
From issue #240

FSD Beta 10.69.3 will improve NN velocity predictions

In a response to Chuck’s video above, Elon said that the car will move into tighter gaps as they enhance the velocity predictions for crossing traffic in the NN. According to him, the next month’s version (10.69.3) has significant improvements on that.

From issue #234

FSD Beta 10.9 (2021.44.30.10) release notes

FSD beta v10.9 is here and it comes with a decent number of updates. As someone who got their Beta access recently, I really want to see it improving on unprotected left turns by proceeding straight while yielding. Again, I love these detailed release notes, thank you Tesla team!

From issue #199

FSD Beta 11.3.1 visual indications when slowing down

As seen in the previous video, but more in detail in these pics shared by @DirtyTesla, with 11.3.1, deacceleration is clearly shown on the screen which, judging by the videos shared so far, seems subtle but very helpful. I’m looking forward to experiencing this one. Hopefully in everyone’s cars by end of Q1 🤞

From issue #257

FSD Beta 11.4 (2023.6.15) release notes

The most notable of these are improved traffic light and stop sign recognition, improved lane change behavior, and improved navigation. FSD Beta 11.4 is still under development, but it is a significant improvement over previous versions of FSD.

From issue #263

FSD Beta 11.4.2 nails U-turns

While version 11.4.2 does a commendable job handling U-turns, it doesn’t quite deliver the same performance when navigating roundabouts 😬

From issue #269

FSD Beta 8.1 - 2020.48.35.7

I like the enlarged display and having the night mode, it is much easier to see the FSD visualization this way.

From issue #150

FSD Beta 8.2 - Left unprotected turns with drone 3rd person view

Software version 2021.4.11.1. Nice idea giving the point of view of the drone 👏👏👏

From issue #155

FSD Beta 8.2 in busy San Francisco

Another great viedeo by AI DRIVR where we can see an extremely impressive display of “real” driving.

From issue #164

FSD BETA 9.2 takes on narrow streets in the Berkeley hills

As someone who has driven on the hills of Berkeley, it is amazing to see the car handling these situations!

From issue #178

FSD Beta Canada in about a month?

Elon said “no guarantees” but he mentioned that FSD Beta Canada might be available in a month or so. He expects v10.5 to go out around 11/21 and to include those with a Safety Score of 98.

From issue #190

FSD Beta drive in downtown Ann Arbor

Great video by DirtyTesla driving FSD Beta in downtown Ann Arbor. FSD Beta sees things before the driver does, handles lots of vehicles and pedestrians, and does well even on narrow streets (or narrow for US standards anyway). Still lots of room for improvement at roundabouts and turns, and as expected it requires quite a few interventions. I really like how it handles traffic lights and the little details like showing in the screen that it’s checking for traffic when turning right on a red light!

From issue #139

FSD Beta drive without disengagements

Version 2020.44.10.2. No disengagements in this video by @teslaownerssv but some speed adjustments. Interesting reactions of FSD in some situations like in minute 4:23 (similar to what I would have done!).

From issue #139

FSD Beta ducking into open parking spaces to allow opposing traffic to go by

FSD Beta is getting better and better. Check out this video by @kimpaquette of her Model 3 ducking into open parking spaces to allow opposing traffic to go by. Yay, Joules 👏

From issue #143

FSD Beta expected to get better on roundabouts

In a response to a video from our friend John from TOSV, Elon said that they are going deep on roundabouts and that FSD Beta should get noticeably better in 10.13.

From issue #220

FSD Beta finally arrives in Canada with the 2022.4.5.20 software update

Seems that (at least some) Canadians with a Safety Score of 99+ got FSD Beta this week. Nice work Tesla team!

From issue #209

FSD Beta for all

As of December 31st, every vehicle in the USA and Canada, including those with MCU1, has access to or will receive FSD in their next software update. The FSD Beta version has now officially been merged with the production version, meaning there will no longer be different version numbers for FSD Beta versus non-FSD Beta.

From issue #248

FSD Beta going to vision only in V9

More than 100 stalls coming to Harris Ranch. It currently has 13 stalls and this change will make this Supercharger the world’s largest one. Is it me or every couple of months or so we get a new world largest Supercharger now?
We are already in April, and that means that FSD Beta V9 should be released soon. According to Elon, it’s ‘Almost ready’. In this version, one of the main changes introduced is shifting to vision only and stop using the radar. In another tweet, Elon mentioned how when vision is good enough the radar doesn’t add signal, and the complexity of integrating it is too big for it to be worthy.

From issue #159

FSD Beta going wide very soon

In reply to @dburkland on Twitter, Elon Musk shared that Tesla’s FSD Beta might be going to a wider audience in two weeks.

I know that multiple Tesla employees receive this letter, maybe you can help us to be on the list of testers, pretty please!?!?! 🙏

From issue #140

FSD Beta handles a very tight spot with a huge truck in the way

Short video from our friend John from Tesla Owners Silicon Valley. In this video, his Model X with FSD Beta handles a very tight spot with a huge truck in the way, it even folds the mirrors to be able to go through.

From issue #204

FSD Beta has now been expanded to ~2000 owners

Elon just tweeted a few days ago that the FSD Beta has now been expanded to more drivers, and they have also removed folks who weren’t paying attention from the EAP. I hope this doesn’t mean the ‘Download Beta’ button won’t be there for the rest… we will see in a couple of days, I guess.

From issue #155

FSD Beta insane maneuvering

FSD Beta, this time v10.9, keeps surprising us with maneuvers like this one. For those of you who haven’t experienced it yet, FSD Beta is both amazing and scary, if you get to try it out, keep constant attention.

From issue #202

FSD Beta is to go out to everyone in about a month

Elon announced this during the earnings call, everyone in North America who has ordered FSD will have access to the program this year, in theory, in about a month.

From issue #239

FSD Beta might expand to divers with a safety score of 95

Well, that is if the current version performs well, which is too early to tell, but at least Elon opened up the possibility, so hopefully can be the next version if not this one.

From issue #207

FSD Beta now in Candada

Our friends in the north received “The Button” this week and a few people already got FSD Beta, although it seems to be a very small group for now. It is great to see FSD Beta expanding!

From issue #205

FSD Beta on city streets

An extract of the podcast that I mentioned above. It’s really interesting to hear how they collect and analyze the data that we, the drivers, provide, even not in AP.

From issue #157

FSD Beta on Lombard street (Part 2)

One month and five updates later, FSD Beta handles Lombard street- the windiest street in San Francisco- way better than it did the first time Tesla Raj drove his Model 3 down the San Francisco landmark. Watch FSD Beta go from top to bottom of Lombard St. without interventions and without speed or turn issues! Definitely a lot of progress in such a short period of time.

From issue #143

FSD Beta request

Really good request from this Redditor. The car could use the navigation voice to let the driver know what is about to do, eg: " Creeping for visibility" “proceeding through turn” “stopping at a stop sign”. Elon, can you add this?

From issue #214

FSD Beta should be available in Europe this summer

Elon is predicting that FSD Beta should be available in Europe for LHD countries this summer and RHD a few months later. I wonder how close Tesla will be to those dates and what will be the regulatory process.

From issue #209

FSD Beta stops for pedestrians on a rainy night

FSD Beta stops for a pedestrian in the middle of the road with dark clothes on a rainy night. I have to confess that I had trouble seeing the pedestrian at first in the video, the car shows the pedestrian early on and does the right thing.

From issue #193

FSD beta strikeout now results in a 2-week suspension

The system is now attempting to be smarter about detecting cheating devices, however, it has been reported by many online that it sometimes makes mistakes. In version 10.69.25.1, rather than resulting in a permanent suspension, using a cheating device will result in a two-week suspension from the FSD Beta Program.

From issue #248

FSD Beta v.10.13 changes planning UI

In the screenshot, the car seems to be showing its route very far ahead, vs. the immediate direction right now, especially when cars are in front.

From issue #226

FSD Beta v10 unprotected left turns

Definitely not perfect, but pretty impressive that it’s able to achieve it (in some cases, at least!).

From issue #182

FSD Beta v10.10 - First impressions

Great video from Chuck. There are a few turns there that would be challenging for a lot of drivers and the car does them, with patience, pretty well.

From issue #202

FSD Beta v10.11 - Unprotected left turns

I love watching these videos by Chuck Cook, good job!

From issue #208

FSD Beta v10.11 changes in turns

This has been one of my pet peeves with the previous versions of FSD Beta. If you were turning and there was another turn right away, FSD Beta almost always picked the wrong lane. It seems that one noticeable change in v10.11 is that it turns into a further lane instead of the nearest lane when appropriate for a turn followed by another turn. Neat!

From issue #207

FSD Beta v10.11 release notes

I’m the most excited about smoother turns, reduced velocity error, and improved right-of-way if the map is inaccurate. I love these detailed notes, although I only understand like 60% of what they say.

From issue #207

FSD Beta v10.12 will include many improvements

Elon mentioned complex left turns and heavy traffic. I, personally, wish that it is more assertive at stop signs, stops trying to go around vehicles that it shouldn’t, and becomes a bit smoother.

From issue #213

FSD Beta v10.69 - Unprotected left turns

Early videos of Chuck testing his unprotected left turn. Overall, pretty nice behavior, stopping in the median, although these ones have light traffic but as the first or one of the first videos I thought it was worth adding it. In the next one, we can see the same turn but with heavy traffic.

From issue #230

FSD Beta v10.69.2.2 - unprotected left turns

Really impressive behavior in this video by Chuck Cook with medium/heavy traffic.

From issue #234

FSD Beta v10.69.2.3 - Unprotected Left Turns

Another video by Chuck, this one with Dr. Know it All. It is amazing how far FSD Beta has come in this specific type of turn. Great work as always, Chuck.

From issue #239

FSD Beta v10.69.2.3 - Unprotected left turns in light fog

Chuck is back at it, this time with light fog in his now famous left-unprotected turn. Out of eight tries, Chung only had to disengage once.

From issue #237

FSD Beta v10.69.25.2 Memorial Park

Chuck is back at his famous unprotected left turn, and this time he’s also forcing the car to perform a poorly executed u-turn. But overall, I think it’s a pretty smooth drive.

From issue #251

FSD Beta v11 getting on and off the highway

There aren’t many videos of FSD V11 out yet, but this tester mentioned that exiting and entering the highway is objectively smoother than when it was running on the older stack. They haven’t found anything that makes them think there has been any negative progress. Exciting!

From issue #256

FSD Beta v11 hopefully end of next month

We all know Elon time, so I don’t expect this to be the end of next month, but it’s great to hear that they are making progress in what is called v11, the unification of the FSD Beta and the highway Autopilot.

From issue #225

FSD Beta v11.3.1 - Single Stack - Second Drive

Another great video by Chuck Cook. At minute 11, Chuck had to disengage because his car got too close to the truck right in front of him. Something I hadn’t noticed until this video is that FSD Beta v11.3.1 shows the traffic light your car is paying attention to in blue. This is cool because, in the past, mine sometimes paid attention to other traffic lights, and I had no way of knowing until it tried to go when it was still a red light for me.

From issue #258

FSD Beta v11.4.2

Some improvements are:

  • Improved control and smoothness: Enhanced geometry and topology of lanes and road edges have improved road feature perception, aided by a larger training set and an updated lane guidance module.
  • Enhanced detection and assertiveness: Lane-guidance inputs now improve long-range roadway feature detection, while assertiveness in safely crossing pedestrians and precision in vehicle detection has been increased.
  • Reduction in interventions and errors: A new framework reduces interventions by anticipating lane intrusions, while more training videos have lessened false slowdowns and improved recall for object partial lane encroachment, high yaw-rate cut-in, and cut-out.
From issue #269

FSD Beta v12 comes with Automatic Speed Offset

Nice finding by Whole Mars Catalog. In the Autopilot menu, there is a new feature in FSD v12 that allows Autopilot to drive at the speed it determines is most natural. This feature should help with roads where the normal speed of traffic isn’t the one seen in the signals. I have one near home that is the start of an onramp to the highway; in theory, the speed is ~25mph, but everyone starts accelerating to be on the highway at 65mph. It’s dangerous to go at 25mph and, to be honest, it will irritate all other drivers.

From issue #301

FSD Beta v9 mind of car visualization

Cool to see how Tesla is trying to communicate to us, the drivers, what the car sees and how confident it is on that. In Elon’s words, “Brightness/translucency indicates the confidence of neural net in predicting any given object.” “Acid test is being able to assess with quick glance at the screen if a car fully understands the environment.”

From issue #172

FSD Beta v9.1 coming on Friday at midnight

That is all, prepare yourself for another round of great videos showcasing it. FYI, Tesla, if you are there, I volunteer to test the FSD Beta, just let me know 😉

From issue #174

FSD Beta v9.2 turn testing and acceleration analysis

FSD Beta v9.2 got released last week, great commentary in this video by Chuck Cook.

From issue #177

FSD Computer Farm

In this presentation by Tesla’s Autopilot Engineers, we can see that Tesla’s FSD farm produces now 2M simulations a week from 90k different builds. Tesla is rapidly ramping up their server side to be able to train and test more and more networks rapidly and keep evolving FSD.

From issue #243

FSD Computer Now $1,000 upgrade instead of $1,500

For those of you who don’t have HW3 and are considering the FSD subscription, the upgrade costs now $1k instead of $1.5k.

From issue #174

FSD follows navigation and completes a roundabout (UK) 📹

Check out minute 10.05 to see how Autopilot with firmware version 2020.16.3.1 handles a roundabout and follows indications to exit it all by itself. This AP version still doesn’t stop at stop signs and traffic lights. Just amazing. FSD is certainly not fully functional yet (same AP aborts entering a roundabout towards the end of the video), but seeing things like this makes me believe. PS. Lorry = truck 🚚

See more: YouTube

From issue #116

FSD is transferable in Q3

Elon Musk announced that Tesla would permit one FSD transfer during Q3 (from July 20th to September 30th, 2023). This offer doesn’t necessitate a trade-in of your current Tesla; you can simply transfer the FSD package from one car to another. An email with all the terms and conditions is included in the tweet.

From issue #277

FSD looking good

OP had the opportunity to talk with a mobile technician and shared some exciting news about FSD. “Everything is working well at this point (stop signs, street lights, left turns, right turns, etc.) The only consistent bug he has had is “valet mode”, where the car will drop off the occupants and find its own parking spot. (…) It had some issues coming back (refused to saying obstacle detected).”

We aren’t sure about how much of this is reality vs. what is not but we can’t help but getting excited!

Read more: Reddit

From issue #41

FSD may be offered as a monthly subscription

It’s not the first time that we hear about FSD potentially being offered as a monthly subscription (vs. paying for it before or after purchasing the vehicle). Just a few days ago, Elon confirmed on Twitter that a FSD “monthly rental” will be available sometime next year.

From issue #135

FSD package price increasing (again)

According to Elon, the price of the FSD package is going up another $1k on August 16th. He also mentioned that if you - like us - have purchased EAP before, you should get a $3k discount - that is how much we paid for it - on the FSD price.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #68

FSD price going up to $12k on January 17

In case you were waiting or seriously considering buying FSD for $10k, just be aware that on January 17 the price will go up to $12k. Elon also said that the price of the subscription will go up when FSD goes to wide release.

From issue #198

FSD price increase postponed

Directly from Elon “Price increase for Tesla FSD postponed until version 10 with Smart Summon is in wide release, which is about 4 to 8 weeks away, depending on how early access goes”.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #73

FSD pricing going up (again)

The price of the FSD package will increment to $15k on September 5th. The current price will be honored for those who have ordered their cars before September 5th, but delivered later. Elon said this will happen after the wide release of FSD Beta 10.69.2, which he has said many times is a big step forward.

From issue #230

FSD retrofits and timelines

We’ve been waiting to get the FSD upgrade for a while (Model S, Dec 2017). Tesla recently released a support page that throws some light to frequently asked questions such as, ‘when’s my FSD upgrade going to be available?’.

Also, a very cool video on the enhanced Driving Visualizations that come with FSD.

Read more: Tesla

From issue #104

FSD Subscription and Beta this week?

We send this newsletter on Thursday, maybe we will still see the FSD Subscription and Beta this week? Maybe not? Let’s hope we see it soon 😊

From issue #170

FSD subscription coming early 2021

We don’t know how it will look like and how much it will cost, but we do know that Tesla is planning on making FSD available through a subscription in early 2021. It has now been confirmed by Elon Musk on Twitter.

From issue #143

FSD Subscription is here

I’ve been waiting for the FSD Subscription since I got my new Model Y in March and here it is, finally!

  • $199/month for those with only basic Autopilot
  • $99/month for those with Enhanced Autopilot

If your car needs to update to HW3, you are going to need to pay $1,500 before you can subscribe. Similarly, if you don’t have basic Autopilot, you are going to need to buy that as well.

Does it make more sense to subscribe or to fully buy FSD for $10k? The answer to this question is very personal. For how long do you plan to keep your car? Do you value the flexibility to stop paying depending on your plans? At the current price, paying for the subscription for 4 years and 3 months would equal the cost of paying it in full in advance. If you need to upgrade your hardware, I would say it is better to pay $10k and get the upgrade. If you have Enhanced on Autopilot, stoplight and stop sign control aren’t worth $99/month in my opinion.

Note: The FSD Subscription doesn’t include the FSD Beta (at least for now).

From issue #173

FSD subscription will be available later this year

Earlier this week, Greentheonly shared on Twitter that there’s code for a ‘pay as you go’ subscription plan type in Tesla’s source code and it has been there for a while. Taking into account that FSD’s current price is $7,000 when purchased with a new vehicle, a ‘pay as you go’ model could certainly help Tesla’s FSD to become mainstream when the right time arrives. Just yesterday at the earnings call, Elon confirmed that FSD will be available as a subscription later this year.

From issue #109

FSD Subscription will cost less for those with EAP

This Reddit user discovered new messages that, potentially, will power the future subscription page. In it we can see that the FSD subscription will cost less if you have EAP, I guess it just makes sense since the features that you get from subscribing if you already have EAP are not as many as if you have basic AP.

From issue #169

FSD upgrade complete with MCU1

There’s been a lot of speculation around if it’d be possible to upgrade cars with MCU1 to FSD (HW3). Well, we’re now seeing the first Tesla with MCU1 being upgraded to Hardware 3 both in the US and Canada. A few highlights from the stories we’ve read here and here:

  • The hardware part takes about one hour
  • The software update is trickier, it needs involvement from engineering, and it can take between 2-4 hours

In terms of functionality:

  • No cones or street markings on the IC display (MCU2 is needed)
  • TeslaCam and SentryMode recording works (Dashcam Viewer does not)
  • Only front and repeater cameras record - no recording from the rear camera. This is the same as with HW2.5

We hope to get the upgrade in the next few weeks, we’re currently waiting for some missing parts to arrive in our Service Center 🤞

From issue #114

FSD upgrade in AP2 cars

A few months ago, there was some speculation around if Tesla cars with AP2.0 would be able to upgrade to FSD or not. The answer is yes, and it can be done right now if you’re also getting the MCU2 retrofit. Reddit user ‘chillaban’ has shared his experience so you can read more about it here. If you’ve purchased FSD and are waiting for the Infotainment upgrade to be available, know that you can just schedule an appointment and request it. Most likely, you’ll get an appointment to get both done at the same time.

Read more: Reddit


From issue #113

FSD upgrade price being grandfathered?

It seems that some Tesla owners who have purchased the FSD package after its price has been raised to $5,000 (previously $4,000) have been returned the difference without having requested it. We don’t know if this is something that is happening to everyone or if Tesla will continue doing it, but it’s nice that they are grandfathering the original price to at least some existing customers.

Read more: TMC Forum

From issue #31

FSD v11 driving visualization

FSD v11 has started to be released to Tesla employees, and with that came the first pictures. In one of the pictures, we can see the new driving visualization. The new visualization also shows a red line where the car will stop and fades the blue “tentacle” beyond that point.

From issue #255

FSD v12 will have end-to-end AI

I remember years ago when Andrej Karpathy was talking about software 2.0 and how most of the Autopilot code was what he was calling code 1.0. Code 2.0 refers to AI, where a neuronal net is making predictions or making decisions based on inputs, while code 1.0 is the most traditional programming, where the code is explicitly covering every single case. It’s crazy to think that soon the entire stack will be AI.

From issue #266

FSD v12.2.1 - Extended video - parking 5 times

A new extended video showcases Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta v12.2.1’s skillfulness in parking, demonstrating its ability to navigate and park in two different parking stalls and along a street curb three times. It’s an impressive display of the continuous improvements Tesla is making to FSD, and goes to show just how advanced the system is getting

From issue #306

FSD+MCU1 displays stop signs and stoplights 📷

FSD with MCU1 doesn’t display cones or trash cans but it does display stop signs and stoplights. I personally didn’t know that, I thought it would stop at stop signs and traffic lights but just not display the icons in my MCU1 screen. Good to know, and thanks for sharing Zack! I’m next! I got the FSD retrofit in my Model S 2017 with AP2.5 and MCU1 on Tuesday and I almost cried when I saw my first stop sign 😉

Read more: Twitter

From issue #115

FSDBeta 11.3.1 - Single Stack First Drive

Another great video dropped by @Chazman, this time on the the single stack released with the latest software update. Bigger projected path, deacceleration reflected in the visuals, and overall, quite a few improvements without regressions. For those of you not familiar with the single stack, it refers to the fact that Tesla is now applying everything it has learned in city driving to its Navigation on Autopilot highway feature. Check it out.

From issue #257

Full Self-Driving (Beta) V11.3.2 has officially arrived

Thanks to our friends at Teslascope for the update: FSD Beta has started rolling out to non-employee early testers. Now, Tesla, please send it to my car!

From issue #259

Full Self-Driving capability goes from $3,000 to $5,000 if purchased after delivery

FSD used to cost $3,000 and it will now cost $5,000 if purchased after delivery. In addition to that, the ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ package, which is required to get the FSD, has also gone from $5,000 to $6,000 if bought later on through and OTA update.

Read more: Electrek

From issue #15

Full Self-Driving Demo

After the presentation at the Autonomy Day, Tesla offered rides to all investors to experience the FSD first hand. It was a pre-determined route, and sadly they didn’t allow recordings, but they released a video. After the ride, a few investors shared their excitement on Twitter:

“Parking lot to city streets, to freeway, to city streets back to parking lot, ~10 mile drive, 100% autonomous” - Hamid Shojaee

“It can totally drive the roads. Everything. Stop signs. Lights. Bikers. Etc. you can’t curate real life driving” - Ross Gerber

From issue #56

Full Self-Driving Video

i1Tesla took the FSD video and slowed it down to see all the cool stuff on it. We wish Karen a prompt recovery, positive thoughts for you two!

From issue #58

Full-Self Driving beta on Lombard Street in San Francisco

What happens when FSD attempts the windiest street in the world? What happens when @tesla_raj and @minimalduck collaborate together? We get to watch great videos like this one!

From issue #136

Guide to a perfect Safety Score for the FSD Beta queue

Here is a detailed guide about how the Safety Score works. Take a look if you are trying to get the FSD Beta or to obtain a cheaper quote from Tesla Insurance.

From issue #218

Hacked Tesla FSD - Tesla Autonomy Day to San Mateo

Thanks to greentheonly, who gave the instructions, someone in the Bay Area has been able to enable a bunch of internal flags to make a normal Tesla run stock firmware capable of reproducing the FSD Tesla autonomy demo. In the video, you can see that the driver disables AP because ULC was disabled in that particular version and the turning of the car was limited. In the words of greentheonly, “Almost everything that was shown on Autonomy Day is there in regular firmware, sometimes disabled”.

From issue #63

Hardware 3 FSD test program

Tesla is asking for more employees to sign up for their Full self-driving test program. They are trying to get as many employees as possible with their HW3 running their alpha versions of the FSD software. We aren’t Tesla employees but Elon if you are listening we would love to test it for you!

Read more: Reddit

From issue #40

Heavy traffic FSDBeta v10.69 - Unprotected Left Turns

Chuck is back at the intersection, but this time with heavy traffic. Take a look at how the car did!

From issue #230

How does FSD Beta respond to bad weathe

Although the screen showed a message saying that Navigate on Autopilot was unavailable, it worked and didn’t do bad at all. The video is narrated in both English and Spanish.

From issue #173

How Elon Musk set Tesla on a new course for self-driving

We recently saw Elon demoing FSD 12 in his car. This article delves into the details of how the idea to fully transform the FSD stack for FSD 12 came about, as well as some of the testing conducted. FSD 12 uses neural networks to mimic human driving, replacing thousands of lines of C++ that previously controlled the car. When comparing both systems in a scenario with a road littered with trash cans, fallen traffic cones, and random debris, the car guided by the neural network planner could navigate around the obstacles, crossing lane lines and breaking some rules when necessary. This was something the rules-based planner couldn’t accomplish.

From issue #283

HW3 retrofit will be possible with MCU1

You may have heard rumors that the Hardware 3 (FSD) retrofit is not going to be possible without MCU2. According to Bonnie Norman- well known for having reliable sources at Tesla- the rumors are not true. She has confirmed with Tesla that it is going to be possible. It’s just not available at the moment.

We’ve been in touch with our Service Center and they told us they’re prioritizing Hardware 3 (FSD) + MCU2 upgrade at the moment. No dates shared for Hardware 3 (FSD) +MCU1 yet.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #101

HW4 made an official appearance in the production code with FSD Beta 10.11

According to Greentheonly, there is some code for the first time referencing FSD HW4. According to his findings, the differences seem to be more than just faster / more RAM, this change seems to indicate that we will see HW4 launching soon.

From issue #207

Impressive night ride with FSD Beta 8.2

FSD Beta is getting crazy good, watch this video in Chesnut St, in San Francisco.

From issue #155

Improved trajectory visualization

One of the improvements listed in the notes above is the updated trajectory line visualization. In the new version, the line is similar to the visualization in NoA. It looks much cleaner!

From issue #195

Insane downtown drive with Tesla FSD Beta 11.3.3

DirtyTesla tests FSD Beta 11.3.3 in downtown traffic in this video. Chris expresses his admiration for the car’s performance, citing excellent perception and trajectory in challenging situations like heavy traffic and parallel parking. Despite a few close calls, he rates the FSD’s safety performance as A-grade. I can’t wait to get back to my car and update it to 11.3.3!

From issue #261

Inside Tesla’s neural processor in the FSD chip

Pretty technical article but a good write-up. If you like this kind of stuff, check it out.

Read more: Reddit

From issue #78

Internal FSD Beta testing in Canada

Before FSD Beta was released to external cars, Elon said that they had around 60 internal cars testing it in Canada. By now, there are some external testers, like the one from the previous article.

From issue #205

Is Tesla Testing FSD 12 on Chuck's Unprotected Left Turn?

This week, Chuck spotted a Tesla Model Y with manufacturer plates navigating his now-famous intersection. Given that Tesla used this same route for testing earlier versions of FSD (Full Self-Driving), it’s reasonable to assume that this could be Tesla testing FSD Beta 12. Chuck is known for immediately trying out new FSD releases at this specific turn, so Tesla likely anticipates his testing and aims to ensure the software performs well there.

From issue #287

Is there a trick to activate the auto park?

It seems like some Tesla drivers are having problems with the auto park. We’ve seen ourselves the auto park appears at intersections which is kind of weird. As pointed out by some Tesla drivers, one of the secrets is to drive slow and pull way past. That made the trick for us too!

Read more: Reddit

From issue #6

Keeping humans safe on the dark streets

FSD Beta keeps getting better and better and sometimes can clearly see things that we, humans, have a hard time with. This is a great example of that!

From issue #215

Lane selection issues are gone in 10.69.1.1

Great to see improvements in this area, I’ve suffered the same issues as well.

From issue #232

Limited FSD beta releasing on Tuesday next week

At first, this will be limited to a limited number of people. I believe not everyone from the Early Access Program will have access, unclear who will get it. Can it please send it to my car?🤞

From issue #133

Made some LED Tesla logos for their garage

Nice Tesla logos with multi-color LEDs.

From issue #207

Making aggressive, human-like maneuvers in complex traffic situations

This is FSD Beta version 2020.44.15.3. Impressive how the car gets out of the parking lot by itself. An incredible human-like right turn (also illegal 😬) after AP realizes it’s on the incorrect lane. This update also seems to be improving the way Autopilot reacts to pedestrians, stopping at, and giving them plenty of room and time.

From issue #140

Many levers to change the FSD features

Greentheonly - as always - found a menu with a bunch of settings to tweak the FSD experience. Just reading the options would take several minutes. It’s kind of cool to see what can be adjusted, maybe one day Tesla will expose some advanced settings to the drivers 😉

From issue #141

MCU1 to MCU2 upgrade is here

The Infotainment upgrade for owners with MCU1 is finally available. We have so many questions… should we pay for the upgrade? When can we get it? Is it required for the Hardware 3 (FSD) upgrade? We have shared everything we know in this article.

Read more: Tesletter

From issue #101

More about the Autopilot rewrite

This week Elon shared more about the FSD computer and the Autopilot rewrite they’ve been talking about for a while now: “Tesla FSD computer’s dual SoCs function like twin engines on planes — they each run different neural nets, so we do get full use of 144 TOPS, but there are enough nets running on each to allow the car to drive to safety if one SoC (or engine in this analogy) fails.”

From issue #133

More FSD Beta videos [2020.40.8.12]

A new recap of short FSD Beta videos running the latest update 2020.40.8.12:

  • Roundabout testing. Still not perfect but doing a pretty good job, all things considered!
  • Avoiding road debris. I feel like FSD is definitely getting better at avoiding objects in the middle of the road. What do you think?
  • Charging port open & close FSD beta new UI. The new UI changes coming with the FSD beta make the user experience more intuitive, for example, when opening and closing the charging port.
From issue #136

MS & MX with Hardware 3 for Full Self-Driving, now in production

Teslarati was able to see inventory cars with HW3 inspecting the options from Tesla’s web page.

Read more: Teslarati

From issue #52

Navigate on Autopilot vs FSD Beta on 11.3.1

Here’s a nice side-by-side video of both options. You can see that in FSD Beta, the car doesn’t require the driver to hold the steering wheel to confirm the lane change.

From issue #259

Navigating around Manteca, CA in FSD Beta 9.1

Great video for those of you who like to analyze what FSD Beta does, good job!

From issue #175

New FSD Beta 10.3 Driving Profile Options

One of the biggest changes in FSD Beta 10.3 is the ability to select driving profile options, similar to the preference for NoAP. This indicates to FSD Beta what is your tolerance when it comes down to following the distance and speed lane changes.

From issue #187

New FSD Beta dropping this week (probably)

Elon said, “this is a big one”. He has reiterated multiple times that the next version will include many improvements, like complex left turns and heavy traffic, as well as better visualizations. Can’t wait!

From issue #214

New FSD Beta rendering coming

According to Elon, the new visuals will represent the NN probability space better. Neural Networks produce a set of probabilities when they do detection (e.g. car 95%, pedestrian 30%). I wonder how Tesla is planning to render this for the end-user, any ideas?

From issue #160

New Tesla patent for 'Generating ground truth for machine learning from time series elements'

Tesla strives to achieve Level 5 of autonomy, therefore it is very important to correctly develop all the processes and methods that, as a result, will help the company achieve its goal. This new patent discloses a machine learning training technique for generating highly accurate machine learning results and it gets Tesla one step closer to their goal.

From issue #135

New to FSD Beta? Watch this video

Great video by Chuck Cook to prepare the new testers for their first few drives.

From issue #234

New voxel 3D birdseye view outputs

A new NN in the car is now outputting a 3D birdseye. Maybe this can be used to simulate the 3D view when parking?

From issue #185

News on HW2 to HW3 retrofits

Greentheonly has discovered there’s been some recent progress in the HW2 to HW3 retrofit, which makes us think it’s actually going to happen. According to him, it’s probably going to be a degraded experience compared to the HW2.5 to HW3 retrofit, and looking at the changes in the latest firmware versions, it seems they don’t plan on changing the radar or the steering rack.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #97

No button, at least for now

According to Elon, given the fundamental changes in the FSD Beta that are currently underway, there isn’t much point in more testing of the 8.X version, he expects to deliver v9 in April and add the ‘Download FSD Beta’ button then.

From issue #156

Official Tesla article for FSD transfers

In case you’re considering taking advantage of this one-time offer, here are the official terms and conditions. Probably the most relevant point is that you need to take delivery of the car before the end of September to qualify.

From issue #277

On the road to full autonomy with Elon Musk

ARK talks about FSD with Elon Musk. Elon shares his insights about Tesla’s autonomous strategy, and the timeline of how the process is laid out.

Read more: ARK Invest

From issue #47

OS app shows FSD Beta eligibility

Or at least it does for this owner. Take a look if you have the latest firmware and iOS app.

From issue #240

People who took delivery of their Tesla in January 2019 and purchased EAP are getting FSD for free

Tesla said this a while ago but just now owners (thanks DirtyTesla) are reporting it showing up in their Tesla accounts.

Read more: Reddit

From issue #74

Police car visualization

Seems to be a new addition in 2023.32.1. I personally haven’t seen this before, have you?

From issue #283

Preparation for FSD with MCU1 and actual stopping at stop signs coming

According to Greentheonly, the latest update 2020.12 is basically the same as 2020.8.1 but it introduces two important changes:

  • Preparation for cars with MCU1 to be able to be upgraded to FSD
  • What seem to be preparations to enable actual stopping for stop signs/traffic lights

Read more: Twitter

From issue #103

Public FSD Beta with v10?

FSD v10 will be rolling out to testers midnight Friday next week. Elon is hoping that v10.1 will have “the button”, just two weeks after the release of v10. “The button” will allow folks to opt-in to the FSD Beta. Can’t wait 🤗

From issue #179

Real FSD driving

From parking lot to parking lot. Zero human interventions. The future is here.

From issue #182

Release notes for FSD Beta V10.7

Detailed notes for FSDBeta v10.7 were posted by our friend DirtyTesla. Too many improvements to list here, take a look!

From issue #195

Release notes FSD Beta v9

FSD Beta v9 is finally here, this is the result of months of work where the AP team transitioned the system to Pure Vision (they stopped using the signal from the front-facing radar), improved visualizations showing additional surrounding information, and activates the cabin camera for them.

From issue #172

Rumors of speed limit changes in an upcoming software update

As you probably remember AP on backroads and non-divided roads used to allow the driver to the next speed to +5 mph the speed limit. When Tesla introduced the Stop Sign and Traffic Light Control, they changed it so you couldn’t make it past the speed limit. Well, according to our friends at Teslascope, the +5 mph speed limit will be back in our cars very soon.

From issue #119

Safety Score Beta

Last Saturday, Tesla introduced their new Safety Score (Beta) and it is now using it to judge how much of a save driver people who opt-in are and in that way slowly but steadily extend the FSD Beta program (more info below). To calculate this score, Tesla is using 5 factors:

  • Forward Collision Warnings per 1,000 Miles
  • Hard Braking
  • Aggressive Turning
  • Unsafe Following
  • Forced Autopilot Disengagement

You can see your Safety Score in the Tesla app (version 4.1.), and you can also see there your daily and per trip breakdowns. It even tells you which profile was selected during the drive which is very nice if you share your car with your significant other.

From issue #183

San Francisco to Los Angeles with no interventions

Omar from Whole Mars Catalog just did a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles with no interventions other than charging the car at a couple of superchargers. Really cool!

From issue #145

Seamless flow of car alerts highlighted in the app and ready to be addressed

Tesla keeps adding convenience when it comes down to warn owners about problems with their car and scheduling service. This one is a clear example of it. This Reddit user u/TMahlman/ got a system fault alert on his car and when he opened the mobile app, it was right there at the top ready for him to address without any action on his part. It’s also the first time that I’ve seen this flow of car alert + highlighting in the app.

From issue #141

Smart Parking in 'a month or two'

We just got the first version of Smart Summon, and people are already asking for the next thing. According to Elon, Smart Parking could drop in a couple of months for all cars that purchased EAP or FSD, although as he said: “it may be a little silly at first.”

I think that Elon is always really ambitious, but, as folks test Smart Summon, Tesla is gathering a lot of data about parking lots, curbs, and others; which is going to give them an advantage in implementing Smart Parking.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #80

Speed limit recognition worldwide and roundabout support

Greentheonly was able to find new assets that hint at speed limit recognition coming to our Teslas. According to Green, we should expect this worldwide soon.

Check the Twitter thread to see the renders, interestingly some Tesla owners in the thread are claiming roundabouts being recognized as traffic signs and, in fact, check out the video below to see how FSD with 2020.16.3.1 handles entering an exiting a roundabout all by itself!

Read more: Twitter

From issue #116

Stop sign and traffic light stopping mode mass rollout is coming!

Elon Musk recently shared on Twitter that stop sign and traffic light stopping mode are coming soon to the US and a worldwide release will probably happen in Q3. E-X-C-I-T-E-D!

From issue #106

Tesla ADAS car driving the unprotected left turn

Chuck found another official Tesla tester trying his intersection. If the car is doing that in FSD, isn’t bad at all!

From issue #229

Tesla ADAS Drivers that testing Chuck's unprotected left turn

Last week, we shared that the FSD Beta v10.13 mentioned Chuck Cook’s left turn, it seems that Tesla has not only trained the network in similar turns, they actually sent ADAS testers to run by the left turn. In the video, even with room for improvement, you can see the testing car performing better than previous FSD builds.

From issue #226

Tesla Autopark will be a bit silly at first

Tesla is working on Autopark, which will allow you to drive to the door of a store and your Tesla will go find a parking spot and park itself. In the spirit of iterating the feature in the real world, it seems like Tesla is planning to release a first version that, while safe, could sometimes park in silly places that aren’t actual parking spaces.

Given the experience with Smart Summon- people used it 500,000 times in the first few days and Tesla used that to improve it right after- releasing and iterating seems the right thing to do as long as using the feature is safe.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #81

Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capabilities (Simplified View)

What are the differences between Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, FSD, and FSD Beta? Well, it isn’t that easy to explain, but this table offers a simplified easy view of it all.

From issue #222

Tesla Autopilot’s stop sign, traffic light recognition and response is operating in ‘Shadow Mode’

We’ve known for a while- thanks to greentheonly - that the current firmware includes stop sign and traffic light detection and reaction but it comes in disabled. Now, in the information released by Tesla about their Q2, we can read the following:

“We are making progress towards stopping at stop signs and traffic lights. This feature is currently operating in ‘shadow mode’ in the fleet, which compares our software algorithm to real-world driver behavior across tens of millions of instances around the world.”

Read more: Teslarati

From issue #70

Tesla brings better driving visuals, energy predictions, and driver profiles in 2022.16.0.2

We just highlighted the better navigation energy prediction above. On top of that, Tesla is bringing driver profile improvements and new driving visualization (A.K.A. FSD Beta visualizations) to 2022.16.0.2.

From issue #218

Tesla changes FSD’s unreleased features from ‘later this year' to ‘coming soon’

With the release of v10.2 and the extension of the FSD Beta tester program to folks who had a score of 100/100 and had driven 100+ by last Friday night, Tesla updated the FSD page and now it says ‘Autosteer on City Streets’ is ‘coming soon’. Personally, I don’t know if coming soon is sooner or later than later this year, what do you think?

From issue #185

Tesla could have to offer computer retrofits to all AP 2.0 and 2.5 cars

Several comments made by CEO Elon Musk since the launch of its AP 2.0 hardware suite in all Tesla vehicles made since October 2016 indicate that the company might have to update its onboard computer in order to achieve the fully self-driving capability that it has been promising to customers.

Now it looks like Tesla might have to also offer computer retrofits for AP 2.5 cars.

Read more: Electrek.com

From issue #7

Tesla data leak

Bad news for folks that did the FSD upgrade, MCU2 retrofit, MCU1 EMMC fix, or any other fix requiring computer swap. According to @greentheonly, Tesla doesn’t erase personal data so consider all accounts that you logged in your Tesla compromised and change your passwords ASAP. Tesla has said they’ll reach out to affected customers to inform about this.

From issue #110

Tesla EAP price will keep increasing

This isn’t new information but, according to recent tweets from Elon, he expects the price of FSD to climb every 2 to 4 months depending on how much progress Tesla makes.

BTW, he also mentioned that early FSD buyers will get into the early access list and in general any FSD buyer will get priority in the upload queue.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #72

Tesla engineering car picture leaked

In the picture we can see the three frontal cameras as well as menu options for Full Sell Driving, Augmented Vision, and Autopilot Control.

Read more: TMC Forums

From issue #3

Tesla FSD 10.4 vs. Waymo

Nice to see the side-by-side comparison and, in my opinion, to see how far away Tesla has come.

From issue #190

Tesla FSD 10.69.3.1

Really nice drive by FSD, including an unprotected left that it handles perfectly. Good video by Dirty Tesla.

From issue #243

Tesla FSD 11.3.4 vs Waymo Driver 5

It’s really interesting to watch this side-by-side video comparison of Waymo and Tesla taking the same route. Some of the main differences that stand out are that Tesla takes the freeway while Waymo stays off of it, and Tesla requires the driver to push the pedal in one instance. As a result, the Tesla completes the trip in approximately 15 minutes, while the Waymo takes 20.

From issue #262

Tesla FSD Beta 10.11 full commute

Good drive, full commute with no takeover (that doesn’t mean all was perfect) on FSD Beta 10.11. Towards the end, because of an error in the maps, the car takes the wrong road, but overall good 30 min commute without takeovers.

From issue #209

Tesla FSD Beta 10.69.2.3 First Drive in Venice, Los Angeles

I have to say that my FSD Beta doesn’t work this well. I love the 360° video.

From issue #238

Tesla FSD Beta 11.3.1 rolling out to employees

This is the over-the-air update that contains more text warning the driver to not become complacent and pay extra attention.

From issue #257

Tesla FSD Beta 11.4.2 Full Self-Driving in Venice and Santa Monica

Here’s a relatively uneventful video of Full Self-Driving (FSD) navigating around Venice and Santa Monica. The car was able to complete both drives without interventions, although, on a couple of occasions, it opted for the right lane a bit later than I would have preferred. According to the author, this update has been a significant improvement, with the system appearing more confident in turns and hesitating halfway through turns far less than in previous versions.

From issue #270

Tesla FSD Beta 11.4.8: Enhanced Autopilot, Better Video Processing, and Parking Assistance

Tesla FSD Beta 11.4.8 update introduces several enhancements, some noticeable ones are:

  • Advanced Video Processing: Enhanced vehicle detection and movement understanding
  • Improved Object and Vehicle Detection: 6% better at noticing objects; 15% more precise in detecting lane-cutting vehicles.
  • Reduced Errors in Traffic: 3% fewer speed errors and 10% fewer acceleration errors.
  • Faster Decision-Making: 15% reduced latency in the decision-making network.
  • Enhanced Parking Assistance: 16% more accurate Vision Park Assist system.
  • Improved Lane Change Accuracy: 10% better at handling path blockages.
From issue #292

Tesla FSD Beta in Canada in 2-4 weeks

Or at least that is what Elon said this week. If you happen to be one of the first lucky ones in Canada, just remember that FSD Beta isn’t good with snow nor in ice conditions.

From issue #199

Tesla FSD Beta takes on GM’s driverless Cruise in San Francisco

Whole Mars Catalog recently posted a side-by-side comparison of Tesla’s FSD Beta against the Cruise Autonomous taxi service in San Francisco. Both cars started at the same location to perform the same trip at the same time, and both did it fully autonomously (A.K.A. no human intervention). The Tesla completed the trip in 14 minutes and 6 seconds, while the Cruise did it in 22 minutes and 24 seconds.

From issue #242

Tesla FSD Beta Update v10.5

Our friend DirtyTesla recorded a great video of FSD Beta 10.5. It seems like a solid new update, especially after many testers reported 10.4 having problems. Great update right before the holidays.

From issue #191

Tesla FSD Beta V11 full release notes are publicly shared

Some interesting notes that we haven’t seen before:

  • Added highway behavior to offset away from blocked lanes and generic obstacles like road debris while also adding a smooth hand-off between in-lane offsetting and lane changing.
  • Improved smoothness at highway lane splits by being less strict about centering between lane lines and allowing lower jerk maneuvers, where safe to do so.
  • Reduced sensitivity for speed-based lane changes in CHILL mode.
From issue #243

Tesla FSD Beta V11.3 starts shipping to employees

Some highlights from the release notes (the article contains the full list of improvements):

  • FSD Beta on the highway. This unifies the vision and planning stack on and off-highway and replaces the legacy highway stack, which is over four years old.
  • Added voice drive notes. After an intervention, you can now send Tesla an anonymous voice message describing your experience to help improve Autopilot.
  • Expanded Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) to handle vehicles that cross ego’s path. Tesla estimates that 49% of these events would be mitigated by the new behavior, on both manual and Autopilot driving.
  • Improved overall geometry and stability of lane predictions by updating the “lane guidance” module representation with information relevant to predicting crossing and oncoming lanes.
  • Improved lane changes, including earlier detection and handling for simultaneous lane changes, better gap selection when approaching deadlines, better integration between speed-based and nav-based lane change decisions, and more differentiation between the FSD driving profiles with respect to speed lane changes.
From issue #255

Tesla FSD option cost rises by ~$1,000 worldwide on July 1st

Elon Musk himself announced it on Twitter earlier this week. So if you’re thinking about getting FSD, hurry up, you still have a few more weeks before its price increases. In the following tweet, Elon estimated that the value of FSD, once is fully autonomous and approved by regulators, will be closer to $100k. Would you pay $100k for your personal chauffeur?

Read more: Twitter


From issue #112

Tesla FSD stops for Emergency Vehicle

Great video, the Tesla doesn’t even try to start crossing the intersection while a human driver crosses it when they shouldn’t.

From issue #284

Tesla FSD stress-tested in Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city with a lot of weird intersections (I have been able to experience them myself) so it’s a good place to challenge Tesla’s FSD (Beta 10) 😁 As a friend of mine told me, looking at the video, and being familiar with the locations shown, it does feel like FSD can be trusted. Nice progress!

From issue #148

Tesla FSD V11 is NEXT LEVEL

Great video by AI DRIVR, one of the coolest setups out there.

From issue #259

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 10.13 release notes

FSD Beta 10.13 isn’t out to the public yet, but we can see the release notes from the employee version in this tweet. A lot of the notes are related to creeping for visibility and unprotected left turns, with a special mention to Chuck Cook, who we have featured in the newsletter multiple times before.

From issue #225

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 10.69.3 in San Francisco

Great night drive video by Whole Mars Catalog, with good narration. The car definitely seems much more calm and smooth.

From issue #241

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 11.3.1 in the rain

Nice video! Although with it sped up, the wipers seem to be going crazy.

From issue #258

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 12.1.2

Whole Mars Catalog received FSD v12.1.2 on his car this weekend and, as expected, he didn’t stop recording drives. Here’s one where he crosses San Francisco from North to South with no interventions. It’s clear from watching the videos that FSD v12 is a significant step forward in the functionality of FSD, and I’m eager to experience it personally. By the way, something cool the car now does is that it pulls over when it reaches its destination, which is pretty cool, right? You can see a lot more videos on Whole Mars Catalog’s YouTube channel. Thanks for sharing, Omar!

From issue #301

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta open to anyone in North America

If you were one of those waiting to purchase or get FSD Beta, Elon announced on Twitter this week that FSD Beta is now available to anyone who purchased the option and requests it from the app screen. If you are considering subscribing/purchasing it, there is a gotcha, if your car is in a version greater than 2022.36.20, you will have to wait until the next release, so it may not be worth purchasing it until that is already out.

From issue #244

Tesla Full Self-Driving in Austin

Nice video released by Tesla of FSD v11.4.7 in Austin. In this version, the nag is off, although cabin monitoring is on. What a difference it makes not having to touch the steering wheel every few seconds.

From issue #288

Tesla gradually reducing the nag

In December, Elon Musk promised on Twitter that Tesla would offer an option to turn off the nag for those with a high number of miles on FSD Beta. In response to a question from DirtyTesla, Elon stated that Tesla is gradually reducing the nag proportionately to improve safety.

From issue #262

Tesla hints at 'Reverse Summon' being available this year

Tesla seems to have updated their Autopilot section to mention what they call Reverse Summon “When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot, and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you.”

I’ve been in the community long enough to remember the Autopilot demo video from 2016, where the Tesla parked itself after leaving the person at their destination. It looked amazing, but forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical at this point that it is going to be available soon.

From issue #237

Tesla improves Autopilot visualizations by incorporating Some FSD Beta visuals

In the new update 2023.32.4, Tesla has borrowed some visualizations that were previously exclusive to FSD Beta and added them to Autopilot, making them more accurate and containing much more information than the previous Autopilot ones. In my opinion, eventually, all the UI will be the same (as long as hardware permits), regardless of whether FSD is activated or not; the difference will be that with FSD, the car will handle the driving.

From issue #285

Tesla is already testing traffic lights, stop signs & roundabouts

According to Elon’s tweet your Tesla will soon be able to go from your garage at home to parking at work with no driver input at all. Hard to believe, but they’re already testing traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts in development software.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #37

Tesla is increasing (again) the price of FSD on May 1st

As we shared a few weeks ago and Elon re-iterated yesterday on Twitter, the price of FSD is expected to go up ~$1k on May 1st. If you still haven’t purchased FSD and you feel like you are going to miss out and regret not buying it now at $5k, hurry up and get it before May 1st.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #56

Tesla is now giving trials of the FSD

Tesla used to give trials of the EAP but it was unclear what was going to happen after they re-defined the packages to AP and FSD. Well, it seems like they just started giving trials of the FSD features (Auto Lane Change, NoA, and Summon) right now.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #57

Tesla now dynamically resizes vehicle models in the latest FSD Beta

If FSD Beta is going to be able to represent the real world, it is going to need to use some techniques like this one, where they are dynamically resizing the visualizations of the vehicles depending on their real-world length. Good to see a step in the direction of more dynamic visualizations.

From issue #206

Tesla partners with Samsung on new 5nm chip for FSD, report says

When Tesla announced their FSD Chip almost two years ago they already mentioned they were working on its next generation. This week, Electrek has published rumors of Tesla partnering with Samsung to produce that chip with Samsung. Samsung is the current producer of the FSD Chip for Tesla. As discussed yesterday during the earnings call, the new chip is three times as powerful as the current chip and it will open the door to introduce HD resolution cameras.

From issue #148

Tesla Q2 Earnings Call

In yesterday’s Q2 update, Tesla beat the estimates and reported the fourth straight quarter of profits. Elon said he’s never been as excited about Tesla and its future as he is now, and we couldn’t agree more. Here’s a quick summary of the call:

  • Confirmed the next Gigafactory in Texas, near Austin. It’ll be the biggest one yet and Elon described it as “an ecological paradise” which will be open to the public.

  • Solar prices adjusted

  • FSD updates

    • “It’s getting to the point where I can get to work from home with almost no interventions.”
    • “FSD will be the largest financial step-change in history, overnight.”
    • The biggest transition in the FSD computer is going from 2D (image recognition) to 4D (video recognition).
  • Hints on Tesla making a compact vehicle as well as a high capacity one, but there’s still a long way to go before it happens

  • Tesla App Store coming

  • Tesla’s insurance telematics product will be available in California and a handful of other states by the end of the year

  • Berlin will have local cell production to serve their needs

Here are some great notes by @dburkland on Twitter. Thank you, Dan!

From issue #121

Tesla releases FSD Beta 10.4 with improved vulnerable road user detection and more

There is a long list of improvements, although I have to say that multiple testers have reported regressions in 10.4. Be careful out there.

From issue #189

Tesla reveals FSD Beta numbers

In the last earnings call, Tesla revealed that it has now more than 100k drivers using FSD Beta in North America, with more than 35 million miles driven.

From issue #226

Tesla reveals new self-driving Autopilot hardware 3.0 computer diagram ahead of launch

A source told Electrek that Tesla updated the Model 3 wiring diagrams in its internal service documentation on January 9th to include the new Autopilot 3.0 computer as the new standard ECU in Model 3.

An interesting new piece of information is that in the diagram we can see how the chip has connectors for a second radar although current models only have mounted a forward facing radar.

Read more: Electrek

From issue #43

Tesla rolls out FSD Beta v11.4.4 (2023.7.20)

The new version, now rolling out to testers, includes some interesting changes such as:

  • Improved handling of oncoming cars on narrow, unmarked roads. This improvement is achieved by better predicting the trajectory of oncoming cars and leaving enough room for them to pass before re-centering.
  • Better handling of VRUs near crosswalks, achieved by more accurately predicting their future intent.
  • Enhanced Automatic Emergency Braking in response to cut-in vehicles and vehicles located behind the ego vehicle while reversing.
From issue #272

Tesla seems to be pricing FSD for trade-ins

Many people have said in the past that Tesla wasn’t taking into account of the owner had purchased the FSD package for the car when pricing it for trade-in, although Tesla insisted they did. Now. a Twitter used mentioned that his to Ys, from the same month and nearly the same millage show a $6k difference in trade-in, one has FSD and the other one doesn’t.

From issue #201

Tesla shuffles the EAP and FSD definitions around

Tesla just changed the definitions going forward but announced that customers who already purchased EAP will still get those features even though now are only included in the FSD package. Thanks Troy Teslike for the visualziation

See more: Tesla

From issue #49

Tesla starts FSD Beta v12.3 rollout

Tesla’s latest Full Self-Driving Beta v12.3 update, described by Elon Musk as a ‘big release,’ on Twitter, he mentioned it should probably be v13. Sadly for us, the release notes don’t list any improvements, so we can’t know what the improvements are until we get to see more videos.

From issue #308

Tesla starts rolling out FSD Beta 10.69 — We may now control for slow-moving UFOs

FSD needs the ability to respond to objects that can’t really identify, as humans can when they drive, the new version of FSD seems to do a reference to that, they added the line “We may now control for slow-moving UFOs” at the end of the release notes.

From issue #230

Tesla tackles my dirty Tesla's most complex route yet

Dirty Tesla goes through a pretty challenging route on FSD version 10.69.3.1. Definitely worth watching this video.

From issue #246

Tesla to offer 1-month FSD trials once it's super smooth

The Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta continues to improve remarkably. This week, Elon mentioned on Twitter that Tesla plans to offer a one-month trial of FSD in North America once it becomes incredibly smooth. This offering will extend globally as the system performs well in more countries and regulators approve it.

From issue #266

Tesla to offer the option to have expanded visualization or not

New Expanded FSD Visualization toggle in 2020.44.10.2. It widens the visualization when FSD is active. Check out the video to see how it looks like (second 34").

From issue #138

Tesla will increase the price of the FSD package on November 1st

Elon postponed the increase until they released Smart Summon, now Smart Summon is here and he announced that Tesla will raise the price of the FSD package by $1,000 on November 1st. Elon clarified on Twitter that the price in Europe won’t increase until they are able to deliver some of the new features, hopefully, this means they are working with the regulator and he sees a viable path for it. Remember, Elon has said many times that as they release features that are part of the FSD package the price will keep on increasing.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #81

Tesla's FSD Beta could be unleashed in Europe sooner than expected

The European Commission plans to prioritize the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Regulation on Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS), potentially speeding up the arrival of Tesla’s FSD Beta in Europe and enabling the reactivation of some Autopilot features.

From issue #265

Tesla's FSD Beta downtown driving in 360

Nice video by DirtyTesla testing a new mount that allows for him to show us around the car when needed.

From issue #169

Tesla's FSD Beta v9

FSD Beta v9 was released last Saturday. Here’s a great circuit testing by DirtyTesla.

From issue #172

Tesla's FSD hardware 4.0 to use new cameras

It’s well known that Tesla wants to keep iterating on their AP hardware. According to a Twitter user, Tesla is planning to use Sony’s new IMX490 automotive sensor in their upcoming hardware 4.0 revision. The new sensor would provide 5.4 megapixels compared to the 1.2 megapixels and the new wide-angle sensor might also allow Tesla to drop the number of cameras used in the front-facing module.

From issue #199

Tesla’s new HW3 Self-Driving computer — It’s a beast

CleanTechnica made an in-depth review of the new Tesla FSD processor. Tesla decided to design this processor in house and make it solve one problem (matrix multiplications) really well.

Read more: CleanTechnica

From issue #65

Testing FSD 9.1 Downtown Chicago in 360

Not much to say, a really cool setup. Worth watching.

From issue #176

TFSD Beta 10.10 release notes

FSD Beta v10.10 is here and it is great to see some of these improvements, especially the improved smoothness when stopping for crossing objects, I’ve noticed that my car doesn’t slam the breaks anymore when a car cuts in front of you at an intersection that isn’t close. The bad news is that they eliminated the rolling stops, even though the car only did them when it was 100% safe.

From issue #202

TFSD Beta v11 Release Notes

Some Tesla employees just got the FSD Beta v11 and part of the notes become available, not much was included there, but the summary is:

  • Enabled FSD Beta on the highway. Unifying the stack.
  • Improved Occupancy Network’s recall for close-by obstacles and precision in severe weather conditions.
From issue #242

The 'safest' driver in San Francisco

Great video by AI DRIVR, testing FSD Beta 10.69.3 in San Francisco. 10.69.3 shows really good progress, but it’s still far from perfect.

From issue #242

The Button is pushed to May, FSD subscription expected the same month

Just yesterday, Elon shared that the Autopilot team is trying to get the probability of no injury above 99.999999% of miles for city driving and that he expects the famous ‘Download Button’ to drop next month along with the FSD Subscription. I wonder if this will be V9 or if that is going to get to testers before then.

From issue #159

The end of the nag?

Elon suggested that an update coming in January will give the option to remove the nag for people with a lot of experience using FSD Beta. Whole Mars Catalog suggested making this option available for those who have driven more than 10,000 miles with FSD Beta.

From issue #248

The next big FSD release may arrive in 6 to 10 weeks for Early Access

Elon Musk said he’s already driving the bleeding-edge Alpha version of FSD in his car and, in his own words, it’s almost at zero interventions between home and work. Elon mentioned this will be available to folks in Early Access in just a few weeks… in Elon’s Time™.

From issue #125

The next FSD update includes updates on NN to surround video

Tesla is working on updating all Neural Networks to surround video using subnets on focal areas which are delaying a new FSD Beta update. In exchange, “This is evolving into solving a big part of physical world AI.”- said Elon Musk. A totally worth tradeoff!

From issue #153

The state of Tesla FSD (Beta 10.8)

Great video by AI DRIVR, going through different scenarios and responses from the car.

From issue #197

The trip energy calculator is getting better

A new finding by Greentheonly! It seems that the trip energy is now accounting for cross/headwinds, air density, and humidity. Hopefully, this helps when people might cut it too close.

From issue #208

Time-lapse of a FSD upgrade by Tesla Mobile Service 📹

Cool time-lapse of a FSD upgrade performed in the customer’s driveway in just a little over an hour. You can’t really see much in the video since it’s recorded from the outside but time-lapses are cool and it’s great to know Tesla’s Mobile Service is doing this so a) the upgrade can be done these days b) you don’t need to wait a whole day to get your Tesla back.

From issue #114

TOSV founder talks about the latest FSD update

Our good friend John from Tesla Owners Silicon Valley was featured in an article talking about the club and the latest FSD Beta update. John has been one of the few people who have publicly been testing the FSD Beta and has put a bunch of videos out there to show the rest of us what the beta is capable of.

From issue #151

Traffic light and stop sign control coming to EU

Good news for Tesla owners in Europe. Tesla has contacted folks who are part of the Early Access Program announcing they will soon push the 2020.28.10 update which contains the much-awaited Traffic and Stop Sign Detection new feature. This feature will only be available in cars with FSD (Hardware 3 retrofits have already started in Europe as well).

From issue #121

Transitioning to Tesla Vision

We knew Tesla was ditching radar in their rewrite of FSD Beta but we didn’t anticipate them removing it from cars as early as this month. In this support article, Tesla announced “Beginning with deliveries in May 2021, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built for the North American market will no longer be equipped with radar. Instead, these will be the first Tesla vehicles to rely on camera vision and neural net processing to deliver Autopilot”.

The downside? New cars will have a limited version of AP at first, Autosteer will be limited to a maximum speed of 75 mph, and Smart Summon and Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance may be disabled at delivery.

From issue #165

UI for Applying the brakes when regen braking is limited

A few releases ago, Tesla introduced this setting, which allows the car to simulate regen braking when regenerative braking is limited, e.g. when it is cold, or when your battery can’t get more energy. In this image from DirtyTesla, we can see how the UI differentiates between the regen braking (green) and the brakes (darker gray).

From issue #233

Update on FSD at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai 📹

Last week, Elon Musk participated in the WAIC in Shanghai and shared an update on Tesla’s AI and FSD. Specifically, he said Tesla has no fundamental challenges remaining for Level 5 autonomy and it’s just many small problems that need to be solved: “I feel like we are very close to level 5 autonomy. We will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year”. You’ve heard the man! Level 5 should allow the driver to stay hands-free most or all of the time.

From issue #120

Upgraded cameras for 2017 FSD cars

Elon said recently that cars with AP2 would need their cameras to be replaced in order to access FSD Beta, seems like Tesla has already done that. BTW this, as well as the HW3 processor upgrade, is covered if you have purchased the FSD package.

From issue #189

Upgrading to FSD is now only $3,000 (if you had previously purchased EAP)

Elon mentioned it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago and it’s now official. If you had purchased Enhanced Autopilot, upgrading to Full Self-Driving is now $3,000. Or what it is the same $3,000 less than the current price of FSD ($3,000 happened to be the price of EAP if you got it when purchasing the car).

Expect this price to go up as FSD goes up, for instance, when FSD goes up to $7,000 in mid August, the upgrade from EAP will most likely be increased to $4,000.

Read more: Twitter

From issue #70

v11 tougher than expected

In response to John’s inquiry about FSD v11.3, Elon stated that while the development of v11 has proven to be more challenging than expected, he still anticipates shipping it by the end of the week. v11 will feature a unified stack (FSD and Autopilot), a substantial re-architecture of the NNs, and the replacement of C++ code responsible for controlling the vehicle with the NNs’ outputs. If I were to receive a dollar for every time that the release of v11 was said to be only a few days or weeks away, I would certainly have a few dollars. 😁

From issue #253

V11.3 in about 2 weeks?

V11 continues to undergo internal testing at Tesla. Elon seems to believe that the third minor iteration, V11.3, will be ready for wide release in approximately two weeks. It’s worth noting that Elon’s estimates have been known to be inaccurate in the past, but I can’t help but get excited about the potential release nonetheless.

From issue #249

V9 FSD Beta Release?

According to Elon probably in a week or so!

From issue #162

V9 FSD Beta will come with new FSD visuals

We already knew about this, but Elon confirmed it again on Twitter. The new UI will “show actual probability distribution of objects – true mind’s eye of the neural net”. I wonder how this would look like, I believe the more that we know what the car is recognizing the more that we will be able to supervise the car, but it might be that at a certain point it is too much, at least for some. I’m excited to discover what Tesla came up with.
CGI, OMG!

From issue #162

v9 is now detecting brake lights from other cars

It is great to see v9 detecting and showing more and more details. In response to this video, this is what Elon said: “It will soon capture turn signals, hazards, ambulance/police lights & even hand gestures”.

From issue #172

Version 9 software update is coming in August with first ‘full self-driving features’

Tesla’s next major software update ‘version 9.0’ is now set for a release in August and it will include the first ‘full self-driving features’ for Autopilot 2.0 vehicles, says CEO Elon Musk.

Read more: Electrek

From issue #12

Video of Autopilot avoiding a semi tire on the road

Check out this video of Autopilot taking over to avoid a semi tire on the road. The owner says AP took over ‘a split second’ before he reacted. In case you’re wondering, this is a Model 3 without FSD and Autopilot was engaged.

From issue #122

Walnut Creek, CA through the eyes of FSD BETA

The refreshed Model S isn’t that different on the outside, but the inside has completely being reimagined. This article goes Another great video by AI DRIVR, this time showing us Walnut Creek (we live really close by!) through the eyes of FSD. I love the creativity of overlaying the FSD visuals in the video.
all the differences, take a look!

From issue #161

Watch for passengers sticking hands out the window during FSD

In this video, we can see how the Model 3 thinks that the passenger sticking his hand out of the window is a person on the side of the road. In order to avoid what the car thinks is a person, it veers into oncoming traffic.

From issue #289

Waymo vs Tesla FSD Beta

Whole Mars Catalog has posted a compelling side-by-side video showcasing both Waymo and Tesla vehicles navigating to a destination without any human intervention. It’s an interesting comparison that highlights how each of these frontrunners in autonomous driving technology handles real-world scenarios.

From issue #271

What CNN didn't show you

CNN released a video testing FSD Beta 10.5, but the owner who sat on the back seat has other parts of the video that were edited out. It seems like CNN selected the bad parts and forgot to include the rest. This article has both videos for you to compare.

From issue #192

What does the Autopilot rewrite really mean?

Interesting thread about the FSD rewrite. The main thing is without the rewrite, FSD cannot take unprotected turns in an intersection because it cannot build an accurate representation of the layout. Karpathy shared all about it earlier this year, I’m re-sharing the video here in case you missed it.

From issue #134

What unreleased FSD Autopilot sees

Tesla and Elon Musk are being pretty aggressive recruiting people for their AI team. To the point that it seems they’re even publishing unreleased FSD footage on their website.

Read more: Tesla

From issue #97

What's in Tesla's software update 2019.40.50.1

2019.40.50.1 dropped just on time for Christmas Eve and it comes with a bunch of new stuff:

  • Driving visualization improvements (HW3 only)
  • Voice commands
  • Read and respond to text messages using the right scroll wheel button
  • Camp Mode
  • Voice Keyboard
  • TRAX v0.1
  • and more

Read more: Tesletter

From issue #91

Widening FSD Beta program (probably) next month

FSD Beta keeps improving and that is why Elon believes it will increase the FSD Beta participation next month, he also admitted that it needs more work.

From issue #216

Workshop on Scalability in Autonomous Driving by Andrej Karpathy 📹

Mostly a rehash of stuff from the last talk he gave in February, but there’s some new details about speed limit signs that starts at 11:00 and also some impressive demos of the birds-eye view predictor handling complex intersections and lane lines at 19:45.

See more: YouTube

From issue #117