Tesla launches FSD Beta 10.69.3 with a huge list of features

Tesla has started releasing FSD Beta 10.69.3 to employees

Not a Tesla App

It may be one the most anticipated software updates in recent years. Finally, after weeks of Elon Musk tweeting that Full Self Driving Beta 10.69.3 will come out “next week,” it started to appear on Halloween night. Just before midnight on the west coast @WholeMarsBlog tweeted pictures of the FSD Beta 10.69.3 release notes as they appeared on a Tesla employee's screen. That’s right, pictures, plural, as it took three screenshots to gather all the FSD enhancements packed into this update.

FSD Beta 10.69.3 is update 2022.36.15, which means that it includes all of the features on Tesla's 2022.36 update as well, including popular features such as Tesla's new Energy app, Cabin Overheat Protection and more.

It doesn’t take much reading to understand why Tesla’s CEO has been hyping what he has referred to as a “major update.” Several members of the Autopilot team explained the improvements during A.I. Day 2022. It’s worth a watch to understand just how complex the system is and all the work that goes into it.

Many bullet points from the release notes indicate improvements from 6 percent to more than 50 percent, even reducing the runtime of one system by 80 percent. These are incredible achievements for an already highly advanced platform.

Although it was controversial, Tesla’s numbers appear to back up why it removed the ultrasonic sensors and now relies on the cameras, also known as Tesla Vision. An update to the Object Detection network to photon count video streams refers to a particular emphasis on low visibility scenarios.

The architecture for Vulnerable Road Users (VRU), which encompasses pedestrians, cyclists and people on motorcycles, has a 20 percent improved precision. In addition, there is a two-stage VRU Velocity network to adjust how the car responds to crossing pedestrians. The system also has reduced false slowdowns near crosswalks by better predicting pedestrian movements.

The Vector Lanes, which first appeared a year ago, have also been overhauled. According to the notes, it has improved accuracy “of lanes by 9.2 percent, recall of lanes by 18.7 percent, and recall of forks by 51.1 percent.” Additionally, there is a new road marking module to assist with intersections and a “full network update where all components were re-trained with 3.8x the amount of data.”

To summarize the notes regarding vehicle behavior, FSD will provide a smoother ride, with fewer “unnatural slowdowns” thanks to its improved trajectory systems and quicker decision-making.

When Tesla increased the price of FSD in September, Musk said it will soon be worth even more. The CEO has also said this program will prove to regulators that it is safer than humans driving, potentially saving thousands of people from injury or death as Musk hoped. It’s expected this release will go out to approximately one thousand testers and then be expanded quickly if no issues are detected.

Musk has also committed that every FSD subscriber will have access to the program by the end of the year.

Not only is this a huge update regarding FSD, it also includes many features that were previously unavailable to FSD Beta testers since they're still on one of the 2022.20 updates.

Other Features in This Update

Once FSD Beta testers receive this update, they'll gain access to a slew of new features that were previously included in updates 2022.24, 2022.28 and more recently 2022.36.

Energy App

Tesla's new Energy App that will be available in 2022.36

Not a Tesla App

These features include the new Energy App (video), which displays the vehicle's energy usage down to individual components, letting you easily see how much power is being used by the climate system, versus driving and more.

Alternate Routes

Alternate Routes will now display up to three routes for each destination added to the vehicle's navigation system. This will give you more control over the route the vehicle takes.

Cabin Overheat Protection

The long-awaited feature that lets you customize the temperature of Cabin Overheat Protection is also included in this update. You will be able to choose from three different temperature settings at which COP activates.

Blind Spot Camera Placement

One of the more exciting updates of recent was the enhancement of the Blind Spot Camera feature (video). On Model 3s and Model Ys, you'll now be able to pick from three locations for the Blind Spot Camera.

Tesla App

Tesla's adding song title and artist information to the mobile app

@longzheng

The Tesla app has recently been updated to include additional features, although many of these features required a newer vehicle update, which meant that existing beta testers didn't have access to them. However, with the latest FSD Beta, you'll now have access to features such as the ability to view the vehicle's destination and ETA in the app, as well as details on the music currently being played. You'll also be able to unlatch the driver's door on a Model 3 or Model Y if the door handle has become frozen shut.

Minimize Tesla Theater

Another big feature included in this update is that you'll now be able to minimize Tesla Theater (video) when adjusting vehicle controls instead of having to exit the video streaming app completely. When viewing a video in full screen, you'll be able to tap the top of the screen to reveal a minimize button that when pressed will let you access vehicle controls and menus.

Tesla Cloud Profiles

In update 2022.24 Tesla launched cloud profiles which save your vehicle's profiles to the cloud. This is especially useful if you have multiple Teslas or finding yourself renting a Tesla in the future. You'll now be able to carry your vehicle settings and profiles from one vehicle to another.

Car Left Open Notifications

Tesla has recently updated the notifications that you'll receive when the vehicle is parked. You can now choose to receive an alert if the vehicle doors have been left unlocked for a period of time as well.

Undocumented Changes

In addition to all the documented features in this update, there is also an extensive list of undocumented changes that never made it to the release notes.

One of the most interesting is that Tesla will now display suggested destinations when you tap on the Navigate box. The destinations at the top will be suggestions that will vary depending on your location, time of day, history and user profile.

Other undocumented changes include the ability to view tire pressure data in the Service tab even when the vehicle is parked, improvements to vehicle alerts and HomeLink and the capability to uninstall games.

The list of features and enhancements included in this update is huge. To see a complete list of all the changes, check out the release notes for this update.

Tesla Reveals Robotaxi App and Names the Robotaxi the CyberCab

Tesla has invested billions of dollars over the years toward vehicle autonomy. The mission continues as Elon Musk and Tesla now prepare to unveil their ride-hailing product, Robotaxi this August. Or, as Musk called it on Tuesday, Tesla CyberCab.

Early Days

Five years ago, during Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day in April 2019, Elon Musk said he felt “very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla in the following year [2020]”. At the time, Musk added a bolder claim, predicting that Tesla wouldn’t even make cars with steering wheels or pedals by 2022. While timeliness may not be Musk’s strong suit, he has a track record for getting things done that others were unwilling to try or thought were impossible. Musk later admitted he can be overly optimistic and said “sometimes I am not on time, but I get it done.” 

Now, 5 years later, we have the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August 8th. After the release of FSD v12, it’s clear that we’re much closer to autonomy than we were in 2019, although FSD v12 is still a far cry from full autonomy.

While Tesla still has the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August, Tesla announced yesterday that it’d be prioritizing a simpler “next-gen” model that could be released by early 2025.

Latest Updates

On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.

Tesla said it has been investing in the hardware and software ecosystems necessary to achieve vehicle autonomy and a ride-hailing service. The company is confident that it can establish a scalable and profitable autonomous driving business by employing a vision-only architecture.

think of it [Tesla] as combination of Airbnb and Uber meaning that there will be some number of cars that Tesla owns itself and operates

Tesla = Uber + AirBnb

Later on, Elon Musk unveiled that the new service will operate and result in a mix between Uber and Airbnb where the Tesla driver decides if and when he wants his Tesla to be used and by whom. Tesla stated:

“We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App.”

Tesla’s CEO clarified that the owners will be able to add or remove their car from the fleet “whenever they want” adding that it will be up to them to decide if they want to only let the car be used “by friends and family or only by five-star users or by anyone at any time”. The flexible program will, just like Airbnb, allow the owners to take the car out of the market when they want.

The upcoming ride-hailing service will enable users to easily request a Tesla vehicle, control the car's temperature, monitor its real-time location, and adjust the audio system. The only question is when.

Follow

Follow

Follow

Musk Teases New Model for Early 2025 That Will Use a Mix of Next-Gen and Current Platforms

“We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025”. This was one of the key sentences that were part of Tesla’s deck shared on Tuesday directly before its financial results.

Since Reuters’ report a few weeks ago saying Tesla had “scrapped” the highly expected cheaper model— which Elon quickly denied on X —retail and institutional shareholders started asking for more details on Tesla’s product roadmap for 2024 and beyond.

In the earnings conference call, Elon Musk reiterated that Tesla expects to launch the next model in “early 2025, if not late this year”.

“We've updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of previously mentioned start of production in the second half of 2025. So, we expect it to be more like the early 2025, if not late this year. “

Over concerns of temporary production halts to update the factories for these new models, Musk said that Tesla will produce new models with certain aspects from their next-generation platform and current models. This will reduce the number of changes needed on production lines and allow Tesla not only to ramp up production faster but also to get the vehicles to market quicker.

Model Y Redesign

Tesla appears to hit that their next-gen vehicle will be less “next-gen” than they were initially aiming for, but to get a new vehicle out the door by late 2024, the process would already have to be in motion. Tesla may likely be referring to the redesigned Model Y, which is expected to reuse many parts from the new Model 3. Earlier this year, Tesla said that the redesigned Model Y will not be released this year, so it makes sense that they’re looking to speed up that production.

Tesla CEO concluded by saying that these measures will allow Tesla to reach a capacity of over 3 million units. Tesla produced 1.84 million vehicles in 2023. However, this year they’re ramping up Cybertruck production and introduced the new Model 3 into new markets.

And we think this should allow us to get to over 3 million vehicles of capacity when realized to the full extent.

Tesla reported on Tuesday its earnings results followed by a conference call where it teased its upcoming Robotaxi and its next-generation platform saying its “purpose-built Robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary ‘unboxed’ manufacturing strategy”.

Earlier in the day, Tesla announced the new Performance variant of its sedan Model 3 with deliveries in the United States starting already next month. The new version starts at $45,490 (after applying the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit) and goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds.

Follow

Follow

Follow