Tesla FSD Beta v11 headed for wide release

Tesla's FSD Beta 10.69.3

@Frenchie/Twitter

Tesla's Full Self Driving (FSD) Beta Version 11 was released at 11:11 on November 11 as a possible nod to our veterans. As one of our readers pointed out, World War I officially ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. It was a nice touch by Tesla. All those ones fit brilliantly with FSD transitioning to a single stack, a system the Autopilot team has been working on for some time, and Elon Musk has stated his confidence. V11 spent the weekend with a limited number of users, believed to be some Tesla employees, but this version is expected to be operational in thousands of vehicles by the end of the year.

Musk did commit that everyone who has FSD in the U.S. and Canada will be able to access the program by the end of this year, possibly this month. However, a recent tweet by Musk sounds like it's going to be a tight deadline to make it before 2023. Musk posted: Given all that is in V11, it will take a few weeks to expand the beta, then another few weeks to go wide release to US & Canada.

The final V11 release notes will likely require a few pages. However, we did post the information that is available at this time, which includes moving to a single-stack solution and improved occupancy networks:

Enabled FSD Beta on highway. This unifies the vision and planning stack on and off-highway and replaces the legacy highway stack, which is over four years old. The legacy highway stack still relies on several single-camera and single-frame networks, and was setup to handle simple lane-specific maneuvers. FSD Beta's multi-camera video networks and next-gen planner, that allows for more complex agent interactions with less reliance on lanes, make way for adding more intelligent behaviors, smoother control and better decision making.

Improved Occupancy Network's recall for close by obstacles and precision in severe weather conditions with a 4x increase in transformer spatial resolution, 20% increase in image featurizer capacity, improved side camera calibration, and 260k more video training clips (real-world and simulation).

The highly anticipated and publicized 10.69 version will apparently not be the one that goes as the wide release. Musk jumped several numbers when naming the last FSD update. He thought it was so special it deserved a 69. Nevertheless, after a few significant updates to the .69 version, FSD has outgrown that number, and a new version name is needed.

The latest beta is version 10.69.3, although it's currently only available to employees and the original 1,000 public testers.

Next Beta

The plan was for beta 10.69.3 to slowly go out to all public testers, however, rumor has it that Tesla found several issues that need to be fixed before the beta is expanded further.

At this point, it's not clear whether Tesla will fix these issues with a minor update such as beta 10.69.3.1 and resume rolling out the beta or if Tesla will instead focus on updating users to v11.

If Tesla plans to have v11 on everyone's vehicles before the end of the year, they'll need to move quickly as there are roughly seven weeks before 2023.

When Tesla decides to expand FSD Beta v11 beyond employees, they'll likely be looking for feedback for any improvements needed. Due to the number of changes in v11 we may see this beta roll out slower than usual. I'd also expect v11 to have multiple revisions with fixes and minor improvements before it's released to the many owners who have never used FSD Beta before.

From Elon's comments on Twitter, it sounds like Tesla will gradually add more users to the FSD Beta until it's eventually available to everyone in the U.S. and Canada.

FSD Beta is expected to be available to more than 1 million users before the end year, more than 6x the number of users who have access to it today.

If we're lucky, we'll all be using one of Tesla's biggest enhancements to FSD Beta this time next month.

Tesla Increases Price of Model S; Starts Offering Free Lifetime Supercharging

Not a Tesla App

For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.

Price Increase

The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.

The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series. 

The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.

Free Lifetime Supercharging

For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.

There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.

We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.

Follow

Follow

Follow

Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6

— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer. 

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips. 

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.

Follow

Follow

Follow