Musk Provides Timeline on Full Self-Driving Wide Release

Tesla is shipping the latest FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 to public testers now

Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program continues to expand with FSD Beta version 10.69.3.1, but the biggest one, version 11, is on track for release in December.

FSD Beta 10.69.3.1

Most beta testers have been stuck on beta 10.69.2.4 for quite a while, which was first released on October 20th. This build was based on update 2022.20, so it's missing several months of Tesla software enhancements, making owners even more eager to get the latest build that is based on 2022.36.

About one percent of public testers got access to 10.69.3.1 over the weekend and the trend continued today with about 10% of testers receiving access to the latest beta.

We believe the trend will continue with more users receiving this build tonight and tomorrow and we expect all current testers to be on FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 by Thursday this week. If you've been waiting for a new build, the wait shouldn't be long now, as long as no major issues are found.

While Elon Musk has been busy rebuilding his new company Twitter, he did use the platform to share a few updates about Tesla. On Friday, November 19, Musk tweeted: Tesla FSD 10.69.3.1 is going to wide release now.

Expanding to New Testers

While FSD Beta 10.69.3.1 has begun going out to some existing testers, it has also started to be sent to some owners completely new to the FSD program.

Tesla and Elon Musk have iterated that everyone in the US and Canada will receive FSD Beta by the end of the year. We expect Tesla to slowly add more users to FSD Beta until everyone is eventually included.

FSD Version 11 - Soon

On Sunday, Tesla’s CEO was asked for an update on FSD V11. Musk tweeted: Making good progress. Still tracking to wide release next month. This tweet caused a lot of confusion because, five days earlier Musk tweeted: We’ll widen V11 beta before Thanksgiving.

Many people were looking for clarification, including Twitter user @BLKMDL3, who asked: By “wide release next month” do you mean to those who currently have beta or to anyone who purchased FSD who won’t have to do safety score. Musk responded: Latter.

That response indicates that beta V11 could possibly start showing up this week for a select few, but Musk is staying with his timeline stated at the third quarter earnings call; FSD is going out to everyone by the end of the year, including the new V11.

Single Stack Version 11 is a Game Changer

V11 release notes indicate this update will be nothing short of incredible. As Tesla engineers pointed out on A.I. Day 2022, version 11 is a single stack, one code that provides all the information from parking lots to highways. The update: “unifies the vision and planning stack on and off-highway and replaces the legacy highway stack, which is over four years old,” states the notes.

Tesla said the legacy FSD highway program uses several single-camera and single-frame networks but could only navigate “simple lane-specific maneuvers.” That will change with the next update as the program uses: “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.” The extensive list includes improvements for severe weather, navigating blocked lanes and debris, and better speed matching and gap selection.

For many who have been waiting for FSD for years, you may need patience for a few more weeks. But from all accounts, FSD will be well worth the wait.

Will Tesla Launch a 'Robotaxi' Network With Tesla Drivers?

During Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, Tesla talked about its plan for its upcoming robotaxi network and even showed off a design for the app that would allow customers to request vehicles, much like Uber and Lyft.

While Tesla plans to unveil the robotaxi, officially now called CyberCab this August, a true autonomous taxi is at the very least, a couple of years away. So why is Tesla so eager to show off an app and start offering a Tesla taxi service?

in 2023 Uber had a revenue of 37.28 billion, while Lyft had a much smaller revenue of 4.4 billion. For comparison, Tesla’s revenue last year was 96.77 billion. A taxi service, even one operated by humans can be incredibly lucrative. While Tesla’s ultimate goal may be an automated taxi service, they may be itching to get into the space.

Tesla’s robotaxi was initially supposed to be a taxi service owners would lend their vehicles to. While that’s still the plan, Tesla wants their own vehicles to be a part of the service as well.

Will the Robotaxi Service Start With Tesla Drivers?

Tesla comparing themselves to Airbnb and Uber during their earnings call is intriguing. While Tesla can start producing robotaxis almost whenever they want, it’d likely be smart to wait until autonomy is solved so they’re not limiting themselves to current FSD hardware.

While full autonomy is likely several years away, Tesla seems to be eager to make this push toward a Tesla-owned service. Is Tesla thinking about operating their own Uber-like service? Tesla could be thinking about releasing their future robotaxi app and service in “beta,” letting current Tesla owners operate their own vehicles on the service.

This could result in several benefits for Tesla, not only letting them test their service but also opening up another revenue stream. This would allow Tesla to start operating their robotaxi network as soon as this year, and then slowly replace drivers and owner vehicles with Tesla-owned robotaxis.

Tesla Shows Off Robotaxi App

Tesla showed off it's robotaxi app

At the earnings call, Tesla also showed off a design of their robotaxi app. While it feels early to design an app for a service that could be years away, Tesla appears to be preparing itself for the future and getting customers excited about the prospect.

Tesla showed off five screens of the app, essentially showing how you’d request a robotaxi, how you can view its progress, and control certain features of the vehicle. Through the various screens, you can see most of Tesla’s Autopilot features coming to fruition in terms of autonomy, such as summon, self-driving and eventually Autopark.

Summon - Much like Tesla has re-thought the interior of a car and so many features, you can see the same mechanics applied to the app. To request a vehicle, you simply hold down a summon button and you’ll be presented with an estimate of when a vehicle will arrive.

Set Preferences and Destination - On the second screen, you can see the vehicle’s current location on a 3D map, possibly alluding to future FSD visualizations. It also lets you set your destination and set the climate temperature to your preference.

Trip Progress - While you’re traveling in the vehicle, you’ll be able to view trip information as well as set entertainment options.

Recap

Tesla had a lot to talk about during their earnings call and specifically about the Robotaxi — more information was revealed than ever before.

While there are various things at play to make a service like this come together, we can easily separate them out into separate components.

There’s the robotaxi itself, which Musk recently said would be similar to Tesla’s next-gen vehicle without a steering wheel. However, during this earnings call, he revealed that Tesla will save its new “unboxed” manufacturing process for the robotaxi and use a more traditional method for their next vehicle.

Then there’s FSD itself, while it’s crucial to operating a driverless robotaxi network, it’s not necessary to start a Tesla taxi service.

The last piece is the ride-hailing component itself and how it’s managed, and Tesla was happy to show this off, which makes us believe that it may be closer to reality than many think. While Tesla needs all three of these components to come together to operate a true robotaxi network, they piece them together separately, much like they’ve done with Autopilot. Initially, Tesla only released auto-steer then slowly added on summon, Autopark and city driving.

When we look back at Tesla five years from now, we may very well look back to this earnings call and say this was the pivotal moment when Tesla started transitioning to a services company.

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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.

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