Tesla's new High Fidelity Park Assist feature in the holiday update
Tiberionee / EVBaymax
Tesla's 2023 Holiday Update is rolling out to happy customers around the world, and it includes everything we've heard about, from the NHTSA-related changes to FSD Beta 11.4.9, High Fidelity Park Assist, Custom Lock Sounds, and more.
However, the most exciting feature in the update is undoubtedly Tesla's updated Park Assist feature with new visualizations.
This feature provides a 3D reconstruction of the vehicle's surroundings while parking, akin to a 360-degree camera, but with 3D models that are built in real-time.
The system is leveraging Tesla Vision to create the surrounding environment, such as cars, pillars, bikes and other nearby objects. It certainly may not recognize what all the objects are, but it can define its outlines and build a 3D model.
Each 3D model is gray, but changes color the closer the vehicle gets to the object. The objects go from gray to yellow, to orange, and then finally red.
This is the first time we're seeing Tesla render 3D models using vision in a manner that LiDAR would be used.
Since these are actual 3D models, you can even pan and rotate the on-screen models to view them from various angles.
Requirements
Many vehicles are receiving the new Park Assist, however, it's not everyone. Vehicles running hardware 3 and hardware 4.0 are both receiving it, which is good news, but there are some limitations. It’s not particularly clear yet, but it appears that the feature may be limited to Ryzen infotainment units, or it may be rolling out to vehicles without ultrasonic sensors (USS) first.
If it's the latter, then there's no doubt that Tesla will expand this to vehicles with USS at some point in the future.
Future Visualizations
The visualizations provided by Park Assist are surprisingly good and accurate. They appear to be much more accurate than Park Assist has been in the past for vehicles without USS. For those owners, this will be a great enhancement that is not only exciting but useful when parking or getting around tight corners.
From the early videos and images we've seen, the visualizations look fantastic. We may be looking at upcoming FSD Beta visualizations in this new holiday feature.
Last night, Tesla released software update 2024.45.32.5, which includes updated versions of FSD for HW3 and HW4 vehicles. More specifically, this update includes FSD V12.6.2 for HW3 and FSD V13.2.5 for HW4 models (how to check if you have HW3 or HW4).
While there aren’t new features in this update and the FSD release notes remain the same, it does include bug fixes, which should help these FSD updates go to a wider audience.
HW3 Model 3
What’s most interesting about this update is that it’s the first time a version of FSD V12.6 is going out to the Model 3 with HW3. Previously, it was only available for the redesigned Model S, Model X, and Model Y. The Cybertruck has only ever been available with HW4, which makes the Model 3 the lone vehicle left out of the FSD 12.6 release for unknown reasons.
The FSD hardware for the Model 3 and Model Y is identical, but the camera placements shift slightly due to the different vehicle body shapes, so it’s possible that played a role.
After a long wait, Model 3 owners are finally getting a chance to try out End-to-End on the Highway, as well as many other improvements.
FSD V12.6.2 Improvements
FSD V12.6.2 shares the same changelog as V12.6.1 - so we’re not expecting major changes besides bug fixes on this particular release, at least for vehicles coming from V12.6.1. Instead, it seems the primary focus of this update is to address compatibility for the Model 3.
Overall, V12.6 is far closer to V13 than it is to V12.5.4.2 - and it really does feel that way. It is an impressive feat from Tesla to make such big and positive changes for a platform that they’ve admittedly been having some difficulties in obtaining better results. However, this really underlines the fact that they’re still committed and trying very hard to achieve Unsupervised FSD even on HW3.
The other bit of good news is that this latest FSD update is based on update 2024.45.32.x, which means that it will be available to all vehicles. While Tesla has released the next major update, version 2025.2, it’s currently only available internally. If you’ve been thinking about subscribing to FSD, now may be a good time, since you’ll qualify to receive the latest HW3 or HW4 FSD version once it rolls out widely.
Legacy Model S and Model X
While the update has begun to roll out to Model 3’s for the first time, at this point in time, we haven’t seen any legacy Model S or Model X vehicles included in this update. Those vehicles, for now, are still on FSD V12.5.4.2.
However, we do expect Tesla to add support for these vehicles. The question is whether that’s included in this update or whether it’ll be a future release.
This update has barely started rolling out - the first vehicles started receiving the update last night in a small batch. However, we will hopefully see more waves in the coming days that will progressively get larger. Expect this update to take at least two weeks to go out to the majority of HW3 vehicles if major issues aren’t found.
Now that the Model Y Juniper refresh has officially been announced in the Asia-Pacific markets, the initial vehicles from Giga Shanghai are starting to make their way to showrooms throughout the region.
And that means lots of new pictures. Let’s take a look at some of the latest close-up shots of the 2025 Model Y.
Light Bar Close-Up
Our first up-close look at the new front end of the new Model Y. This car is likely en route to a showroom prior to the start of Tesla’s big sales push for the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this is one of the closest and cleanest shots of the new front end.
The sharp new front of the Juniper
@DriveGreen80167 on X
The new front light bar is very visible, even when it’s off. It’s more than a thin strip of lights. The headlights are located directly below the light bar at either end. You can also see the new squared-away sharp lines - starting from the lightbar gaps and going up the hood. The new design looks far more aggressive and sharp when viewed at this angle.
Wheels
And the new wheels are pretty interesting, too - especially since they don’t seem to have full aero covers on them. We’re wondering if Tesla intends to introduce aero covers for these wheels later - or if they’ll just stay uncovered. They look pretty good - but the black hubcap in the center stands out against the rest of the wheel. Time will tell whether the clean black finish holds up with use.
We're a big fan of these new fan-blade wheels
@DriveGreen80167 on X
Either way, they’re pretty good looking - but we’d prefer to see them in an all black finish - similar to the Shadow Gemini’s that are currently available. Hopefully, once the Model Y refresh arrives in North America and Europe, that option will be available in addition to the Crossflow wheels.
Videos
Here is one of the first videos showing off the rear light bar.
The refreshed Model Y also brings a ton of changes to the interior. In addition to the Launch Edition exclusive dash, we also get a good shot of the new ventilated seats, as well as the return of the turn signal stalk.
The best interior shot we've seen so far
@DriveGreen80167 on X
The new Model Y also has the same new center console as the Model 3 Highland - with the two-part slider. For now, it seems like the Launch Edition will include rubber pedal covers - nothing fancy like the metallic ones available on the Performance variants yet.
Rear End Close-Up
On the rear end of the vehicle, we get a close-up view of the new reflective light bar. Tesla claims this is an industry-first, and it does look very cool. The actual light is located on the inside edge of the piece that overhangs the reflective portion. The reflective portion itself is painted to match the vehicle - and isn’t a glossy surface, but rather matte.
Gotta love that new reflective light bar
@DriveGreen80167 on X
In the next image, we can also see that the rear camera is mounted in a new location. It doesn’t have the camera lip that the 2024 Model Y has been shipping with, as the camera is now mounted on the very edge of the new raised bumper. This also means the camera is much higher up than it previously was. This location change likely means that the new Y will require some additional training time for both FSD and Actually Smart Summon, as well as the new front bumper camera.
This is going to be an interesting change - we’re not sure how this new camera location will handle snow, rain, and road muck, but this is likely the main reason for it being moved up and away from the road.
The updated camera positioning is noticeably higher
@zhongwen2005 on X
We’re excited to see the new Model Y in person. This refresh has been a long time coming and there are many details that are still waiting to be discovered.
Customer deliveries are supposed to begin in just a couple of months - May at the earliest - in the Asia-Pacific region. We’re hoping to see the refresh arrive in Europe and North America by summertime and then see the launch of the Performance variant shortly thereafter.
