Tesla Talks FSD: FSD V12 Rollout, Hardware 5, Miles Driven, Beta label and FSD Licensing

By Not a Tesla App Staff
Not a Tesla App

Yesterday, Tesla held its 2023 Q4 earnings where they discussed the company's Q4 earnings and answered investor questions in a Q&A session.

Tesla discussed their next-gen vehicle, 4680 batteries, the Cybertruck and of course full self-driving.

FSD Beta v12 Roll Out

In November, we confirmed that Tesla rolled out FSD v12 to employees, and just last week it went out to some limited customers.

However, during Tesla's Q&A session, Tesla announced that FSD v12 would roll out to all customers in North America in "the weeks to come."

Musk, who answered the question, goes on to say that it will go out to the 400,000 cars who currently have access to FSD Beta in the U.S. and Canada. This number remains largely unchanged since Tesla first expanded FSD to everyone in North America who has bought or subscribed to the FSD.

FSD V12 Is Still In “Beta”

In Tesla's shareholder deck, Tesla confirms that v12 is end-to-end AI and calls the feature "FSD Beta software," confirming that FSD will remain in beta with the initial release of v12.

The shareholder deck states: 

"In Q4, we released our latest FSD Beta software (V12) to select Tesla employees, and more recently, to customers. V12 utilizes end-to-end training, enhancing the driving experience. We also introduced the 2nd generation of the Optimus robot, which uses Tesla-designed actuators and sensors and improved AI capabilities. Both FSD Beta and Optimus are trained with similar technology pillars: real-world data, neural net training and cutting-edge hardware and software."

End of Separate Branches for FSD Beta?

Tesla has historically released new FSD Beta updates to a smaller, select group of testers, with the majority of vehicle owners remaining on the "production" code branch and keeping an older, but more stable version of FSD Beta.

With the holiday update, we saw the merger of FSD Beta updates and production releases, with everyone receiving a single holiday update (2023.44.30) that included FSD Beta 11.4.9. With the release of FSD v12, we expected the latest FSD Beta builds to once again diverge from the latest public releases.

However, Musk's comment on FSD v12's upcoming release to all customers makes it sound like this may not be the case. If Tesla is releasing FSD Beta v12 to all owners in North America in the coming weeks, it could be a part of Tesla update 2024.2, or a subsequent release.

Licensing FSD

Tesla previously talked about licensing FSD to other manufacturers. However, it looks like there hasn't been much progress on that front.

Michael questioned if there had been any progress on licensing FSD to another company.

Musk answers the question by saying there have been tentative conversations but ultimately revealed that there have been no deals yet.

FSD Hardware 5

Musk talked a little about Tesla's FSD hardware, saying Tesla continues to optimize software to get the most out of FSD hardware 3. However, more interestingly he revealed that Tesla is about to complete the design of Tesla hardware 5.

He didn't go into any other details on whether hardware 5 would simply have more compute power or additional hardware, but he said that Tesla is making gigantic improvements from hardware 3 to 4, to 5. Tesla released hardware 4 in March 2023, with additional compute power and higher-resolution cameras.

Musk also talked about a potentially interesting opportunity for Tesla to run "generalized AI tasks" on their vehicles when they're not in use.

Update on FSD Miles Driven

Tesla owners have driven about 725 million miles with FSD Beta
Tesla owners have driven about 725 million miles with FSD Beta
Not a Tesla App

While Tesla gave several updates on FSD during their Q&A session, they didn't touch on the amount of FSD miles driven during the actual call, but instead provided an update on their shareholder deck like they have in the past. Last quarter the chart revealed that there had been about 525 million miles driven on FSD Beta. 

In this quarter's updated chart, Tesla shows that there have now been about 750 million miles driven since March 2021. That's an increase of about 225 million miles in three months.

Based on Tesla's 400,000 FSD Beta customers, some quick math reveals that each customer uses FSD Beta about 187 miles per month, or just higher than 6 miles per day.

The miles-driven chart trajectory has remained about the same since May 2023, which signifies that there hasn't been a major uptick in FSD Beta sales or its daily usage.

This will change when Tesla rolls FSD Beta out to additional markets, which may happen with China first. It'll also be interesting to see the impact of customer usage when Tesla rolls out FSD Beta v12.

Although Tesla didn't touch on the expansion of FSD Beta during the call, there were more details than usual this time around. Tesla provided updates on their next-gen vehicle, Optimus and the Cybertruck, among others.

Goldman Sachs evaluates Tesla's FSD as being worth $1 - $3 billion in revenue but reveals that this could balloon up to $10 to $75 billion in the next 6 years.

A lot of this may depend on Tesla's FSD success with end-to-end AI.

Tesla Updates FSD Package, Can Now Only Buy FSD Supervised

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla has changed how they advertise and sell Full Self-Driving on their website. Although the text changes are small, this change could have greater implications in the future.

Previously, customers were offered the option to purchase “Full Self-Driving Capability,” with text saying that FSD will “continuously improve”. This specific text is no longer offered, and instead, customers can now only purchase “Full Self Driving (Supervised),” which no longer mentions continuous improvement.

You can view the old text on the Web Archive page (photo below) for the Model Y. This change comes right before the upcoming Robotaxi event, so we’re not quite sure what to make of it. Let’s look at what else has changed on Tesla’s website on FSD before we dive into the wording changes.

This news comes hot on the heels that Tesla recently pulled its blog pages for Elon Musk’s Masterplan Part II, which mentioned that all future Tesla vehicles would be Robotaxi capable. However, this has since turned out to be part of regular website trimming and maintenance. However, this FSD change is more intentional.

The previous FSD option you could buy from Tesla (left), and the new one (right)
The previous FSD option you could buy from Tesla (left), and the new one (right)
Not a Tesla App

Definition Changes

These text changes are pretty broad, but that’s not all. There are a few other items that changed, including the removal of the following text:

The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.

This has now been changed to say:

The activation and use of these features are dependent on development and regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions.

That’s a pretty big difference overall, so let’s dig in.

Can Only Buy FSD (Supervised)

Tesla is now only offering the purchase of “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)”, instead of “Full Self-Driving Capability." This has a bit of an implication for the many people who have paid for FSD in the past, expecting their vehicles to become fully autonomous, without supervision being required. With the specific terms on Tesla’s website today, that promise doesn’t seem to be in place for future sales of Full Self-Driving.

Instead, future customers should expect that they may only receive Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which will always require some form of supervision. Tesla no longer states full autonomy on this page, but on the other hand, the Autopilot/FSD Support Page still contains the text for full autonomy.

This seems to be a legal wording change to prevent Tesla from making promises it may not be able to fulfill. On the other hand, Tesla has recently had a fantastic spate of updates this year, with the huge upgrade from FSD V11 to FSD V12. However, they’ve more recently had more trouble with moving on from FSD V12.3.6, which is what most vehicles are still on today. Tesla initially pushed FSD V12.4 and its subversions to early access testers but quickly halted that push. They moved on to FSD V12.5, and V12.5.3 with Actually Smart Summon will begin going out wide sometime next week, to both Hardware 3 and AI4 vehicles.

What Does This Mean for Customers?

For future customers, this likely means that Tesla is intending on only offering Full Self Driving (Supervised), rather than Full Self Driving. This could mean that Tesla will launch a new package for Full Self Driving (Unsupervised) for commercial entities or that it could only be available for Robotaxi vehicles.

For older customers – those who have purchased “Full Self-Driving Capability”, as the feature was previously called, we’re not quite sure whether Tesla will include you in this new ‘Supervised’ description, or if you’ll be offered Full Self-Driving (Unsupervised) when that ultimately becomes available. As for subscribers, Tesla can change their offerings at any point since you’re only paying for what’s available for that month.

Today, we’re not quite sure what to make of this change, especially since that same change hasn’t been reciprocated elsewhere on Tesla’s website. The changes could be anywhere from a protective legal change, to Tesla offering a new FSD (Unsupervised) package in the future, or fully autonomous FSD being something that Tesla will not commit a date or price to.

Let us know what you think on the forums.

Tesla Introduces Hands-Free Frunk Opening in Update 2024.32.3

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

In Tesla’s upcoming update, 2024.32.3, Tesla has added hands-free support for opening the vehicle’s frunk. This follows the Spring Update (2024.14), which added Hands-Free Trunk support for certain vehicles.

When hands-free trunk support was added earlier this year, it was supported on vehicles that include an ultra wideband chip, which includes the refresh Model S, new Model X, and the 2024 Model 3. Due to the hardware requirement, these will be the same vehicles that support the new Hands-Free Frunk feature. Legacy vehicles without UWB will unfortunately not support either feature due to the hardware requirement. UWB enables far more accurate tracking of the phone key, allowing Tesla to pinpoint its exact location relative to the vehicle.

The Cybertruck interestingly also includes an ultra wideband chip, however, it didn’t include the automatic opening of the gate earlier this year. However, we expect the Cybertruck to also receive the hands-free frunk opening in this 2024.32.3 update or relatively soon afterward.

Update: The Cybertruck is receiving hands-free frunk support in the 2024.32 update as well.

Hands-Free Frunk

The Hands-Free Frunk works similarly to the trunk feature – with an iPhone 11+ and a recent version of the app, you’ll be able to stand in front of your vehicle, and the Frunk will unlatch after sounding a chime. On some vehicles, the frunk will immediately open after being unlatched, however, you’ll need to manually close it.

This new feature isn’t enabled by default – you’ll need to go to Settings > Locks > Hands-Free Frunk to enable it.

At this time, Tesla doesn’t support UWB on Android devices, though both the Hands-Free Trunk and Hands-Free Frunk support will come to Android users in a future app update, according to Tesla.

Exclude Home

With the addition of the hands-free frunk opening, Tesla has also added a new option. You can now choose to disable the automatic opening when your vehicle is located at home to prevent you from accidentally opening. This will apply to the automatic frunk and trunk. In addition, in the Model X, you’ll also be able to disable the self-presenting doors at home. This is a great addition as many people have kept the hands-free feature disabled due to it awkwardly opening in the garage.

In the 2024.32.3 update, Tesla also mentions that they’ve improved the detection of the phone key, which should make the feature more reliable and faster when approaching the vehicle from the front or rear.

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