By now, every Tesla aficionado has heard about the Tesla that crashed in Texas, supposedly while on Autopilot.
The car was thought to be on Autopilot because no one was found in the driver's seat after the battery fire was extinguished. One man was in the front passenger seat, and the other was in a back seat. The article doesn't specify which back seat. The article makes the point that Sandy Munro, an engineer who often comments on Teslas and other electric cars, says that the odds are still in favor of people who use Autopilot since they have fewer accidents than people who don't use it. However, in this case, Autopilot, a standard feature in this Tesla, was not engaged.
It's not clear how a Tesla with no one in the driver's seat can even move. My Tesla can move without a driver only with smart summon, but that's a feature of FSD (full self-driving). The car that crashed in Texas didn't have FSD. And if it did, the smart summon feature is limited to such slow speeds that this kind of accident couldn't be fatal. Sadly, the accident in Texas was fatal to the two men found in the car. I offer condolences to the family
There's going to be an investigation. Thinking about the situation, I see only two possible causes for this accident. The men were in a Tesla with plain old ordinary Autopilot, not the beta version that most of us are still eagerly awaiting. The one where you get to push a button, promise to keep paying attention to the road and get the advanced version.
But Autopilot wasn't engaged. The article points out that the car failed to negotiate a turn and crashed into a tree. The thing is, no Tesla driver expects Autopilot to properly negotiate a sharp curve or turn a corner properly. It didn't take me very long to figure that out. I knew it by the time I'd driven home from the Tesla store, a ten-minute drive. But, again, Autopilot wasn't engaged. To me that means that either there was a driver who escaped the car after the accident, or, more ominously, the driver thought he had engaged Autopilot, and then climbed into either the front passenger seat or the rear seat while the car was moving. That would have been unwise. It's still puzzling though. If the car is in regenerative mode, it starts to slow down, and then stops, once the foot is no longer depressing the accelerator once Autopilot is no longer engaged. There is a mode where the car keeps rolling along though. Sometimes, Autopilot disengages with an audible alarm, but cruise control keeps the car moving until the brake is tapped. You can't press the brake if you're sitting in the back or in the right front seat.
Plain old ordinary Autopilot doesn't do sharp curves all by itself. But what Autopilot does do is check to see if the driver is exerting some force on the steering wheel every ten seconds or so. If no such force is felt, there's an audible alarm and a visible notation on the touch screen. If that's ignored, Autopilot shuts off and the driver needs to start steering the car. At that point, if the driver isn't paying attention to the road, or isn't even in the driver's seat, the car might well crash into something. Autopilot definitely needs driver intervention at times. There are plenty of videos showing that.
There's one particular YouTube guy who makes excellent videos on the beta version of FSD. He goes by the name of Dirty Tesla. Apparently, that name refers to the fact that he lives on a dirt road, and he doesn't wash his Tesla very often. But he does a great job of making videos of himself letting his Tesla drive itself most of the time, but intervening when necessary. And that's with the beta version of FSD. Even that needs driver intervention occasionally. Go to YouTube and search on DirtyTesla.
Elon Musk has been promising to put a button in the Service section of the menu that will cause the beta version to be downloaded. The problem is, he keeps putting off the time when the button will appear. Musk has said that for those who didn't buy FSD (full self-driving), there will be a subscription to FSD starting in May.
My recommendation on this is that Autopilot without FSD is standard equipment and is probably just fine until the beta version of FSD is available. I don't recommend subscribing to FSD or even buying it, until you can get the beta version. I find it frustrating that I bought FSD last June, and I don't get much benefit from it. So new buyers, vote with your wallet. Don't get FSD until you can get the one that works on local streets and makes sharp turns safely.
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To show off its scalability, Tesla has officially launched its first major expansion of its Robotaxi service area in Austin, Texas. The expansion comes just 22 days after the program’s initial public launch.
That’s a stunningly quick pace that sets a benchmark for how fast we’ll be expecting Tesla to roll out additional expansions as they validate and safety-check in additional area and cities. The new geofence not only adds a significant amount of new territory, but also makes Tesla’s service area in Austin approximately 4 miles larger than Waymo’s.
The expansion, which went live for users in the early access program earlier today, reshapes the map into… what we can call an upside-down T. It helps connect more parts of the city, and increases the service area by more than double.
So far, the initial launch has been operating without any significant issues, which means Tesla is ready and willing to continue expanding the program.
Rapid Scaling
While the larger map is a clear win for early-access users and especially those who live in Austin, the most significant aspect here is just how fast Tesla is going. Achieving a major expansion in just over three weeks since its initial launch is a testament to Tesla’s generalized autonomy approach with vision only.
Unlike methods that require intensive, street-by-street HD mapping that can take months or even years just to expand to a few new streets, Tesla’s strategy is built for this type of speed.
This is Tesla’s key advantage - it can leverage its massive fleet and AI to build a generalized, easily-applicable understanding of the world. Expanding to a new area becomes less about building a brand-new, high-definition map of every street light and obstacle, but instead a targeted safety validation process.
Tesla can deploy a fleet of validation vehicles to intensely focus on one zone, allowing the neural nets to learn the quirks of that area’s intersections and traffic flows. Once a high level of safety and reliability is demonstrated, Tesla can simply just redraw the geofence.
Geofence Size
Tesla went from approximately 19.7 sq mi (51 sq km) to 42.07 sq mi (109 sq km)in just 22 days, following the initial launch and safety validation. Within a few short days of launch, we began seeing the first Tesla engineering validation vehicles, hitting Austin’s downtown core, preparing for the next phase.
The larger footprint means more utility for riders, and that’s big, especially since the new service area is approximately four square miles larger than Waymo’s established operational zone in the city.
Highways and Fleet Size
The new territory enables longer and more practical trips, with the longest trip at tip-to-tip taking about 42 minutes from the southern edge of the old geofence to the northern edge of the new geofence. For now, Tesla has limited its fleet to operating exclusively on surface streets and does not use highways to complete its routes.
We also don’t know if Tesla has increased the vehicle fleet size quite yet - but if they’re intending to maintain or reduce wait times for even the early-access riders, the fleet size will easily need to be doubled to keep up with the new area.
This video clip shows the @robotaxi follows the Interstate (I-35) but does not take the highest.
Perhaps the most telling bit about how fast Tesla is expanding is that they’re already laying the groundwork for the next expansion. Validation vehicles have been spotted operating in Kyle, Texas, approximately 20 miles south of the geofence’s southern border.
Robotaxi Validation vehicles operating in Kyle, Texas.
Financial_Weight_989 on Reddit
This means that while one expansion is being rolled out to the public, Tesla is already having its engineering and validation teams work on the next expansion. That relentless pace means that if this keeps up, Tesla will likely have a good portion of the Austin metropolitan area - the zone they’ve applied for their Autonomy license for - serviceable by the end of 2025.
The pilot? A success. The first expansion? Done. The second expansion? Already in progress. Robotaxi is going to go places, and the next question won't be about whether the network is going to grow. Instead, the new questions are: How fast, and where next?
One of the most welcome features of the recently refreshed 2026 Model S and Model X is the addition of a front bumper camera. Now, thanks to some clever work by the Tesla community, it has been confirmed that this highly requested feature can be retrofitted onto older HW4-equipped (AI4) Model S and Model X vehicles.
The discovery and first installation were performed by Yaro on a Model X, and Tesla hacker Green helped provide some additional insight on the software side.
Unused Port and a Software Switch
The foundation for this retrofit has been in place for a long time, laid by Tesla itself. All HW4-equipped Model S and Model X vehicles, even those built before the recent refresh, have an empty, unused camera connector slot on the FSD computer, seemingly waiting for this exact purpose.
While the physical port is there, getting the car to recognize the camera requires a software change. According to Green, a simple configuration flag change is all that is needed to enable the front camera view on the vehicle’s main display once the hardware is connected and ready.
The Hardware: Parts & Costs
Yaro, who performed the installation on a Model X, provided a detailed breakdown of the parts and approximate costs involved.
Front Camera - $200 USD
Bumper Grill (with camera cutout) - $80 USD
Bumper Harness - $130 USD
Washer Pump - $15 USD
Washer Hoses - $30 USD
The total cost for the Model X hardware comes to around $455 USD, which isn’t too expensive if you were to DIY it. Tesla’s Electronic Parts Catalog has some of these parts available for order, and some can be ordered via your local Service Center. Yaro did note that he had to jerry-rig the camera connector cable, having salvaged the cable from a different camera harness.
The Model S vs Model X
This is where the project varies significantly. For the Model X, the retrofit is relatively simple. Because the main bumper shape is the same, only the lower bumper grill needs to be swapped for the version with the camera opening, along with installing the camera itself and the washer hardware.
For the Model S, the process is a bit more complex and expensive. Due to the different shape of the pre-refresh bumper, the entire front fascia assembly must be replaced to accommodate the camera. This makes the project far more expensive and laborious.
DIY or Official Retrofit?
The official front bumper camera on the Model X
Not a Tesla App
Right now, this is only a DIY retrofit. Tesla hasn’t indicated that they intend to offer this as an official retrofit for older vehicles at this time, but given the fact that it isn’t too complex, we expect that there is a possibility that they may do so in the near future.
All in all, this is about 3-5 hours of labor for the Model X, and approximately 5-7 hours of labor for the Model S, based on the official Tesla Service Manuals, using the front fascia reinstall process as a guide.
That means if Tesla does offer this as a retrofit service, it will likely cost between $800 and $1,200 USD when factoring in Tesla’s labor rates, but the total cost will vary regionally.
For those who own an AI4 Model S or Model X, it could be possible to request service for this installation, but as far as we’re aware, there is no official service notice for this retrofit at this time.
What About the Model 3?
For owners of the refreshed Highland Model 3, the only vehicle now left without a front bumper camera, the possibility of a retrofit is still uncertain. It has been noted by Green that some, but not all Model 3s built in late 2024 have an empty camera port on the FSD computer. This inconsistency means that while a retrofit may be possible for a subset of Model 3s, it isn’t a guaranteed upgrade path like it is for the Model S or Model X.
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