This was an email about a conversation that the California DMV had with the engineers who are creating the software for Full Self Driving at Tesla. The email was dated March 9th about a phone conversation that had just been held.
Tesla said that there were currently 824 vehicles in the program, 753 employees and 71 nonemployees. The plan was to expand the number of beta testers to approximately 1600 people.
The DMV asked about how Tesla communicated with each potential beta tester. For the first 824 people, they called each one individually and discussed the capabilities and limitations of the system, and they got informed consent. Tesla said they were working on a video for new participants, and they promised to share the video with the DMV.
The DMV asked about the “Button” that Musk promised in a tweet. The engineers couldn’t comment on the “Button.” DMV asked about how additional participants would be selected, and the engineers said they would include referrals from current beta testers, and that they’d be vetted by checking on the auto insurance claims of potential new beta testers.
So when Elon Musk tweeted that FSD had no accidents yet, he was referring to a group of drivers that had been selected for safe driving histories.
DMV asked how beta testers sent feedback to Tesla, and, no surprise, they sent feedback by email or snail mail. Instances, when the FSD was overridden by the driver, were sent back to Tesla along with a video feed so that software engineers and the neural network could make improvements in the next iteration of the beta FSD software.
Then DMV asked Tesla about Elon Musk’s tweet that FSD would be at level 5 by the end of the calendar year. The engineers really tried to be supportive of their boss. They said he was extrapolating based on the amount of improvement they’d seen so far. But they said that the beta FSD is still firmly in level 2. The driver must be constantly involved in the driving process and must be ready at any second to take control. Their criterion for going to level five, full vehicle autonomy, would be one driver interaction with the system every one to two million miles. The engineers that are actually working on the system are not as confident about achieving level five autonomy this year as Elon is.
The engineers told DMV that they test the software by driving with it. They would know when a new release is going up a level. Right now, even the beta FSD is still in level 2. That means that the car can steer, accelerate and decelerate, start and stop, but human control could be required at any time.
Level 3 would mean that the car could drive itself most of the time, but the human would have to be alert for needed intervention. Level 4 would mean that the car drives itself all the time within certain areas and on certain types of roads.
Level 5 would mean that there would be no need for human controls because the car could go anywhere safely without any human supervision. Presumably, a level 5 autonomous car could drop its passengers off at their destination and then find a place to legally park. It would have to be able to read parking rule signs, and it would have to be able to pay for parking if paid parking was all that was available.
So my assessment of this information is that we can’t expect level five autonomy this year, but we can expect a wider availability of the beta version of FSD. But not everyone will get the “Button.” Tesla will check your driving record because, sadly, there are people who drive Teslas without paying attention even now, when even the beta FSD is still in level 2, not autonomous at all.
While most automakers are adding basic and un-integrated AI assistants to their vehicles, Tesla appears to be working hand-in-hand with xAI to build out an entire cast of characters for in-vehicle Grok. In the latest dive into Tesla’s firmware, Tesla hacker @greentheonly uncovered a few new details about the upcoming Grok feature.
This discovery, part of a larger batch of changes found in Tesla update 2025.20, also offers a hint at the hardware required for the Grok.
A Dozen Groks
While we knew from previous firmware teardowns that Tesla was adding various Grok personalities to the vehicle UI, this update introduces a new one called Language Tutor, which may allow users to learn and practice a new language.
These are the different personas that will be included in Grok:
Argumentative
Assistant
Conspiracy
Doctor
Kids’ Stories
Kids’ Trivia Games
Meditation
Motivation
Romantic
Sexy
Storyteller
Therapist
Language Tutor
and the Grok Classic - Unhinged Mode
Release Date
Icons for these personalities have been added to the firmware for the first time, leading us to think Tesla is getting close to releasing the feature. However, even after the feature is developed and included in vehicle software, Tesla may only enable it selectively — such as for select employees for testing.
Grok is expected to be one of the largest vehicle features added via a software update, so it’ll be a big deal when it’s finally released. While we know more or less what to expect from Grok, what we don’t know is about vehicle requirements or whether it’ll require a subscription beyond Premium Connectivity.
Grok Requirements
While subscriptions required are anyone’s guess, vehicle requirements may be a little clearer now, thanks to Green’s discovery that Grok is only being added to AMD-based vehicle software builds.
Unfortunately, this likely means that older, Intel-based vehicles will not receive Grok support, at least for the time being. When Tesla introduced a voice assistant in China, they also started off with AMD-only support but later added Intel support, so it’s possible that the same could happen with Grok.
Energy Saving
Green also found a new undocumented navigation feature in 2025.20.3. This one focuses on leveraging Tesla’s vast amounts of data in an interesting way and offers drivers proactive advice to save energy on a well-traveled route.
In the Energy App, your vehicle will display, “This route is typically driven at X mph. Slow down by Y mph to save Z% for the rest of this trip.’
As you can see in the photo below, Tesla recognizes that vehicles typically drive at 66 mph on the route being driven and offers the driver the option to go five mph slower to save 1% of range. While this example doesn’t provide much incentive to slow down, it could be useful for someone with a low state of charge or if the savings are more significant.
The new line in the Energy App
Not a Tesla App
In the future, Tesla could even use this, alongside the road surface data they’re gathering, to help plan routes for Robotaxi and Unsupervised FSD.
In a letter to industry, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that it is overhauling its approvals process for vehicles designed without human controls.
The change addresses a regulatory bottleneck that has slowed down American companies like Tesla from deploying purpose-built Robotaxis, rather than relying on using traditional vehicles with steering wheels and pedals. The policy shift is outlined in a letter posted to the NHTSA’s website, which you can find here.
Reducing Approvals From Years to Months
Under the existing rules today, any vehicle that is built without a steering wheel or brake pedals must receive a special exemption from federal safety standards.
Obtaining exemptions for a particular vehicle was a time-consuming process for both the companies requesting exemptions and the NHTSA. The process was often a black box—nobody knew when an exemption might be granted, and approvals could take years.
The NHTSA, under the new administration’s guidelines for autonomous vehicle development, is now committed to streamlining this process. The agency will be implementing a new, faster approach immediately for receiving exemptions for autonomous vehicles without standard controls. The NHTSA expects decisions on exemption requests to be determined within months rather than years.
Accelerating the Cybercab
This change has massive implications for Tesla, which is banking on the production of the simplified and easy-to-maintain purpose-built Cybercab. The Cybercab is developed from the ground up as an autonomous Robotaxi and will be one of the key beneficiaries of this move by the NHTSA.
Knowing that a final design won't be caught in a multi-year regulatory limbo provides a level of certainty that has been missing. It allows Tesla to confidently plan the manufacturing, development, and deployment processes without worrying whether the project will get stuck in regulatory approvals.
According to the letter, the agency will publish its improved instructions for the streamlined process "shortly." With Tesla already having begun Cybercab pre-production and the goals for its deployment as soon as late 2026, there’s still a lot to be done to make autonomy a part of Tesla’s new sustainable abundance mission statement.
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