Everything we know about the next FSD Beta, version 10.12
According to Elon Tesla may release FSD Beta 10.12 with several key improvements this week.
The last major beta, version 10.11 started going out in early March, but most testers didn't receive it until v10.11.2, which was released in April.
We hope this beta will go out a little quicker than the previous one, but it's certainly shaping up to be an exciting release.
Updated Vehicle Models
FSD Beta 10.12 will contain new, more detailed vehicle models, at least for its sedan model, but it may include updated models for all the various vehicle types.
The current sedan visualization is fairly abstract. It doesn't have wheels or many details. The visualization is modeled after Tesla's key fob for the Model S.
FSD Beta can recognize far more things than it can display on the screen. However, the visualizations are an important way of how the vehicle communicates with us on what it sees and understands. So with Beta 10.12 Tesla is including a more detailed sedan model that has wheels and doors.
Although FSD Beta has been able to detect open doors for a while now, the model will now visually show us if any nearby cars have open doors by highlighting the door in yellow.
Improvements to Unprotected Left Turns
Unprotected left turns have been a key focus over several betas and we're apparently going to see further improvements in 10.12.
Crossing over multiple lanes when turning left can be intimidating, even for some human drivers. Tesla has been making continuous improvements to make unprotected left turns more efficient and human-like.
For example, the car will now sometimes start inching slowly, anticipating the last vehicle to pass so that it can complete the turn promptly and be out of the way of any further traffic.
According to Elon, FSD Beta 10.12 will specifically improve "tricky" unprotected left turns.
Chuck Cook on YouTube does a fantastic job covering some of these left turns. Below you can see how the latest FSD Beta does taking a left turn onto a primary street with a divider.
Heavy Traffic
In Beta 10.12, we're also expecting to see improvements in heavy traffic. I haven't seen too many issues with the beta in traffic, except that sometimes the car has a tough time differentiating between a parked vehicle and a vehicle that's just waiting.
I've encountered situations where the beta tries to go around a car that is stopped due to a traffic light or traffic and the beta waits for just a few seconds before trying to go around the vehicle.
Hopefully, this is one of the areas that Elon is talking about when he refers to improvements in heavy traffic.
Single Stack
Elon also mentions that Tesla is making good progress on single stack. Single stack refers to a single set of technologies that will be used for both highway and street driving.
FSD beta is great, but once you get on the highway, you're right back in the old production version.
FSD Beta is far from perfect, but driving on city streets is a completed task and the beta actually does quite well trying to figure things out.
When we start looking at Autopilot on the highway and some of the issues it still has, like bouncing between lane markings or a sudden attempt to center itself in a lane that has become wider, those issues are practically non-existent in city driving.
So while single stack won't be included in beta 10.12, it's good to know that Tesla continues to make progress.
When Tesla is finally able to complete their single stack software we should see huge improvements in highway Autopilot use.
Release Date
The last FSD beta started going out more than a month ago, so a lot of users are definitely itching for an update. Elon said earlier this week that beta 10.12 is "probably" going to wide release this week.
The beta could be in QA testing now, but it unlikely that it has been passed on to employees yet as release notes usually get leaked when that happens.
Hopefully, some of us will be greeted by that sweet notification this weekend, prompting us to install the latest beta.
Update: Elon tweeted today, Friday, May 6th that there have been "many upgrades to core code, so taking longer to debug issues. Probably Wed/Thurs release." So it looks like we're still a week out from a public release of beta 10.12.
Based On New Build
Lately, FSD betas have been a little behind the times. The latest beta is 2022.4.5.21, which is roughly two major versions behind. That means that FSD Beta testers still don't have seat heaters in the launcher, Dog Mode in the Tesla app, browser improvements, vehicle preconditioning improvements and more.
Most non-FSD Teslas are now on a 2022.12 release and 2022.16 is expected shortly.
While it's unlikely that the beta 10.12 will be based on a brand new upcoming build like 2022.16, it's almost certainly going to be based on 2022.12, which will please a lot of testers.
It appears that Tesla is as cautious as ever with beta releases. Lately, it has taken several revisions of a beta before Tesla releases it to everyone.
Tesla says they're now at 100k beta testers in the US and Canada, so they're right to be cautious, but it's not easy waiting.
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