Everything we know about the next FSD Beta, version 10.12

Tesla's FSD Beta 10.12 may be released this week

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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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A Closer Look at Tesla's Updated Energy App - What's Changed

Not a Tesla App

One of the big undocumented changes in Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update was the changes to the Energy app. While the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck received the Consumption tab in the Energy app for the first time, the changes made for those models also carried over to Model 3 and Model Y.

The Consumption tab lets you view your vehicle’s consumption over recent trips as well as view projected range estimates based on historical usage, but it now offers different options.

Sadly, legacy Model S and Model X vehicles produced before the 2021 refresh still don’t have access to the Energy app at this time.

Energy App

Tesla’s Energy App previously let you view a lot of in-vehicle data on what is consuming energy and how to improve your energy consumption. It was previously refreshed in 2022 and brought Drive, Park, and Consumption tabs to help compare actual vehicle energy consumption versus what you’d expect from the EPA ratings.

The old Energy App's consumption page.

Not a Tesla App

Key Changes

The Energy App has seen a lot of changes - mostly in the name of simplicity and reducing confusion. Some changes reduce functionality, but others bring even more. All of these changes impact the Consumption tab - the Park and Drive sections are unchanged.

Distance

Previously, you were able to switch the graph on the Consumption tab to show the last 5, 15, or 30 miles. Instead, it is now a static display of the last 200 miles (or 300km). This means your last 200 miles of driving - whether it's a single trip or multiple trips. Your range prediction and energy usage are now based on 200 miles of driving instead of the previous selectable distance.

This allows for a more reasonable range prediction as small bursts of high-energy usage, such as time spent accelerating to highway speeds from an offramp, are now less of an impact and are instead averaged out by regular driving.

However, for those who love to take their Teslas to the track or tow regularly, this makes the consumption significantly less useful because you can no longer see your actual energy usage for the type of driving you’re doing. This could be fixed with a reset button or by adding the ability to select your distance — similar to before.

Projected Range and Average Wh/mi

Unfortunatley, the Instant Range button has been removed, and the graph is now locked on what was previously the Average Range. Essentially, you cannot view your real-time range based on current instantaneous consumption - but you can view the overall projected range.

Additionally, average Wh/mi and projected range are still displayed - but in different areas compared to before. The projected range is displayed on the center-left side of the graph, while the average Wh/mi is now displayed at the top of the screen.

Not a Tesla App

Compare Vs EPA

Another new feature is that the average range is now compared to the EPA estimated range in terms of wh/mi. You’ll be able to see whether your driving style and conditions put you over or under the EPA estimate in a pretty quick way, which is helpful.

This new comparison is located just under your average Wh/mi.

Small and minor adjustments to your driving style - like not taking off like an electric lightning bolt at every red light - will make a big difference to your range. Don’t worry - we know its hard, we love doing it too! Other things - such as driving downhill versus uphill, will have an impact that you can’t necessarily avoid unless you’re old enough that you went to school uphill both ways.

Total Vehicle Consumption

The final new feature is a total vehicle consumption number at the bottom left, under the chart. It will tell you how much energy you’ve consumed over the distance you’ve driven so far. This is a convenient way of seeing exactly how much energy you’ve used.

Bug

There’s currently a bug in the way the Y-axis is labeled. The yellow area of the graph means the vehicle is using energy, while green means the vehicle is generating energy through regenerative braking. However, the Y-axis is currently mislabeled and shows generated energy as using about 100-200 Wh/mi.

The confusion appears to be due to the dark gray line, which looks like “0” on the Y-axis but actually represents the vehicle’s rated range. We would expect this to be Y-axis 0, since above the line the graph is yellow, and underneath it, the graph is green. However, this line is at about the 240 Wh/mi mark but will vary depending on the vehicle.

Due to this bug, it’s currently not possible to see how much energy is being generated.

Dynamic Y-Axis

The Y-axis in the Consumption tab is now dynamic - it will expand and contract automatically based on the driving data. We’ve seen it go from 400 Wh/mi all the way up to 800 Wh/mi. You likely need to be in a Model S Plaid or Cyberbeast with Launch Mode to see numbers much higher than that.

We’re sad to see the X-axis get locked to 200 miles, but being able to see total vehicle consumption and comparing average consumption against what’s rated is equally, if not even more valuable.

Overall, the new and improved Consumption tab is simpler and doesn’t require user input. While it takes away some features, it makes it easier for drivers who may not use it regularly. The most important piece is the projected range, which is now easier to see and understand unless you're towing and need the historical usage erased because it’s now irrelevant to your current drive. Hopefully, Tesla will allow you to scrub the graph horizontally in the future, adding the ability for the user to adjust the X-axis dynamically.

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Tesla Smart Voice Assistant Coming - Vehicle Responds for First Time

Not a Tesla App

If you hop into your Tesla and say ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’ after pressing the Voice Command button, there is a good chance it’ll reply with “Hello!” This is the newest and most interesting piece of news pointing us to the conclusion that a Tesla voice assistant is on the way.

Previously, if you tried this, it would simply return “Command not understood.” This is the first time the vehicle is responding and interacting with the user.

Experience It Yourself

You’ll need to have your vehicle language set to English. Once that’s done, you can use the voice command button on your steering wheel or yoke - for the Model 3 and Model Y, push the right wheel button, and for the Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck, press the button. Then go ahead and say Hi or Hello.

The Hello! response may even have regional differences. For a German Tesla owner, after setting his language to English, the response came back as “Hallo.” We’re interested to see what the responses may be in other regions, so let us know if you notice anything interesting.

We’ve tried a few other basic things, but it seems that, for now, the vehicle only replies to a simple greeting. Asking it what time it is or the $TSLA stock price doesn’t seem to do much yet - unless you’re in China with the updated Smart Assistant.

Not a Tesla App

Server-Side Update

This update appears to be happening over Tesla’s voice system backend and doesn’t require the Holiday Update. Users who aren’t on the Holiday Update are reporting that they’re getting this new response as well.

We already know that Tesla interprets speech remotely, and the driver’s voice is not processed in the vehicle. Instead, the voice snippet is transmitted to Tesla’s servers, where Tesla processes it and sends a response back to the vehicle so that the vehicle can interpret it. This is unlikely to change with a smart assistant, as Elon Musk has already said that Grok will still process data server-side instead of on-device.

Many users recently also noticed significant improvements to voice commands, saying that the system understands them better and that responses now come back faster.

All of these things point to a new backend system for voice processing that Tesla is testing. It’s not unusual for a company to switch to a new backend process but keep the capabilities the same as the legacy system until it’s ready to roll out the new features. At that point, it’s simply a flip of a switch to allow the new capabilities.

The new smart assistant that was rolled out in China is mostly a backend change, with the in-vehicle experience largely remaining the same. The activation method (button press) and user interface remain the same. What changed is the response that comes back from the server, and the assistant gained a voice. The new voice we receive with a smart assistant could very well be the new voice users are experiencing in the navigation system in newer vehicles.

Below is a video of the voice assistant in China:

Vehicle Support - Intel?

When China received the Smart Assistant, it was locked to cars equipped with AMD Ryzen processors only. Shortly after its initial launch, it became available to older cars with Intel Atom processors as well.

However, we’re not sure whether it would apply to legacy Model S and Model X owners. A legacy vehicle owner had their vehicle report “Command not understood” when they tried the ’Hi’ voice command.

Grok for Tesla

Elon has previously mentioned that Tesla vehicles would receive Grok AI. Grok, as of yet, still doesn’t have live speech support like other LLM models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. However, a major update to Grok just brought massively improved image generation via a new model called Aurora.

xAI has been hard at work improving Grok, and we’re sure that live speech support is on its way soon. Once that feature arrives on X, Tesla will likely be well-positioned to enable a Grok-powered smart assistant fleet-wide with a flick of a switch.

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