New FSD Beta 10.12 visualizations: new car models, open doors and turn signals

New car models used in FSD Beta 10.12 visualization

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The first signs of Tesla's FSD Beta 10.12 finally surfaced yesterday as Tesla employees started receiving the internal beta.

The internal beta initially had a version of 2022.12.3.10, but it looks like Tesla has aleady issued an update with version 2022.12.3.15 (FSD Beta 10.12.1).

It's not clear yet whether this will be the exact version that will be rolled out to public testers or if additional updates will be made.

If Tesla finds any major issues, they'll want to fix them before rolling out the update to external testers.

New Car Models

New car models

WholeMarsBlog/Twitter

FSD Beta 10.12 introduces new vehicle models for almost every vehicle type.

Some of the vehicles have been completely redesigned and are more detailed and realistic looking than the previous models.

For example, a sedan now has wheels, windows and a glass roof, instead of the previous simplistic look that resembled a Model S keyfob.

New Brake Lights

Although brakes lights were already displayed as of beta 9.0, Tesla is now displaying the third brake light as well, which has been required in the US since 1986.

Open Doors

FSD Beta 10.12 will now display open doors

WholeMarsBlog/Twitter

FSD Betas have been able to detect and stop or go around vehicles with open doors for a while now, but Tesla will now show open doors in the visualization.

When a surrounding vehicle's door is open, the 3D model will also show the open door and highlight the door in orange.

Turn Signals

FSD Beta now displays turn signals

BLKMDL3/Twitter

Elon said back in the summer of 2021 that Tesla will detect and respond to vehicle turn signals, hand gestures and more in the future.

With this release, FSD Beta now detects and visualizes turn signals in addition to brake lights.

The car will reportedly react to turn signals it has detected as well, which should help understand the intentions of other vehicles.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The last major FSD Beta release was version 10.11, which was first seen more than two months ago.

Tesla has been working on beta 10.12 for a while now and the amount of changes included in this update are huge according to Elon.

Musk said that due to the amount of changes in this beta, we can expect two steps forward and one step back.

This is a big one! Expect some two steps forward, one step back situations. These will be great ironed in point releases, hence ~10.12.2 or 10.13 for wider beta release.

- Elon Musk

There will be some issues, and in certain situations FSD may have regressed.

Tesla plans to fix any issues that arise with minor revisions to this release. Expect to see additional FSD Beta 10.12 releases such as 10.12.1 and 10.12.2 in the coming weeks.

Current Beta Testers

As we have seen with other recent betas, it may be a while until all current beta testers receive this latest beta.

With beta 10.11, we saw two revisions before the majority of testers received the beta. We may see a similar situation with this update, given the amount of changes that were made.

If you're a current beta tester, you may be waiting a couple weeks before getting this updated FSD Beta.

Additional Testers

There haven't been any signs of Tesla adding additional beta testers in the US since late 2021.

Elon has previously said that he hopes that Tesla will be able to add more testers who have opted in to the beta and have a Safety Score of 95 or greater in later revisions of beta 10.12.

Interpretation of Beta 10.12 Release Notes

We have the technical releases notes for FSD Beta 10.12, but Reddit user asimo3089 did a great job at interpreting the release notes to give us a better understanding of what Tesla has improved in this update.

1. Your car better understands what is and is not drivable space. This makes it more confident in easy situations, and more capable in tricky situations. Your car can also now use medians for difficult left turns, and accelerates quicker to complete turns.

2. Your car now has a better idea of objects blocking camera views. Creeping should be less scary.

3. Improved path predictions of where other others on the road will be. This gives your car better decision making for turns.

4. Sounds like: Your car will drive itself to safety much more smoothly if your car finds itself in a place it shouldn't be. Better problem solving?

5. Your car should better see the lanes on the road, and how many of them there are, thanks to new data. This gives better turn confidence and path planning during a turn.

6. Your car is now trained on 180,000 new clips related to what lanes look like.

7. Your car is less likely to panic brake in a yellow light scenario, and has a better understanding of lane guidance when going through an intersection.

8. Road edges and road lines are now more accurate.

9. Your car now better understands visibility from the cameras, thanks to 30,000 new video clips of training data.

10. Speeds of motorcycles, pedestrians and cyclists is now more accurate. Plus, your car now better predicts which direction a pedestrian is walking.

11. Your car is now less likely to confuse a parked car and an idling car thanks to 41,000 new clips of training data. This should result in fewer "phantom brakes" or silly lane changes.

12. Your car now better understands objects that are far away from you.

13. Your car will plan a better path around vehicles with car doors open.

14. Objects that are not pedestrians, cyclists, etc, should have more accurate speed predictions.

15. When changing into an adjacent lane, your car will look further ahead at vehicle speeds. If somebody up ahead is braking, your car will handle it more comfortably.

16. Your car used to only predict acceleration (Not speed) for objects moving adjacently. Now your car will predict acceleration of all moving objects including objects accelerating across your path.

17. New 3D models for vehicles on your screen. You'll also be shown vehicles with their doors open.

18. Tesla retired a few old systems and gained 2 frames per second, per camera, resulting in better performance while self driving.

FSD Beta 10.12 is currently only available to employees, but we may see a wider release in the next couple days that includes public testers.

However, it could be several weeks before all current testers receive this update.

More details will surely be uncovered about this beta in the next few days. Stay tuned for more.

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Tesla Cuts Newly Formed Content and Ads Team, Musk says Ads Were “Too Generic”

Tesla eliminated a newly formed marketing team of about 40 employees as part of its global layoffs, Bloomberg reported on Monday morning. On X, Elon Musk said the ads created by the team were “far too generic” adding that they would apply to “any car”.

Exactly. The ads were far too generic – could’ve been any car.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024

The team was led by Alexander Ingram who joined Tesla in August 2019 as Communication lead for Automotive. After a few different roles connected with content and social media, Ingram was promoted last December to Senior Manager of Global Growth Content. In the new role, he was leading a global team of creatives focused on Tesla's first ads, as well as social media.

Ingram put out some excellent behind-the-scenes videos on Tesla’s technological advancements such as the one below explaining Tesla’s single casting.

Tesla’s Advertisement Strategy

At Tesla’s 2023 annual meeting of shareholders, Elon Musk said that the company would “try a little advertising and see how it goes”. Since then, Tesla ads have been seen in Google search results and on YouTube.

In Tesla’s proxy statement filed last week, it is seen that the automaker has spent around $200,000 on X-advertising through February 2024.

“As part of a multi-platform advertising campaign, Tesla also directly or indirectly purchased advertising on X, which totaled approximately $0.2 million through February 2024”

Bloomberg’s source added that Tesla still has a smaller marketing team in Europe.

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Tesla Is Ending Its Current Referral Program; New Version Will Arrive in “A Few Months”

Tesla's Referral Program

Not a Tesla App

Tesla shared on X that it’s ending its current referral program globally by the end of April. It’ll be replaced by a new one, but that is still “a few months away”, according to CEO Elon Musk.

When Musk was asked if the current credits would be lost, Musk responded by saying “No, just that new credits would not be earned until we launch a future referral program.” That means there’ll be a gap of a couple of months when owners will not be able to earn referral credits.

Tesla was always famous for relying on its community to promote its vehicles rather than spending millions (or even billions) in ad campaigns.

Through Tesla’s referral program — which started back in 2015— customers have been earning referral credits by having friends use their referral link when ordering a Tesla product or taking their first demo drive. At the time, it started with a direct $1,000 prize for the referrer but later evolved to a more complex system with different tiers and points.

Prizes have changed a lot over the years

In its latest version, scheduled to end by the end of the month, Tesla models (S, X, and Y), along with Powerwall, solar panels, and solar roofs, are available for purchase using a referral link. In this version, owners can redeem credits from merchandise to software upgrades for their vehicles. They can even redeem credits for several months free of Premium Connectivity or FSD.

Our current referral program benefits will end after April 30 in all markets

— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) April 20, 2024

The Evolution of the Referral Program

Tesla’s first referral program was released in July 2015 where customers who referred new buyers would receive $1,000 for every new Tesla Model S delivered. For those who were able to accrue 5 or 10 referrals for the US automaker, Tesla raised the bar and offered invitations to the opening of its Giga Factories or even a fully loaded Model X.

Over the first 2 years, Tesla significantly increased the value of the prizes and even offered free or discounted Roadsters with enough referrals. However, in 2019, Elon Musk decided to stop amid cost concerns.

The referral program was re-launched in late 2019 offering new buyers free supercharging for a period of time, FSD access, premium connectivity, or $500 off a new vehicle.

What’s Next

Given the considerable gap of “a few months” between the current program and the next one, it is expected that Tesla will bring a new structure with updated awards focused on minimizing Tesla’s cost while increasing the brand’s awareness.

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