Elon Musk slows down rollout of Tesla’s next ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ update

Elon Musk announced that Tesla is slowing down the rollout of its next “Full Self-Driving Beta” software update (10.69) due to “many major code changes.”

It is reportedly still coming tomorrow, but only to ~1,000 Tesla FSD Beta drivers.

FSD Beta enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car’s navigation system, but the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times.

Since the responsibility lies with the driver and not Tesla’s system, it is still considered a level-two driver-assist system despite its name. It has been sort of a “two steps forward, one step back” type of program, as some updates have seen regressions in terms of the driving capabilities.

Tesla has frequently been releasing new software updates to the FSD Beta program and adding more owners to it.

The last update (10.12) came in May, so it has been a while since Tesla has pushed something new to the FSD Beta fleet.

In July, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that FSD Beta 10.13 would be coming in a week, and he did something rare for him when it comes to Tesla Full Self-Driving – he managed expectations about the update.

However, even though release notes leaked a week later, the update wasn’t pushed to the larger fleet as Musk decided to make it a bigger update and upgraded it to 10.69.

The CEO had been promising the new Tesla FSD beta 10.69 to come on August 20, but now a day before the release, Musk announced on Twitter that the rollout will be slower due to “many major code changes”:

There are many major code changes, so this will be an extra cautious rollout. Releasing on 8/20 to ~1000 Tesla owners, then 10.69.1 next week to accommodate feedback & release to ~10k customers, then 10.69.2 week after & release to rest of FSD Beta.

Based on previous comments and the release notes for 10.13, the update will address left turns, animal detection, speed limits, and more.

Musk had originally said that Tesla’s bigger FSD update, v11, would be coming around this time at the end of August, but it looks like it is delayed in favor of this new 10.69 update.

Tesla FSD Beta v11 is expected to include the merger of Tesla’s city driving stack and highway driving stack, which will be a big step toward the development of the autonomous driving system.