Tesla has started to push a new Full Self-Driving Beta v12 software update. It’s still not going wide, there’s no new release note, but CEO Elon Musk says it’s a “big release”.
When talking about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program, it’s hard not to talk about delays.
Tesla fans would argue that the company is trying to solve a major problem in self-driving and we should cut it some slack when it comes. The counter argument is that Tesla started selling Full Self-Driving since 2016 and by doing it, it created pressure on itself to deliver on its promise.
After years of delays, CEO Elon Musk has been signalling that Tesla’s FSD Beta v12 update would be a critical step to deliver on that promise.
The Tesla v12 software update is introducing what Musk has been calling “end-to-end neural nets”. The biggest difference with previous FSD updates is that the vehicle’s controls are now be handled by neural nets rather than being coded by programmers.
It is being touted as the difference maker.
Tesla was supposed to release v12 last year, but it was delayed. The automaker started to push the update in January, but only to a few customers.
The company has yet to do a wide release of FSD Beta v12 software update, but it has released a few .x versions of the software to employees and a handful of customers.
Now, Tesla has started to push a new version of FSD Beta v12 (v12.3) to those owners.
There’s no new release notes for the update, but Musk called a “big release”:
Top comment by Keith Range
"what I really want is Tesla releasing regular data about the FSD program showing some progress in interventions and disengagements"
I think the problem with releasing that sort of data is that my use of FSD beta would elicit a very very poor score. My use is such that I use FSDb all the time, but I also manually disengage or take over all the time as well. I don't disengage because FSD did something that was dangerous or incorrect, but because I'm too impatient. I think I'm "normal" in my FSD usage and the very poor score would be prevalent and not something Tesla would want to make public.
FSD in all of my experience is too slow and timid for me to tolerate waiting for it to do in 30 seconds what I can do in 10 seconds or less. For example, constantly while on the interstate I will pass a car and put the blinker on to get in front, to allow the fast lane to clear. It blinks and waits, and waits, and waits.. I wonder in my head wth FSD is waiting on. We're 50ft past the obstructing car and FSD just sits with its blinker on for 30 seconds or more. There are lots of those types of examples, but that one probably annoys me the most.
What Tesla could make public is the dataset from a small group of professional drivers who are paid to be patient and let the car do everything automatically as it can, and only disengage when a real true danger occurs. This would give us the best information
As we previously noted, Tesla FSD Beta v12 has been capable of some impressive, more natural driving, but there is still no clear timeline to a wide release or a path to the promised level 4-5 autonomous driving capability.
Electrek’s Take
It’s hard to get excited by Elon’s FSD Beta hype-ups. He has said this about virtually every other .x release of FSD Beta and as a tester myself, some updates felt like a regression while others felt like FSD Beta was still a badly impaired student driver who got an extra 5 minutes of driving course from the update.
As for this particular comment, I’m particularly concerned about him claiming that it should be v13 when he said v12 wouldn’t be “Beta”, though he didn’t understand what that would mean, and v12 is still identified by Tesla as Beta.
I’m repeating myself, but at this point, what I really want is Tesla releasing regular data about the FSD program showing some progress in interventions and disengagements. I’m tired of Elon’s hype-ups and anecdotal evidence.
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