Tesla’s rollout of Full Self-Driving v12.5 has failed thus far, and homeowners wish to know what occurs subsequent?
In 2016, Elon Musk introduced that every one future Tesla autos would come geared up with the mandatory {hardware} for self-driving capabilities, even specifying “stage 5 self-driving,” which suggests the power to function autonomously beneath any situations. Nonetheless, shortly after, Musk acknowledged that Tesla may require extra onboard computing energy than initially thought, resulting in the introduction of {Hardware} 3 (HW3).
Musk assured that HW3 would allow full self-driving (FSD) capabilities, promising retrofits for earlier fashions that had bought the FSD bundle. Following this, Tesla launched {Hardware} 4 (HW4), a extra superior onboard pc system, however didn’t provide retrofits for older fashions with HW3, sustaining that HW3 was adequate for reaching self-driving by software program updates.
Initially, Musk claimed that FSD enhancements would first be optimized for HW3, suggesting that HW4 may lag behind by at the very least six months. Nonetheless, Tesla reversed this method with the discharge of FSD model 12.5, which was first deployed to HW4 autos. Musk defined that optimizing the software program for the much less highly effective HW3 would take extra time, hinting on the limitations of HW3 in dealing with the newest software program developments in the direction of unsupervised self-driving, a functionality Tesla promised to HW3 homeowners since 2016.
This rewrite goals to streamline the narrative, specializing in the evolution of Tesla’s self-driving {hardware} and software program, and the strategic shifts in deployment and optimization of FSD capabilities between HW3 and HW4.
Musk stated that it might take ten days to adapt v12.5 to HW3.
In late August, about two weeks after Musk’s “10 days” had handed, we reported that Tesla began to push v12.5 to HW3 autos.
Not solely was the replace to HW3 late, however Tesla additionally confirmed that it was working a smaller mannequin than on HW4.
On high of all that, now three weeks later, Tesla has but to push v12.5 to the overwhelming majority of FSD autos with HW3. Tesla seems to solely have pushed v12.5.1.5 to some Tesla HW3 homeowners and it’s now shifting HW4 vehicles to v12.5.2.
Social media and Tesla boards are stuffed with Tesla HW3 homeowners asking why they haven’t launched a brand new replace since v12.3.6 earlier this yr regardless of Musk’s feedback.
In its “AI roadmap” launched final week, Tesla now claims that HW3 will get the identical launch as HW4 beginning with v12.5.2 this month.
Nonetheless, v12.5.2 is already within the shopper fleet for HW4 vehicles and v12.5.3 is already being examined within the beta fleet.
Electrek’s Take
This text is principally to appropriate our article from final month that claimed Tesla was pushing v12.5 to HW3 because it turned out to be a really restricted launch.
Earlier this yr, Elon stated that Tesla was not compute-constrained for coaching FSD anymore. He additionally claimed that the coaching compute mixed with v12’s full end-to-end neural nets would allow a lot sooner software program enhancements.
And but, the overwhelming majority of HW3 homeowners have solely obtained v12.3.6 this yr.
That, mixed with the truth that Tesla’s AI roadmap makes no point out of unsupervised self-driving by any means, and Tesla seemingly stopped promising it on new vehicles, has fully killed my hopes of Tesla delivering on its self-driving guarantees on HW3 vehicles and it has enormously restricted by hopes of the identical for HW4 vehicles.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Tesla totally shifts its self-driving technique to the devoted robotaxi, however I don’t know how they plan to make HW3 and presumably HW4 homeowners entire.
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