FSD Beta to go out to everyone in about the next month
Not a Tesla App
You get FSD! You Get FSD! Everybody gets FSD! For those waiting, Elon Musk's Full Self Driving announcement may have felt like being in the studio audience when Oprah gave everyone a car. People in the audience screamed, cried, and hugged as Oprah continued to chant, "everybody gets a car."
Musk, who can also be a showman, could've used the pop-culture classic meme. But instead, he casually mentioned that all FSD subscribers would be able to use the program by the end of the year. During the quarter three earnings call, Tesla's CEO told listeners, "So, anyone who has ordered a full self-driving Beta — full self-driving, will have access to the FSD Beta program this year [in North America]. Probably about a month from now."
Tesla's Q3 Earnings Call
FSD version 10.69.3 is due any day, and Musk has publicly stated his confidence and excitement with the next update. The 51-year-old believes that FSD and, eventually, fully autonomous vehicles will prevent countless injuries and save thousands of lives by making the roads safer. He is now seeing that in the data that Tesla is collecting. "So, the safety that we're seeing when the car is in FSD mode is actually significantly greater than the safety we're seeing when it is not, which is a key threshold for going to a wide Beta," said Musk.
On A.I. Day 2022, Tesla's director of the Autopilot program Ashok Elluswamy, said, "FSD beta software is quite capable of driving the car. It should be able to navigate from parking lot to parking lot, city street driving, stopping for traffic lights and stops signs, negotiating with objects at intersections, making turns and so on." Several team members who spoke at the event raved about the improvements of using an integrated stack. That means one code base that includes everything the car needs to operate all aspects of FSD.
Musk has been using the single-stack version for months. He told investors that he just used it. "When I came to Giga, Texas, from Brent's house, I never touched any of the controls on the way here." He said that all subscribers to the FSD package will soon experience this technology. "The car will be able to take you from your home to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel. So, it's looking very good."
Telsa executives have used the term supervised FSD or supervised autonomy when discussing how the technology has advanced. This means that the driver must still pay attention and be ready to intervene at any time. "We're not saying that that's quite ready to have no one behind the wheel. It's just that you will almost never have to touch the control, vehicle controllers," said Musk.
Safer Than a Human
That may soon be changing. Musk says the company is very close, and it will soon be able to challenge the regulatory bodies and prove that FSD is safer than human driving. "Certainly, without a question whatsoever in my mind, next year. I think we'll also have enough data next year to be able to show to regulators that the car is safer than the average human."
Now we need a Musk meme. You get FSD! Everybody gets FSD!
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Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
This morning, in response to Dan Burkland, Wes shared that Tesla had significantly rewritten the backend portion of Trip Planner. These improvements, made by several engineers, were designed to improve Trip Planner’s accuracy and open the door to future features.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.