Tesla Talks About It's Next-Gen Vehicles and 'Infinite Demand'

Tesla talks about it's next-gen vehicles at Investor Day

Tesla (Edited by Not a Tesla App)

Tesla's Investor Day peaked at around 145 thousand viewers on YouTube as the company's vehicle designer and engineering leaders gave their presentation. Viewers were hoping for a new product announcement. However, the view count quickly dropped, and the nasty comments increased as the leaders wrapped up their portion of the show.

After a presentation on reducing costs and finding efficiencies, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said, "I think our track record proves that we can deliver the best cars, and we deliver the best cars despite, because of, these constraints. I'd love to show you what I mean and unveil the next-gen car. But you are going to have to trust me on that until a later date."

Then, perhaps sensing the disappointment as the air left the room, he added, "I promise we will always be delivering exciting, compelling, and desirable vehicles as we always have."

Not One, But Multiple New Teslas

While we have to wait for the next platform launch, we did get some more details. Lars Moravy, the Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, said, "The next-generation platform is not one vehicle; it is multiple, and it's in a segment that we really try to focus on affordability and desirability."

He added, "Our next-generation platform is more than one segment, and really we are thinking of all the segments that are available that we haven't captured and where the market would be."

So while we have been trying to determine if the next vehicle will be an affordable car or a "highly configurable" van, both guesses are correct. Tesla has major plans for the affordable car, often called the Model 2. A slide detailing what Tesla's global fleet would look like to achieve a sustainably powered earth, the covered-up 'Model 2', accounts for nearly all of the other cars models combined. The Master Plan suggests there are 700 million cars in the Model 2's category and 740 million of the rest.

Franz Talking About the Next-Gen Platform

Watch Franz von Holzhausen talk about Tesla's next-gen platform. The video below starts at the beginning of the segment:

Easier Said Than Done

It's not so easy to create a vehicle that will change the world. Musk stated, "The issue is how do we build the cars. The hard part is how do we build the cars. I can't emphasize that enough. The hard part is building the cars and the entire supply chain that goes with the cars. This is a logistics challenge of extraordinary difficulty."

It's not just building the physical car but also where to make it, according to Zach Kirkhorn, Tesla's CFO. "As we have been thinking about our next-generation platform, we have been thinking about the volume that we aspire to build against that, how many individual factories do we need to build, and what is the fastest possible way to expand that footprint around the world."

Infinite Demand

So, while investors may go away disappointed in the short term, long-term, there is plenty of positives. Musk was asked about the risk of the new affordable car taking away the demand for other Teslas. His answer was very pointed, "demand for our existing vehicles in terms of the desire to own them might as well be infinite. It's indistinguishable from infinite at this point. Affordability is what matters, as you get the car more affordable, demand will go crazy - basically."

Tesla Releases FSD V12.6.1 for Model 3 & Model Y

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Last night, Tesla released software update 2024.45.25.15, which includes FSD V12.6.1. This update adds support for all HW3 vehicles, including the Model 3 and Model Y. We’re excited to see the continued support for HW3 owners. 

FSD V12.6.1

V12.6.1 is now going wide, according to Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI. This update is going to the Model 3 and Model Y for the first time - as only the Model S and Model X were included in FSD V12.6. 

V12.6 is a big step forward for HW3 - it includes End-to-End on Highway, Improved City Streets Behavior, and Smoother and More Accurate Tracking - all contributing towards a better, smoother, and more comfortable build of FSD. You can read our comparison between FSD V12.6 and V13.2.2 here. 

In short, FSD V12.6 performs considerably closer to V13 than V12.5.4.2 - which is a massive improvement. It performs as well as the Cybertruck version of FSD V13, which is still missing a few features when compared to other HW4 vehicles, but it’s a great sign for HW3. A lot of the improvements can be pointed to in the improvements to lane selection and decision-making - the vehicle tends to hesitate far less on V12.6, meaning the ride is a lot smoother. Many early V12.6 testers mentioned that it felt more like V13-mini than anything else.

Legacy Model S & X

We haven’t seen this update hit any legacy Model S and Model X vehicles just yet. We’re not sure whether Ashok’s statement of “generally” applies here - but it should. If you do get the update, please let us know.

Legacy Model S and Model X vehicles are still on an older FSD build and potentially won’t see another FSD update for a little while longer. While they do have the same FSD hardware as other vehicles, there are enough hardware differences that require a build specifically for these vehicles.

Release Date

FSD V12.6.1 is going out now to the redesigned Model S and X with HW3 and all Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with HW3. The initial wave went out last night, and we expect to see more later today or tomorrow. If this release ends up going “wide,” we should see much larger waves go out next week.

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Tesla Issues Physical & OTA Recall for Hardware 4 Computer

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Tesla has issued a recall for some vehicles due to issues linked to a revision of the Hardware 4 (HW4) computer that was introduced this past November. This recall affects all vehicles with the revised hardware except for the Cybertruck, as it uses a slightly modified version of the HW4 system.

Many vehicle owners have reported a complete failure of their Autopilot computer, which not only leaves the vehicle without FSD and Autopilot but also disables many of the active safety features that make a Tesla what it is.

Let’s take a look at this recall - because the recall is partially physical and partially a software recall.

HW4 Failure

Tesla has identified the failure and flagged it to the U.S. NHTSA (but not Transport Canada or Euro NCAP at the time of publishing) as a recall.

Tesla mentions that the vehicle’s FSD computer circuit board may short circuit, resulting in the loss of the rearview camera image. The recall itself is focused on the rearview camera - as not having a functional rearview camera breaks a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard. However, it does impact more than just the rearview camera.

As previously mentioned, users have experienced the full loss of Autopilot and FSD on these vehicles, as well as reduced traction control and removal of safety features such as automatic emergency braking, collision avoidance assist, and forward collision warnings. 

While the vehicle remains driveable, it is not necessarily a good idea to drive the vehicle with many of these features, especially with the reduced traction control noted by many people. We’ve already noted that while Tesla has been sending tow trucks to pick up some vehicles, it is also prompting owners to drive the vehicle to their service center in some cases.

Remedy

Unlike most of Tesla’s recalls, this one isn’t entirely an OTA recall, owing to the fact that people have already experienced circuit board shorts and are already waiting for replacements.

The software portion of the recall has already been mostly completed for any vehicles with Tesla software update 2024.45.25.3 or greater. However, a significant portion of the tracked fleet remains on update 2024.44.25.2 (approximately 20%), so we recommend updating your HW4 vehicle whenever you receive the notification.

On the hardware side, Tesla is immediately identifying and replacing hardware that has had circuit board failure. Tesla is also reaching out to customers who have expressed intermittent issues with Autopilot features, active safety features, or vehicle cameras that don't display correctly. If you have experienced any of these issues in a late 2024 vehicle, we recommend submitting a service ticket with Tesla to ensure that your vehicle isn’t affected by this recall.

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