Tesla has released FSD Beta 11.4 to employees, with original testers hopefully soon to follow. The update is version 2023.6.15, making it the first time FSD Beta has been based on a 2023 branch. With this update, Tesla has prioritized refining the vehicle's performance over introducing new features.
Enhanced Safety Features: Pedestrians and Vulnerable Road Users
Some standout improvements include enhanced pedestrian recognition and response, allowing Tesla vehicles to predict pedestrian movements better and react accordingly. This leads to a smoother driving experience at intersections, as vehicles can accurately anticipate when to stop or proceed.
Another critical aspect of the update is its improved responsiveness to vulnerable road users, such as bikers and cyclists. The FSD Beta 11.4 update now reacts more quickly to these road users and adjusts the vehicle's speed when necessary, ensuring a safer experience for everyone involved.
Improved Driving Performance: Urban, Rural, and Adverse Weather Conditions
One of the most notable features of the update is its weather-adaptive speed control. The FSD Beta 11.4 adjusts the maximum Autopilot speed based on current weather conditions, considering factors such as visibility, road wetness, tire tread, and even tire spray from other vehicles, ensuring a safer driving experience in adverse conditions.
Urban drivers will appreciate the optimized turn performance in city environments, as the update enables Tesla vehicles to navigate dense areas and challenging turns more effectively. This results in smoother navigation while avoiding obstacles like parked cars and bus lanes. Additionally, the update brings advanced bus lane recognition, helping prevent the vehicle from accidentally entering restricted areas.
In rural areas, the FSD Beta 11.4 should improve, with upgraded lane, line, and road edge detection. This enhancement is beneficial when driving on roads with inconsistent markings and paving, providing a safer experience. Alongside these improvements, the update also refines lane guidance and partial cut-in predictions. By leveraging Tesla's extensive library of clips and auto-labelling system, these enhancements ensure the vehicle remains in the correct lane and accurately predicts the movement of other vehicles.
Smarter Navigation: Lane Guidance and Speed Adjustments
The FSD Beta 11.4 also considers upcoming navigation deadlines, adjusting the vehicle's speed accordingly during lane changes, resulting in refined lane change speed control. Furthermore, Tesla's new Vision Speed network allows its cars to infer the typical driving speed on any given roadway, optimizing speed control in various situations, such as residential areas and parking lots.
Finally, Tesla has enhanced long-range path blockage detection, enabling vehicles to merge into other lanes more swiftly to avoid obstacles on the road.
Who is Eligible for This Beta
With the latest FSD Beta being based on Tesla's 2023.6 code branch, this will make FSD Beta available to many new owners who are on a 2023.2 or 2023.6 update. So if you've been waiting to be eligible for FSD Beta before subscribing, you may soon get your chance. However, it may still take several weeks before this update, or a revision of it goes into wide release, so don't click that button just yet.
Release Date
Tesla will typically release an update to employees and then to OG testers before having it go out to everyone else in waves. However, if Tesla discovers a blocking issue, the rollout is halted until an update becomes available. Once a revision is available, Tesla will restart the rollout with employees again.
FSD Beta 11.3 went through various revisions before finally being available to most owners. However, that was a much larger update, so FSD Beta 11.4 will likely see fewer revisions. In the past we've typically seen 1 to 3 revisions before a major update to FSD Beta went into 'wide' release.
What happens next will depend on whether Tesla encounters any major issues. Tesla may release FSD Beta 11.4 to OG testers or it may be quiet for several days before 11.4.1 or a similar revision to FSD Beta surfaces.
FSD Beta 11.4 demonstrates Tesla's unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of autonomous driving technology, bringing us closer to a future where fully autonomous vehicles are the norm. Take a look at the release notes for FSD Beta 11.4 for a thorough look at all the changes in this update.
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The Cybertruck has finally received an official crash safety rating—and to the surprise of many critics, it’s outstanding. Tesla has announced that the Cybertruck earned a 5-star Overall Crash Safety Rating from the NHTSA.
Even more remarkable, the Cybertruck holds the lowest overall probability of injury and the lowest rollover risk of any pickup truck ever tested by the agency. Skeptics have long questioned its safety, arguing that its rigid design lacks crumple zones and could endanger occupants. But these results prove otherwise. Let’s break it down!
The Test
Sawyer Merritt
The 2024 and 2025 Tesla Cybertruck—both the AWD and Cyberbeast variants—were tested under the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) standards, which evaluate vehicle crashworthiness and restraint systems through various types of impacts.
Tesla has long prioritized safety, not only through advancements in active safety with FSD but also by designing vehicles with robust structural protection. The Cybertruck incorporates the Cybercell structural battery and internal crash cans to improve crash performance.
Its front and rear Gigacastings are engineered to channel impact forces into internal structures that collapse, functioning similarly to crumple zones in traditional vehicles. This design directs energy away from occupants and critical components. First, the internal crash cans absorb the force, and if needed, the Gigacasting collapses—both of which are replaceable, making the Cybertruck more repairable when compared to other modern vehicles.
Euro NCAP
Sawyer Merritt
While the Cybertruck has now earned a North American NCAP rating, it has yet to receive a Euro NCAP rating. Tesla has not submitted the Cybertruck for testing in Europe, as its sharp-edged stainless steel panels do not currently meet European regulations.
Tesla does plan to bring the Cybertruck to Europe eventually, but doing so will likely require significant exterior modifications to soften its edges and comply with safety standards. Once those changes are made, the Cybertruck should have no trouble acing the Euro NCAP tests.
After such a long wait, it’s great to finally see the Cybertruck’s crash test results—and with a 5-star rating, Tesla deserves credit for its impressive engineering. Safety has always been a cornerstone of Tesla’s design philosophy, and the Cybertruck continues that tradition as one of the safest vehicles on the road.
Tesla vehicles are equipped with two main computer systems: the MCU (Media Control Unit), which is responsible for entertainment and display functions, and the Autopilot/FSD Unit, often referred to as the FSD Computer.
Both of these systems have evolved over the years, and they’re commonly referred to by their generation. For example, MCU 2 refers to the second generation of the Media Control Unit. Similarly, the FSD computer is identified by its generation, often called Hardware 3 or Hardware 4, when referring to the third and fourth-generation hardware. More recently, Tesla has started referring to the FSD Computer as AI3 and AI4, but you’ll still hear the older terms used interchangeably.
These two systems are separate and they’re not upgraded at the same time, meaning it’s possible to have a vehicle with MCU 2 and FSD Hardware 3 or MCU 3 with Hardware 3. Some vehicles even feature MCU 1 alongside Hardware 3.
The MCU is not involved with Autopilot or FSD functions—it’s purely for infotainment and in-vehicle features such as vehicle visualization, gaming, maps, and entertainment. It doesn’t impact the capabilities or limitations of Tesla’s autonomous driving systems.
MCU 1 - NVIDIA Tegra 3
MCU 1 was the first media control unit to be introduced in Tesla vehicles, starting back in 2012. This system was used in the Model S and Model X until about April 2018, when Tesla began transitioning to MCU 2.
By the time the Model 3 launched in late 2017, it already included MCU 2. To keep legacy vehicles up to date, Tesla offers an infotainment retrofit that upgrades MCU 1 to MCU 2, which helps make the infotainment unit much more responsive and adds a variety of newer features. Tesla continues to support vehicles with MCU 1, although upgrades are much further apart. In 2024, Tesla added Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) improvements to vehicles with MCU 1 and even support for FSD V12.3.6 (FSD HW3 required).
Period Offered: 2012 through April 2018
Upgrade: Available as a paid upgrade for Model S and Model X vehicles to go from MCU 1 to MCU 2.
MCU 2 - Intel Atom
The launch of the Model 3 introduced MCU 2, which ran on Intel’s Atom mobile processor. While the Intel Atom was capable at the time, it’s now considered outdated compared to modern standards. As Tesla continues to roll out new features, the limitations of the Atom processor have become more apparent.
There is a notable list of features that are unavailable to vehicles with MCU 2. Although Tesla has optimized software to improve compatibility, not all features have been made accessible to these vehicles.
Period Offered: MCU 2 was offered in 2017 (Model 3) through 2022 (availability differs based on region and model).
Upgrade: As of now, Tesla has not offered an upgrade path or retrofit to transition from MCU 2 to MCU 3, and they’re unlikely to do so.
MCU 3 - AMD Ryzen
In December 2021, Tesla began shipping vehicles with MCU 3, powered by AMD’s Ryzen processor. The first vehicles to feature MCU 3 were the refreshed Model S and Model X, which debuted in 2021. Shortly after, Model 3s and Model Ys were also equipped with MCU 3, and today, all Tesla vehicles, including the Cybertruck, come standard with MCU 3.
This MCU is now the most widely used on the road and is Tesla’s most advanced infotainment processor. It supports impressive 3D visualizations, allows improved gaming on the center touchscreen (and rear screens in equipped vehicles), and offers a host of other capabilities. MCU 3 is also the most feature-complete version, with new features being designed for it first and then backported to MCU 2 or MCU 1 when possible.
Period Offered: The first MCU 3 vehicles were released in December 2021 and is current through today.
Upgrade: MCU 3 is the most current infotainment unit that Tesla offers.
Features Missing on MCU 2 (Intel Atom)
High-fidelity park assist is limited to vehicles with MCU 3
Not a Tesla App
While Tesla does its best to continue to support MCU 2, there is a growing difference between the features available on a vehicle with an Intel Atom infotainment unit and one with the AMD Ryzen processor.
Feature
MCU 2
MCU 3
Games / Arcade
⚠️ Limited Games*
✅ Additional Games**
Parked View
⚠️ Split screen visualization with vehicle on left and map on right
✅ Full-screen Parked Viz - Shadows, Sun Reflections, Shadows
Vehicle Visualizations
⚠️ Some limitations, such as non-transparent glass
Improved UI for Display Modules - Media, Next Turn, Trip Planner
⚠️ Solid Color/Semi-Transparent
✅ Transparency + Background Blur for Display Modules
*Many recent game additions are available to MCU 3 only, including the ever-popular Vampire Survivors and Castle Doombad. Only certain Model S and Model X vehicles include a GPU and the ability to play games on Steam.
Identifying which MCU your vehicle has is straightforward. Simply go to Vehicle Options > Software > Additional Vehicle Information.
In the interface, you’ll find details about whether your vehicle is equipped with an Intel Atom (MCU 2) or AMD Ryzen processor (MCU 3).
MCU 4?
It’s been more than three years since Tesla introduced the AMD Ryzen-powered MCU. Despite advancements, including the transition from FSD Hardware 3 to AI4—and eventually AI5—there’s been no indication of an MCU 4 on the horizon.
The Ryzen processor’s impressive capabilities make it a solid choice for infotainment, and it’s well-suited to serve until there’s another big leap in CPU performance.
While Tesla will upgrade to MCU 4 at some point, it doesn’t seem imminent. Some may argue that Tesla transitioned to MCU 3 too late, leaving vehicles just a few years old feeling outdated. It’s possible Tesla might choose to introduce MCU 4 ahead of the need for more processing power, ensuring that older vehicles can continue to benefit from new software features in the future.
