Musk Shares What to Expect in FSD v12.4 Next Week; Talks About Abilities of FSD v12.5 and v12.6

Musk says Tesla is ready to release FSD 12.4 next week

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Less than two weeks since its last FSD update, Tesla is getting ready to release FSD v12.4, with CEO Elon Musk hinting at significant improvements. The current version, 12.3.6, introduced Autopark and High Fidelity Park Assist for vehicles equipped with ultrasonic sensors in the U.S. and Canada, along with minor fixes for FSD.

Just an hour ago, Musk shed some light on Tesla's next FSD update. Through his X account, Musk teased the imminent release of v12.4, stating, "Probably start rolling out 12.4 next week." Moreover, he provided insights into the development process and the features users can expect in the upcoming 12.4 version, as well as v12.5 and v12.6.

What to Expect in FSD v12.4

Musk says that FSD 12.4 has extensive retraining of AI models that particularly focuses on refining the comfort of passengers by addressing concerns around abrupt acceleration or braking. Musk previously commented on the next versions of FSD saying that FSD v12.4 and 12.5 would be major improvements, and while v12.4 may be a major step forward, it looks like its main focus will be on being more natural and smoother.

"Probably start rolling out 12.4 next week."

FSD v12.5 and v12.6 to Handle More Complex Scenarios

Looking ahead, Tesla is already laying the groundwork for future updates according to Musk. The CEO previously stated that Tesla is constantly working on FSD updates that are three to six months ahead of what’s in production, so they have a good idea of what the software will be able to handle in the future.

Today on X, Musk said that there's ongoing testing for FSD versions 12.5 and 12.6, which involves tackling complex scenarios. Musk says this includes navigating narrow, one-way roads and handling unexpected road closures, requiring the vehicle to reverse and find alternate routes. 

Actually Smart Summon in v12.5?

Tesla’s Autopilot lead, Ashok Elluswamy, previously talked about how FSD would gain the ability to go in reverse when Tesla is ready to release Actually Smart Summon. If the ability to reverse is still tied to some of the abilities of Actually Smart Summon, then, it’s possible we may see Tesla’s better summon implementation in version 12.5 or 12.6.

Vehicles to be Able to Communicate with Fleet

Musk also gives us some insight into vehicle communication, saying vehicles will need to be able to communicate with the fleet so that you "don't get a whole bunch of Teslas stuck down a road."

Instead of vehicle-to-vehicle communication, Tesla will likely have vehicles report back to the "mothership," where Tesla can aggregate data and report it to nearby vehicles. This is similar to how vehicles report traffic today, instead of talking directly to each other.

Spending on AI

Tesla's commitment to advancing its AI capabilities is evident through its substantial investments. Musk recently emphasized the company's dedication to spending around $10 billion throughout 2024 on training and inference AI. Musk said that any company that isn’t spending billions on AI this year just won’t be able to compete.

Expansion of FSD 

Tesla appears ready to start the expansion of FSD, and it looks like China may be up first. Musk's recent visit to Beijing to discuss a potential FSD rollout and data sharing shows that Tesla is ready and serious about FSD's expansion.

While FSD's rollout in China appears promising, Musk remains cautiously optimistic about expanding into other markets. He believes that FSD v12 is ready for supervised FSD in left-hand drive (LHD) countries, while right-hand drive (RHD) markets like the UK and Australia may require additional time.

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Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

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Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.

Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.

Steam Launch

When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.

In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.

However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.

SteamOS Update

The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.

Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.

Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles

Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.

AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.

While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.

The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.

Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?

The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.

While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.

We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

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As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.

However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.

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Weather At Destination

When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.

Note the weather under the arrival time

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You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.

You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.

And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.

Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.

The weather pop-up above the ETA

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One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.

Weather Radar Overlay

As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.

You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.

Requirements / Data

Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.

As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

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