Tesla has made some significant improvements with FSD 12.4, primarily, the removal of the steering wheel nag under certain conditions. However, there’s a caveat – you can’t wear sunglasses.
According to Elon Musk, FSD v12.5 will introduce support for nag-free FSD, even if you’re wearing sunglasses.
With the start of the rollout of FSD v12.5, OG testers immediately noticed that vision monitoring didn’t support sunglasses. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s Autopilot Director commented on the FSD release and mentioned that the merge of city and highway stacks and vision-monitoring’s support for sunglasses would come in a point release to FSD 12.5.
FSD V12.5 is an Upgrade
Ashok Elluswamy also took to X recently to mention that v12.5 is a big improvement to FSD v12.4. While he didn’t mention any specific details, this lines up with some of Musk’s previous comments that each FSD v12 iteration will see major improvements to the FSD model.
Elon also mentioned that while Tesla has a massive fleet of cars, their laser focus on making FSD work, rather than touting every daily achievement – has been their key to making generalized self-driving cars work.
FSD v12 has been pretty much a complete rewrite of the FSD city streets software stack, with drastic improvements over FSD v11. However, certain parts of the software stack haven’t been updated yet. Some features, like the updated highway stack are expected to be in FSD v12.5, which Musk confirmed recently. However, other features such as Park Seek and Banish Autopark, which were expected to arrive with FSD V12.4 are still up in the air.
What about V12.4?
FSD V12.4.3 is currently out to about 5% of the fleet (about 20-25% of FSD users) and hasn’t been pushed out again since about July 10th. Our new auto updating statistics pages can help break this down for folks who are curious.
Given that it’s been some time since any new vehicles have received V12.4.3, it seems the rollout has been stopped. There could be any number of reasons for this – including software bugs, or a lack of confidence with FSD. Additionally, it could just halted in favor of focusing resources on V12.5.
While we’d love to see more vehicles get v12.4.3, we’re likely to see v12.5 being the next big wave of deployments to customers. Either way, early-access testers and Tesla ADAS testers will receive these updates first, and then they’ll roll out to the vast majority of customers once Tesla feels confident there aren’t any major issues. Tesla does all this testing in the name of safety, and it's essential that bug-free versions of FSD are the versions that are rolled out wide.
So, for now, leave your sunglasses on and hang tight for the next FSD update.
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In just 8 months, Tesla has gone from breaking ground to delivering electrons at its most ambitious Supercharger project to date, just in time to be ready for the busy Fourth of July holiday weekend. Project Oasis, the world’s largest Supercharger site, is now partially open to customers for its first phase in Lost Hills, California.
What makes this remarkable is the speed of execution. In just eight months, Tesla has constructed a site that will eventually feature 168 stalls (84 stalls are now open), supported by 11 MW of solar power and 10 Megapacks of battery storage. That construction speed is pretty impressive, but what is even more impressive is how this new station operates and what it means for future Supercharging infrastructure.
Self-Sufficient Energy Oasis
Not a Tesla App
The first 84 stalls at Lost Hills are now open, and according to the Tesla Charging team, they are currently powered solely by the sun and operate off-grid.
This makes it more than just a new Supercharger site. It serves as a proof of concept for a new type of Supercharger. Unlike nearly every other charging site in the world, which draws power from local utilities, this station generates its own clean electricity from its massive solar array and stores it in its array of on-site Megapacks.
Self-sufficient charging stations are something completely different than what we see today. They are highly resilient since they’re not reliant on the grid. That means that even if there is a local power outage, brownout, or blackout, one can always come to Lost Hills to Supercharge.
If you’ve got a Cybertruck, you could take advantage of the Cybertruck’s Powershare feature and charge up at Lost Hills to help keep your home powered during a blackout, utilizing the Cybertruck as a portable battery charger. Now that’s true independence and self-reliance.
The Future of Charging
Solar-powered Superchargers help avoid massive new loads on already stressed electrical grids, especially during peak afternoon and evening hours, when demand is the highest.
This is Tesla’s vision for the future of charging: a clean, fully closed-loop ecosystem that sustains itself. The sun’s energy is captured, stored, and delivered directly to vehicles on site at any time of day without relying on the electrical grid or fossil fuels.
Largest Supercharger in the World
This opening of 84 stalls is just the first phase of the project. Tesla says that the remaining stalls, as well as a new on-site lounge, are coming later this year. Once complete, the 168-stall site will be the largest Supercharger site in the world.
While the speed of building such a massive project in just eight months is a testament to Tesla’s execution, the true innovation is actually that self-sustainability. Let’s hope we see even more large, self-sufficient Supercharger sites across the world in the near future.
Elon Musk is once again seeking to expand Tesla’s vertical integration in the energy sector, this time focusing squarely on solar power. Following discussions on X that highlighted the massive gap in solar deployments between the US and China, Elon is now discussing the need for a Tesla Solar Gigafactory in the United States.
This potential move is driven by a specific catalyst: the exponential growth of AI is creating an insatiable demand for electricity. For Tesla and xAI, two of Elon’s companies betting their future on AI, building the power generation required is a strategic necessity.
A new factory wouldn’t just be about making panels; it would be about manufacturing the final missing piece in Tesla’s vertically integrated energy ecosystem.
Maybe there should be a solar Gigafactory in America
The context for this renewed focus is pretty stark. In May, China reportedly added a staggering 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity. In contrast, the United States installed approximately 14 GW over the entire first quarter, roughly 20 times less than China.
The primary driver of this demand is the revolution in AI. Training ever-larger and smarter AI models involves operating vast data centers, which consume staggering amounts of power. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have turned to small-scale nuclear reactors, with Microsoft petitioning to reopen the infamous Three Mile Island for its AI operations.
For Elon’s companies, whose future products like FSD, Optimus, and Grok are built on a foundation of real-world AI, securing a massive and sustainable energy supply isn’t a side quest. It is part of the main mission, especially in conjunction with grid-scale storage, such as Megapacks and Powerwalls. You can’t power a world of autonomous robots without a world of abundant, clean energy.
The Tesla Ecosystem
A US solar gigafactory would be the final, logical step in completing Tesla’s energy hardware ecosystem. While Tesla already manufactures some solar panels and the Tesla solar roof, the scale is too minuscule to matter.
By mass-producing its own panels, while also increasing Solar Roof production, Tesla would become a true one-stop shop for all things green energy. This would allow the company to supply its own large-scale projects, like the massive solar array for Project Oasis - the world’s largest Supercharger site.
It would also enable more complete residential packages, like the Giga-Small Haus concept home, combining Tesla-made panels and roofs with a Powerwall 3. This level of vertical integration would give Tesla complete control over the technology, cost, and supply of every major component in its energy ecosystem, from generation to storage to mobility.
Building a new Solar Gigafactory is about much more than just simply producing solar panels. It’s a requirement to power Tesla’s future products and make solar panels accessible to everyone.