Tesla pushed FSD V12.5 with update 2024.20.10 to additional vehicles last night. For the first time, FSD v12.5 also went out to additional Tesla models, however, it’s still limited to hardware 4 vehicles.
Support for FSD V12.5
FSD V12.5 is only available to vehicles with hardware 4 vehicles, or as Tesla is now calling the hardware, AI4. Before yesterday the update was limited to just Model Y vehicles on HW4, but Tesla quickly expanded it to all vehicles besides the Cybertruck and Semi, which has yet to see any Autopilot features.
Musk commented on X that he wanted to focus on improving the software on specific hardware before expanding it to additional hardware and vehicles.
FSD v12.5 has a 5X increase in operating parameters. This is a large increase and Musk said that it currently won’t be able to run on hardware 3 until the code is optimized.
We are focusing on just Model Y with HW4 for the initial release. Make sure that works well, then broaden.
This has the 5X increase in parameters.
HW3 would run the same parameter count, but requires extra work to optimize the code.
Ashok Elluswamy, Head of AP at Tesla, also mentioned that the focus for V12.5 was on both safety and smoothness for this release. His personal test – not spilling an open cup of coffee while on FSD. On V12.5, Ashok made it 30 minutes without spilling coffee. This is good news, as the smoother and safer FSD gets, the more natural it feels for the driver and occupants in other vehicles.
HW4/AI4
Following all this up is a recent post on X from Elon mentioning that Hardware 4 will now be renamed to AI 4. Tesla is already training the HW4 computers in a loop with Nvidia GPUs, at a 1:2 ratio. This is surprising news, as Musk previously mentioned that training for Hardware 4/AI4 would only begin after the new Supercomputer cluster was finished.
It's good to see that training is already underway for AI4, but this also means we’re hitting the limits of Hardware 3 pretty fast. It has been mentioned that there will be a drastic hardware divergence in the future between Hardware 3 and AI4, but we weren’t expecting that until later this year.
This means that updates may get better, as Tesla’s AI4 is approximately 4-5x better in terms of resolution and fidelity than hardware 3, and hardware 4.0 is about 3-5x faster and more powerful in inference capabilities.
AI5
With AI5 scheduled 18 months away, including a 10x inferencing improvement, we’re wondering what the future of Hardware 3 and AI4 will look like within the next 3 to 5 years. Cars are long-time purchases for many people, and we’re hoping that Tesla continues to do their best work to optimize code wherever possible to continue supporting Hardware 3.
Tesla has specifically come out and said it doesn’t plan to support a retrofit from Hardware 3 to Hardware 4, likely due to the differing locations of electrical and coolant connections, as well as the form factor of the compute units themselves.
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Following its recent launch in the United States and Canada, Tesla has launched their referral program in several European countries as well.
The program is available in Germany, Norway, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and possibly others. The program is almost the same as the one available today in North America, with rewards for each referral and a discount for those referred. The cap in Europe is also ten per year.
This program comes right on the heels of a 0% financing offer for the Model Y in Sweden and France. While referrals aren't currently available in Sweden, the 0% financing still is.
European Referrals
The European Referral program accounts for country and local currency, where applicable.
Country
Referral Discount
Referral Award
UK
£1,000
£500
Germany, France, Netherlands
€1,000
€500
Norway
kr11,500
kr5,750
The referral reward program is comparable to the one available in North America. After exchange rates, there is only an approximately 10% difference between the available rewards in the US and EU.
Other Countries
We expect this program to start rolling out to other European countries over the next few days or weeks, as Tesla continues to expand its referral program.
Tesla has confirmed that they submit app updates for Android and iOS apps at the same time, but we often see the iOS app updates released first possibly due to a quicker app review process at Apple.
However, we often see features implemented on the Apple version weeks or months before they’re implemented on Android. Today, the Android app is missing several key features, and the gap is starting to become a bit glaring.
Delayed App Updates
The Android app just received update 4.36.6 last night, while the Apple update was available as of September 1st.
That might not seem like a big deal, but in order to use the updated Actually Smart Summon, you’ll need app version 4.36.6, so any Andriod users that received update 2024.27.20 with the new Summon, couldn’t use it until yesterday.
We’re sure Tesla is on it, but it’s disappointing to see that key feature updates take days or a week longer to receive on Android. Apple and Google both offer the ability to set a release date for an app update, so Tesla could coordinate releasing the apps at the same time.
Ultra Wideband Support
Unfortunately, there’s no Ultra Wide Band (UWB) support on Android yet, which is an interesting omission since it’s such a great feature. Most Android phones, flagships, and cheaper phones alike, all support UWB.
Without UWB support Android phones can’t use Tesla’s newest phone key, which is only available for devices that support UWB. The new phone key improves reliability for unlocking the vehicle and setting the correct Tesla driver profile. To support the new phone key, you need a compatible phone (iPhone 11 or newer) and a newer vehicle that supports ultra wideband.
Hands-Free Trunk
Tesla’s new hands-free trunk feature, which allows you to automatically open your trunk by simply standing behind it for a couple of seconds, also isn’t available on Android devices. Tesla’s Hands-Free Trunk requires UWB support too, and Tesla originally mentioned it was coming to Android in May 2024.
For now, those are the features we know of that don’t work on Android today, and we’re hoping that Tesla brings both UWB support, as well as simultaneous app updates to the Google Play and Apple App Store by leveraging each store’s publish date feature.
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