Legacy Tesla Model S and Model X to Receive Actually Smart Summon and Potentially Sentry Mode Live Access

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla’s Head of Autopilot and AI, Ashok Elluswamy, has confirmed on X that legacy Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles will get Actually Smart Summon in Q4 2024. The end of Q4 2024 for Tesla would be approximately January 24th, 2025.

That’s still a few months away, but for legacy vehicle owners, it's still a sigh of relief – as there was nothing mentioned in the release notes, or anywhere in Tesla’s AI Roadmap of when and if legacy vehicles would be receiving these features.

Legacy Vehicles

These legacy vehicles, in particular, were vehicles before the refresh in 2021 but after the arrival of MCU2 (Intel) and Hardware 3. Legacy vehicles can be updated from MCU 1 (NVIDIA) to MCU 2 (Intel) and from HW 2.5 to HW3, so all vehicles after 2016 could gain access to Actually Smart Summon.

According to Greentheonly, the cameras in these vehicles are implemented differently than in other Tesla models, where raw camera feeds are supported. This makes it harder for Tesla to stream video from the vehicle’s cameras to the Tesla app, which Actually Smart Summon uses.

Sentry Mode Live Access

Legacy vehicles also don’t have access to Live Sentry Mode cameras – they can’t upload that data live to Tesla’s servers, and then off to the owner’s app. In order to get Actually Smart Summon functional on these legacy vehicles, Tesla will have to essentially implement Live Sentry Mode – which could be a big win for legacy vehicle owners.

Legacy Vehicles are missing more than just that, though. Due to hardware restrictions, different screen ratios, and more, they’re also missing additional features such as auto seat heaters and blind-spot/turn signal camera feeds. However, getting Sentry Mode Live Access would be a very welcomed feature if Tesla decided to add it with the addition of Actually Smart Summon.

It’s highly likely that all the camera rendering and upload pipeline is tied closely together with Actually Smart Summon, and that the lack of processing capability is the restricting condition for these vehicles.

We’re excited to see Tesla is open to continuing to support for legacy hardware and vehicles, especially given how Hardware 3 will continue receiving support in the future, and MCU1 vehicles received Automatic Emergency Braking and Forward Collision Warning improvements, alongside FSD V12.3.6.

Tesla Improves A.S.S. in Update 2024.32.10: List of Improvements, Custom USB Sounds, Rolls Out Enhanced Autopilot Users

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla released FSD V12.5.4.1 with software update 2024.32.10, just a day after launching FSD V12.5.5 in update 2024.32.20. This is good for several reasons, but they’ve also included improvements for Actually Smart Summon, which Tesla mentions in the release notes.

This build was released to early access testers last night and will likely roll out wider within the week.

Update 2024.32

First, non-FSD builds have been on 2024.32 for quite a while now, and it looks like this will be the big branch merge to bring FSD V12.5.4 (and V12.5.5) to the latest feature branch. Once 2024.32.10 begins to roll out en masse, owners in North America will soon be able to subscribe to FSD and get the latest FSD version.

On top of that, 2024.32.6 brings a bunch of new features with it, including the big updates for hands-free frunk and hands-free trunks.

Available to Enhance Autopilot Users

Update: This is now rolling out this update to users who have bought Enhanced Autopilot as well, and not just vehicles with FSD. This is the first step to expanding Actually Smart Summon globally. Summon capabilities are included for vehicles with Enhanced Autopilot or higher. Enhanced Autopilot is still available for purchase in some regions, but hasn’t been available in North America since Tesla lowered the price of FSD.

Actually Smart Summon Changes

The changelog for Actually Smart Summon for this build is short but adds a few items that users had already identified as needing some work. Tesla is pushing these updates out all in short order – all ahead of the upcoming Robotaxi event.

Improved Public/High-Speed Road Aborts: This one is fairly valuable, as Actually Smart Summon does not function on public roads or anything that has a higher speed. On the current build of A.S.S., it will just stop the vehicle before turning onto a public road. We’re hoping to see the vehicle either properly pull over, or turn around as required and continue back into the parking lot.

Improved Blocked Camera Aborts: The next update is improved block camera aborts, which should be similar, except instead of stopping for public roads or high-speed roads, A.S.S. stops when the cameras are covered up. This improvement should reduce false-stops and increase confidence.

Reduced False Positive Collision Mitigation Aborts: Third we’ve got reduced false positive collision mitigation aborts – again – A.S.S. stops if it believes there will be a collision. It has been fairly cautious in the current build, leaving a wide berth between it and any obstacles. Now that Tesla has gotten training data from the many drivers who have been using it since it was released, there will be fewer false positives going forward.

Refined Dumb Summon: We’re not sure what improvements are here, but it looks like there are general improvements to the previous forward/backward Summon version.

Update 2024.32.10

FSD Supervised 12.5.4.1
Installed on 0.5% of fleet
24 Installs today
Last updated: Oct 2, 12:35 pm UTC

Custom Sounds

@reggieoverton / X

Update: We initially uncovered new summon options in FSD 12.5.4, where you could now have the vehicle play a sound when Summon completes or is aborted. We covered the new options as an undocumented change in our release notes, but Tesla has now expanded its functionality.

With update 2024.32.10, Tesla now lets you pick from a custom sound from your USB drive to play when Actually Smart Summon completes. This is in addition to the previous sound clip choices of Applause, Ta Da, Ba-dum Tiss and a random sound. Tesla also added “fart” as one of the sound choices, which was previously only played when Actually Smart Summon was aborted.

For now, FSD users can look forward to getting improvements to Actually Smart Summon and the features in update 2024.32 and non-FSD users can look forward to subscribing to FSD and receiving the latest FSD build in the near future.

Tesla FSD V12.5.5 Adds End-to-End Highway Stack; Tesla Teases Upcoming Features

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

Tesla has launched FSD V12.5.5 with update 2024.32.20, which has just hit early access testers. This update includes several new things, including the new end-to-end highway stack and bringing FSD to the Cybertruck for the first time. Tesla also outlined additional features to expect in future revisions of FSD.

The End-to-End part of the stack means that rather than hand-coding all the decision-making directly into FSD, Tesla now relies upon AI, trained upon hundreds of thousands of hours of footage gathered by its fleet, to make decisions.

This is key to rapid improvements and will help to bring Unsupervised FSD – and Robotaxi – to realization. We’re especially excited to see these improvements with the Robotaxi event just around the corner.

End-to-End Highway Stack

FSD V12 brought the End-to-End stack to City Streets, and the Highway Stack was still running FSD V11. With this update, end-to-end AI will now be used on the highway, which should be a considerable improvement.

When End-to-End was introduced on city streets, it brought some drastic improvements in how FSD was handled between V11.4.9 and V12.3.6. There’s likely going to be a similar level of improvement between FSD V12.5.4 on the highway and FSD V12.5.5 on the highway.

As of today, FSD still tends to sit in the left lane, Auto-Speed doesn’t function on the highway, and the speed limit can change drastically where it's incorrectly mapped.

With the end-to-end highway stack, we could see FSD correctly use the left lane to overtake vehicles and then come back into the middle or right lane, as required. In addition, we could see Tesla add Auto-Speed functionality for the highway so that the vehicle is able to more fluidly respond to changes in traffic and speed more naturally.

Upcoming Improvements

In the release notes for FSD 12.5.5, Tesla also updated the list of features coming in future FSD versions, some of which Tesla hadn’t previously discussed or mentioned in the FSD Roadmap. In Tesla’s release notes, they specifically mention these upcoming improvements:

  • Earlier and more natural lane change decisions

  • Improved performanec in parking lots

  • Improved performance at intersections and stops

  • Introduction of Speed Profile

Earlier and More Natural Lane Changes

First off, Tesla mentions earlier and more natural lane change decisions. We’ve seen this one pop up before, and it's definitely a pain point for Tesla. Even today on FSD V12.5.4, FSD will still sometimes make lane change decisions within less than 200 feet of a turn, moving you from the far right to the left turning lane in a short space.

Addressing this will greatly help how smooth FSD will feel.

Improved Performance in Parking Lots

Tesla also mentions improved parking lot performance as coming soon. This particular enhancement to FSD will likely help improve Actually Smart Summon so that it can expand beyond FSD-specific updates and become available to more users. This will allow users with Enhanced Autopilot and owners outside of North America to gain access to Actually Smart Summon for the first time. Currently, Actually Smart Summon is available to users in North America with 2024.27.25.

In addition, we’re expecting Banish – also known as Reverse Summon – to rely upon these improvements. Banish will allow your vehicle to drop you off at an entrance to a location, and then find a parking stall, and park itself. This is going to be another key item for Robotaxi and Unsupervised FSD and is one of the items we’re the most excited about.

Improved Performance at Intersections and Stops

FSD V12.5 brought along some oddities regarding intersections. Owners have been reporting FSD stopping for green lights or double braking on stop signs. This feature is likely to target some of these existing issues.

While FSD V12.5 also brought pretty drastic improvements for roundabouts, there are still some issues with signalling and lane selection in multi-lane roundabouts, so maybe they’ll address those here as well. This is a pretty broad category, so we can only imagine what they’ll be doing here.

Introduction of Speed Profile

We previously reported that Elon Musk wanted to add a new FSD drive mode. It appears that FSD’s Assertive Mode will become “Hurry Mode.” However, based on the release notes, Tesla seems to imply that it may not be called Hurry Mode but instead Speed Mode. This mode will likely be an option that tells FSD to go a bit faster and also become more aggressive with overtaking – something that has become more common and much smoother with FSD V12.5. This is going to be an interesting addition or change, and we’ll be sure to dig into it more in the future when it becomes available.

Release Date

Tesla’s Autopilot director Ashok Elluswamy posted on X that while the Cybertruck is receiving FSD 12.5.5 with the end-to-end highway stack, don’t expect it to roll out to other vehicles immediately. Tesla prioritized getting this out for the Cybertruck and they’re still working on getting the highway stack ready for other vehicles. Ashok said that he expects Tesla to have an internal build ready in about a week or so. With Tesla’s robotaxi event just 10 days out, it sounds like this won’t arrive on customer vehicles until after the event.

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