We’ve now uncovered more details on how Tesla achieved such drastic improvements in the vehicle’s power consumption, which Tesla estimated to be a 40% reduction.
Tesla made architectural changes to how it processes and analyzes video — optimizing which components handle which tasks. While the Cybertruck is the first to benefit from these advancements, Tesla plans to extend these upgrades to other vehicles in the future.
Sentry Mode Power Consumption
Tesla vehicles feature two main computers: the MCU (Media Control Unit) computer, which powers the vehicle’s infotainment center, and the FSD computer, which is responsible for Autopilot and FSD. Both of these computers remain on and powered any time the vehicle is awake, consuming about 250-300 watts.
Typically, the vehicle only uses this power while it’s awake or actively driving. It’s not a major concern since the car automatically goes to sleep and shuts down its computers after about 15 minutes of inactivity. However, the larger issue is that these computers also need to remain on when Sentry Mode is active, causing a 250-watt draw whenever Sentry Mode is on.
Interconnected System
Today, the vehicle’s cameras are connected to the FSD computer, which connects to the MCU, which is finally connected to the USB ports. Because of this interconnected setup, everything needs to remain powered. Footage needs to be streamed from the FSD computer into the MCU, where processes like motion detection occur. The data then needs to be compressed before finally being written to the USB drive. That’s a lengthy process, requiring multiple computers to remain on in order to be able to record and save live video.
Architectural Changes
Tesla is making some architectural changes to address Sentry Mode’s high power consumption by shifting the responsibilities of the vehicle’s computers. By shifting motion detection and possibly the compression activity to the FSD computer, Tesla will now be able to keep the MCU computer asleep. The MCU is still required to push the video to the USB drive, but Tesla can now wake up the system only when it’s needed.
For instance, the FSD computer will still handle the connection to the vehicle’s cameras, but it will now also detect motion. When that Sentry event occurs, it can wake up the MCU to write the data to the USB drive and then have it go back to sleep.
This approach ensures the MCU isn’t continuously powered to analyze and compress video, instead activating it only when data needs to be written.
Processor Isolation & Task Allocation
Tesla’s current architecture separates the Autopilot Unit (APU) from the MCU. This is done for several reasons - but first and foremost is safety. The MCU can be independently restarted even mid-drive without impacting the APU and key safety features.
Additionally, by isolating the APU from the MCU, tasks that are optimized for each unit—processing versus image transcoding—can be offloaded to the processing unit that’s better suited for it. This helps keep both the APU and MCU operating at their optimal power and performance parameters, helping to manage energy consumption more efficiently.
Kernel-Level Power Management
Tesla’s been working on more than just FSD or new vehicle visualization changes and has been putting in the effort to optimize the operating system’s underlying kernel. While not in heavy use, Tesla is underclocking the processors of both the MCU and APU, reducing power usage and heat generation.
Of course, other kernel optimizations and programming tricks, such as the ones Tesla uses to optimize its FSD models, also factor into the increased overall efficiency of the vehicles.
Additional Benefits
Since Tesla vehicles also include a Dashcam that processes video, it’s possible we may also see these additional power savings whenever the vehicle is awake. This could also affect other features, such as Tesla’s Summon Standby feature, which keeps the vehicle awake and processing video to give users almost instant access to the vehicle’s Summon feature.
Roll Out to Other Vehicles
While the Cybertruck was the only vehicle to receive these power improvements to Sentry Mode, we were told that they’re coming to other vehicles too. Tesla is introducing these changes with the Cybertruck first, leveraging its smaller user base for initial testing before expanding the rollout to other vehicles.
USB Port Power Management
To further conserve energy and reduce waste, Tesla now powers down USB ports, even if Sentry Mode is active. This change has impacted many users who rely on 12v sockets or USB ports to remain powered to keep accessories such as small vehicle refrigerators on.
It’s not immediately clear whether these changes to Sentry Mode impact this change or whether power to 12v outlets was removed strictly due to safety concerns.
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Late last night Tesla announced what’s coming in their Holiday update. The holiday update will be part of update 2024.44.25, which will start rolling out to customers later this month.
It looks like Tesla wanted to get out ahead of any potential leaks and covered what looks like will be most, if not all of the features in this year’s Holiday update.
Tesla App on Apple Watch
This one was leaked through an app update earlier this year, but we had no idea what the Watch app would look like, or whether it could be used as a phone key. Today, we had our first look at the app, and Tesla also confirmed that the Apple Watch could be used as a phone key.
The Watch app includes buttons at each corner, and it looks like you’ll be able to swipe between multiple vehicles. However, there are still many questions about how the app will function. Will the buttons be customizable? Are these same buttons available to add to the main screen of WatchOS?
Save Dashcam & Sentry Mode Clips to Phone
Not a Tesla App
This one has been a much requested feature. You’ll now be able to view your dashcam and Sentry Mode footage on your phone. In addition to being able to view the footage, you’ll also be able to save 30-second clips directly to your device.
Sentry Mode and Dashcam footage normally live on the USB drive in the vehicle, but Tesla didn’t mention how they’re getting the footage onto your phone. One of two scenarios is likely, either these clips on your phone are only the critical events that Tesla already sends to your device, and they’re now adding the ability to save these clips, or they’re streaming the video saved on the USB device to your phone.
The latter sounds very similar to what Tesla already does when streaming video from Actually Smart Summon to your phone, and we’re guessing that may be what’s happening here. However, expect this feature to require Premium Connectivity.
Autoshift Between Drive & Reverse on New Model 3
It would have been a big deal if this was applied to all Tesla models, but unfortunately, it only includes the New Model 3, which was already expected to receive this feature after the 2021+ Model S and Model X did earlier this year. In 2021, Musk said that Autoshift would eventually apply to all vehicles. Obviously, things can change, so we’re not sure whether Tesla still plans on making it available on older vehicles. For now, the new Model 3 can now automatically switch between Drive and Reverse when the vehicle comes to a stop.
SiriusXM
Over the summer, it was leaked that SiriusXM would be available as a streaming service in Teslas in the future. This was the perfect Holiday addition, so we’re not surprised to see this one listed. Tesla says that it will be available for the Model 3, Model Y and the Cybertruck. While the Model S and Model X already have satellite hardware, the other models will receive the streaming version of the service, which includes additional content.
While the dedicated hardware in the Model S and Model X can be nice since it doesn’t require a reliable internet connection, it does not include all content, so we’d love to see the streaming app come to the other models in the future.
We’ll have more details on this new addition, such as pricing, promos and more later today.
Set Arrival Energy at Destination
We’ll now finally be able to choose our desired state of charge when arriving at our destination. This will let the vehicle do the hard work of figuring out when, where, and how long to charge in order to get us to our destination with our desired amount of energy.
The image Tesla shared is from within the vehicle, which is definitely where this feature will be used more often, but due to changes to the iOS app, we expect this feature to also be added to the Tesla app with the Holiday update.
Search Along Route with Estimated Detour Times
Tesla has recently been improving its navigation system by adding a lot of features that are available in popular map apps. This latest addition lets you search for stops along your route, like a restaurant or coffee shop.
We would have much rather have seen improved maps with 3D buildings like Google Maps and Apple Maps use nowadays, or even the new maps that were launched in China, but looks like we’ll have to ask for that next Holiday season.
Precipitation Map & Weather at Destination
In addition to Superchargers, Points of Interest, Traffic and Satellite views, Tesla is introducing a new map overlay - Weather Precipitation.
When you tap on the weather icon on the far side of the screen, the map view switches to show precipitation levels, allowing you to view areas with rain or snow.
As is typically done in weather apps, the map shows an animation of precipitation over a time period, in this case, three hours.
Tesla’s headline says that you’ll also be able to view the weather at your destination, which sounds like a really nice addition, especially if Tesla uses an hourly weather chart and shows you the weather at the time of your arrival instead of current conditions.
We don’t have an image of what that will look like yet, but cover these features in more detail as soon as we have images and videos.
Rear Cross Traffic Alert
Rear cross-traffic alerts are finally coming. We had a lot of users asking for this over the years, and honestly, we’re surprised to see it since the camera’s field seems smaller than other vehicles that have dedicated sensors for such features. We’re not sure how early this feature will be able to warn drivers, but it’s a great addition. Even if someone is in view of your rear camera, there’s a chance you won’t see them, so getting a visual and audible reminder is a great thing.
TuneIn
Tesla says that TuneIn is going to see some improvements, but unfortunately don’t go into details on what the improvements are. They do mention that it’s free and doesn’t require you to sign in. For users who haven’t used TuneIn, it allows you to listen to radio stations from around the world. We feel that it’s an underutilized service.
There’s a lot of great content, but it’s not always easy to find, so we’re hoping some of the improvements are around discovery. If you have a sports team you follow that still airs on AM station, this could be your way to listen to games.
Schedule Light Show
While we were secretly hoping to be able to create Light Shows directly from the Tesla app, Tesla has added some other great additions. You can now start a Light Show directly from the app. Last year, Tesla added the ability to start a Light Show at a specific time, which lets you synchronize light shows across many vehicles.
In addition to being able to start the Light Show from the app, Tesla is also introducing two new Light Shows in the Christmas update, but we’ll have to wait and see what they are.
Boomerang Fu
A new game will be available called Boomerang Fu. I know — another game. However, this game, already available on major platforms, gets rave reviews for its great local multiplayer play.
Fart On Contact
The farts keep coming. With this addition to Tesla’s Emissions Testing, we’re all gaining a new option — the ability to have the vehicle play a fart noise when someone sits down. Sure, it sounds fun for those unsuspecting guests who sit in your vehicle once in a while.
Seats Control
Tesla is finally adding the ability to adjust seats through the screen. As someone who recently broke their seat controls on the driver seat, we’re excited to see this. However, the capabilities of this feature are really clear.
The headline Tesla used says “Adjust Passenger Seat,” but then the description says there’s a new Seats control panel, so we’re not sure right now what capabilities it will have besides being able to adjust the “unoccupied passenger seat, including the second-row seats.”
We’d love this to be a fully configurable seat panel, allowing you to adjust any powered seat in the vehicle and even create presets.
Maintenance Summary
This new Maintenance Summary sounds a lot like the Service History feature we covered last month. It may be the same thing, but potentially with an interface that doesn’t require you to dive into Service Mode.
— We’re still updating this article with more features for the Cybertruck and some smaller features. Check back shortly for more!
Last night Tesla finally launched FSD V13.2 with a bevy of new features for its early access testers with update 2024.39.10. While they barely missed Thanksgiving's floaty deadline, they still managed to deliver it in November, marking another big win for the Tesla AI team.
Early Access Only
FSD V13.2 started to roll out to early access testers - who generally get hands-on with the latest builds in advance of everyone else. They’re the equivalent of Tesla’s trusted testers who aren’t running internal builds - and they’re able to catch more scenarios outside of Tesla’s pretty extensive safety training suite.
If no major issues are spotted, Tesla will begin a slow rollout to more and more vehicles over the next few weeks. Assuming all goes well with this build, it could be in most customer’s hands by Christmas.
Of course, as a reminder, FSD V13 is still limited to vehicles equipped with AI4—and for now, anything but the Cybertruck. The Cybertruck is on its own FSD branch, without access to Actually Smart Summon and Speed Profiles, but with End to End on the Highway. The Cybertruck was recently upgraded to update 2024.39.5 (FSD V12.5.5.3).
FSD V13.2 Features
Let’s take a look at everything in FSD V13.2 - which is the build version going out now on Tesla software update 2024.39.10. While we previously got a short preview of what was expected with V13, we now can see everything included in FSD V13.2.
Start FSD from Park, Reverse & Park at Destination
Parked to Parked has been the goal for FSD for quite a while now. Elon Musk has been saying that it was going to be the key to demonstrating Tesla’s autonomy framework back with the release of V12.3.6 - when V12.5 was but a glimmer in the Tesla AI team’s eye.
Now, with V13, FSD has integrated three key functionalities.
Unpark: FSD can now be started while you’re still parked. Simply set your destination and tap and hold the new Start FSD button. The car will now shift out of park and into drive or reverse in order to get to its destination.
Reverse: FSD has finally gained the ability to shift. Not only can the vehicle go into reverse now, but it can seamlessly shift between Park, Drive and Reverse all by itself. It can be perform 3-point turns.
Park: When FSD reaches its destination, it will now park itself if it finds an open parking spot near the final location. Tesla says that further improvements are coming to this, and drivers will be able to pick between pulling over, parking in a parking spot, driveway or garage in the future.
If everything goes smoothly on a drive, users will no longer need to give the vehicle any input at all, from its original location to its final parking spot. No more user intervention other than supervision is needed, unless an intervention is needed.
I tried to get FSD 13.2 to park in my garage but it instead did a 3 point turn and tried to escape 😱 pic.twitter.com/EzEYcNvuuA
Until now, FSD V12.5 and V12.6 have been using reduced image quality at reduced framerates to match the lower resolution and lower refresh rate provided by Hardware 3 cameras. For the first time, FSD will be using AI4’s (previously known as Hardware 4) cameras at higher resolution and 36 frames per second.
In short, that means better image quality for both training and in use and higher accuracy for things like signage and distance measurement.
Speed Profiles for All Roads
FSD V12.5.6.2 brought new and improved Speed Profiles to both city streets and highways, including the new Hurry Mode, which replaced Assertive Mode. However, on V12.5.6.2, there were a few limitations - roads needed a fairly high minimum speed limit of 50mph (80km/h) or higher. Now, that’s no more. City Streets has speed profiles for all speed limits now.
Cortex, Tesla’s massive new supercomputer cluster at Giga Texas, is now online and crunching data at a truly insane rate. It's one of the fastest AI clusters in the world—and it's dedicated to FSD. Tesla has 5x the training compute crunching away to solve the March of 9’s now that FSD is close to being feature complete.
Faster Decision Making
Tesla refactored how it handles image-to-processing in FSD V13 - another huge set of changes to improve performance. In this release - a 2x faster photon-to-control latency, which is massive. In layman’s terms - that’s faster decision-making - it was already faster than a human, and now it's twice as fast as it was before.
Insane product push on the week of my birthday.
We refactored the entire system to drastically simplify the pipeline — direct photons to control — yet providing a lot more functionality under the same unify framework.
One of the features Tesla lists in FSD V13.2 is the ability for the vehicle to collect and share audio snippets with Tesla. The vehicle will ask you whether you’re okay with sharing 10-second audio files with Tesla so that the vehicle can detect emergency vehicles by sound in the future.
Camera Visibility Detection
The vehicle will now prompt you at the end of a drive if visibility issues are detected. The new option is under Controls > Service > Camera Visibility. Tesla will also retain images from the cameras when the vehicle experiences visibility issues during a drive so that you can analyze them later.
One of the features V12.5 was supposed to bring was fleet-based dynamic routing. If a route was closed, your Tesla would turn around and navigate through an alternative path - and also warn the rest of the fleet of the closure.
V13 lets AI4 vehicles do this, and it's another element of the Robotaxi network that Tesla needs to get off the ground to ensure that once they do begin to deploy their first fleets - they function well. So far, with new job postings for Robotaxi Engineers and talks with Palo Alto to launch a Robotaxi service, things are on track for both Unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi sometime in 2025.
Better Traffic Controller
Another big update is a redesigned traffic controller - which makes for smoother and more accurate tracking of other vehicles and objects around the vehicle. We dug into how the traffic controller processes information in this article here, where you can learn all about how Tesla’s signal processing works.
Tesla has mentioned a lot of upcoming improvements panel for FSD V13 too, which includes bigger models, audio inputs, better navigation and routing, improvements to false braking, destination options, and better camera occlusion handling. That’s a pretty big list for V13, so we’ll keep an eye on all these upcoming features that are expected in a future release.
What About Hardware 3?
Tesla’s previous roadmap update didn’t mention HW3 getting FSD V13. Instead, those of us on Hardware 3 will need to keep waiting and looking for Tesla to optimize another FSD Model - until then, you’ll be on FSD V12.5.4.2, which is still a fairly capable build.
Tesla has mentioned that they could potentially upgrade HW3 computers - not cameras - if engineers aren’t able to get FSD Unsupervised working on HW3. While there isn’t a lot to share here yet, it certainly looks like HW3 owners will be receiving some sort of free hardware upgrade in the future, but it’s not clear yet when or what they will be.
Keep an eye out in the new year for updates on what’s coming next with HW3. We hope to see an optimized V13 build eventually make its way to HW3 sometime in the future - Tesla has been working pretty hard on this, so let’s give them some time.
Release Date
For everyone who’s been patiently waiting to see more of FSD V13 since the sneaky reveal at We, Robot, you’ll be waiting a bit longer. This build is currently going out to early access testers, who serve as a critical step in Tesla’s safety verification process.
Once Tesla is comfortable with the rate of disengagement, Tesla will evaluate their results, make any final changes, and then begin rolling it out in waves. Fingers crossed, wider waves for V13 will make their way to AI4 S3XY vehicles and the Cybertruck by Christmas.
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