Tesla just finished their Q2 earnings call, and CEO Elon Musk mentioned that the price of FSD Beta might be going up (again) by the end of this year.
Improved Framerate
FSD Beta has arguably gotten better over the years as Tesla has trained its neural nets and deprecated old ones. Musk stated that they will continue deleting older neural nets to improve the frame rate, which is currently 24fps. Removing the older neural nets will allegedly increase the frame rate up to 36fps.
This should allow for smoother interactions, especially when driving faster. Right now if you're driving 60 MPH, you're moving at a rate of 88 feet per second. If the car is interpreting 24fps, then it's analyzing its environment about every 3.6 feet.
Increasing the framerate to 36fps would lower this to about 2.4 feet, resulting in the vehicle having smoother reactions to its environment.
Musk explains this at the 27-minute mark in the Q2 earnings call.
FSD Beta Price Increase?
Musk has said that as it enhances its software feature set the price will continue to rise. They upped the price to $12,000 of FSD Beta earlier this year, up from $10,000, months before adding additional testers.
It’s difficult for some EV consumers to justify $12,000+ for non-physical features, which is why Tesla offers a subscription program for FSD. Musk didn’t clarify during the earnings call if the price of the subscription program would increase as well, but he did say that FSD is “currently ridiculously cheap.”
“The value of FSD is extremely high and not well understood by most people,” said Musk during the call. “It is basically currently ridiculously cheap, assuming FSD materializes, which it will.”
If Musk thinks FSD’s current price tag of $12,000 is ridiculously cheap, we can assume that FSD will most likely become quite more expensive over the next 5-10 years, especially as Tesla continues to collect more data from its fleet and add new features.
The EV automaker plans to push FSD Beta to all owners who purchased or subscribe in North America by the end of this year.
Many owners have requested that Tesla allow for the transfer of FSD and Autopilot purchases to future vehicles they purchase. All vehicles are delivered with the FSD hardware, and Tesla simply software locks them, which allows owners to buy FSD at any point after purchase.
This becomes more pressing for owners who are upgrading their vehicles.
FSD Beta Stats
Tesla also revealed how many FSD Beta testers they currently have. According to their 2022 Q2 earnings report, Tesla now has more than 100,000 drivers using FSD Beta across North America.
FSD Beta has now been driven for 35 million miles
Tesla
In the investors' report, Tesla also showed that there have now been more than 35 million miles driven with FSD Beta, more than any other automaker.
Tesla software update 2024.44.3 has started rolling out to customers in larger waves recently and it brings several new features - including Actually Smart Summon to Europe and the Middle East, as well as improvements to Autopark. But that’s not all, it also adds a new Blind Spot Monitoring feature to the new Model 3, and potentially the Cybertruck, but that’s still to be determined.
We previously covered the Blind Spot Warning While Parked as part of our preview notes for update 2024.44, but now that it's going out to customers, it's time to see it in action.
If the vehicle’s door open button is pressed, and a vehicle or object is near or incoming, the vehicle’s Blind Spot Warning Light (2024 Model 3 and Cybertruck) will illuminate, an audible tone will ring and the door won’t open. A message will also be displayed on the center displaying, letting driver’s know why the door didn’t open.
Pressing the button a second time will allow you to override the warning and open the door normally, providing a way to get out in case you just parked close to a nearby vehicle or obstacle.
The object detection for this new feature includes cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and other objects - like things including traffic cones, bollards, strollers, and other large obstacles that FSD and vision-based Autopark detect during normal operation. Of note - this only works for the front two doors. Thanks to X user Max, who did some testing for us, It does not work for the rear passenger doors.
Optional Feature
The feature is optional - it’ll be enabled by default for safety, but if you need to enable or disable it, you can do so under Controls > Safety. For now, the feature is only available on the 2024 Model 3, but we expect it to roll out to the Cybertruck at least. However, there’s no reason why it can’t be added to other vehicles as well, minus the small red dot. We expect Tesla to eventually add this feature to all Tesla vehicles, but it’s currently not a part of update 2024.44.
Enhauto’s S3XY Buttons & Commander
If that’s not enough safety and vision for you, Enhauto, the makers of the popular S3XY Buttons and Commander recently put out a new software update for the 2024 Model 3, which makes some fantastic use of the ambient lighting.
With Enhauto’s solution, users are able to tie their ambient lights to Autopilot use, turn signals or even if a vehicle is their blind spot. Check out the video below for this awesome implementation, where the ambient lights turn red when another vehicle approaches.
Maybe Tesla will integrate something like this into a future update? We’ve been hoping for more customizability with their ambient lighting - it's an easy safety win and a demonstration of Tesla’s do-more-with-less attitude.
I look forward to @enhauto updates more than Tesla...
Ambient light effects....
I set default color to white. Blinks green on turn signals Turns blue on FSD activation Yellow if someone in blind spot Blinks red if turn signal on and blind spot activity detected.
The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
This morning, in response to Dan Burkland, Wes shared that Tesla had significantly rewritten the backend portion of Trip Planner. These improvements, made by several engineers, were designed to improve Trip Planner’s accuracy and open the door to future features.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.
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