Tesla drops Safety Score to 80; sends FSD Beta to new testers

By Kevin Armstrong
Tesla is expanding the FSD Beta pool
Tesla is expanding the FSD Beta pool
Not a Tesla App

Tesla is finally expanding the FSD Beta to more testers who have been patiently waiting and maintaining high Safety Scores.

Elon Musk announced the expansion on Twitter and said Tesla would expand the beta to 160,000 testers in the United States and Canada, up from 100,000.

He has said the program could only improve with more real-world driving data input. The real-world experience could have been drivers achieving nearly perfect Safety Scores.

Lower Safety Score

Tesla has now lowered the Safety Score required to get into the FSD Beta program. Anyone in the U.S. or Canada or who has driven more than 100 miles with a Safety Score of 80 is now eligible to receive the beta.

Early this morning owners began waking up to a surprise update from Tesla. Tesla started sending out the latest FSD Beta, 10.69.2.2 (update 2022.20.17) to new testers overnight.

Only for those on 2022.20 or earlier?

It appears that those receiving the beta have been on a version of 2022.20 or earlier. Owners on update 2022.24 or 2022.28 haven't been offered the beta yet.

It's possible Tesla wants to prevent rolling owners backward in terms of updates, causing some features to be removed. Potentially features that the owners may have just started getting used to such as blind spot camera placement, alternate routes, or other features included in update 2022.24 or 2022.28.

Elon has already commented on the next version of FSD Beta, revealing that it will be beta 10.69.3 and it's expected to be released shortly after AI Day Part II. This version could be based on update 2022.24 or 2022.28 and include testers currently on those updates.

Update 2022.20.17

FSD 10.69.2.2
Installed on 0% of fleet
0 Installs today
Last updated: Jul 7, 3:02 am UTC

For those unfamiliar, just because someone purchases FSD doesn’t mean they have access to the FSD Beta. No, the driver is graded by Tesla and given a score. That score has to be above a certain point to be enrolled in the FSD Beta. Tesla’s CEO has said that more than 100 million FSD miles should be logged by the end of 2022. In July, that number stood at 35 million miles. Of course, to triple that number, more testers are needed.

In August, Tesla’s CEO was confident FSD had a breakthrough and told shareholders the next update would be so great that he had to break the order of numbers, “… we’ve made some pretty significant architectural improvements. So, it is really more than 10.12 to 10.13 release. It might, I don’t want to speak too soon, but it might qualify for 10.69. It has to earn that, obviously!”

While the price of FSD continues to go up, Musk says this about making the roads safer, “We’re solving a very important part of AI and one that can ultimately save millions of lives. And prevent 10 of millions of serious injuries by driving just an order of magnitude safer than people.”

Autonomous vehicles have been a goal for years. Musk publicly discussed it in 2017 and believed the feat could be done in two years. However, a few months ago, he admitted it was a much more significant challenge than he predicted. “The sheer amount of work required to do this boggles the mind,” he told the Tesla Owners Club of Silicon Valley. “I’ve seen a lot of tough technology problems, and solving real-world AI such that a car can drive itself is one of the hardest problems I’ve ever seen. It is way harder than I originally thought, by far.”

Since 10.69 was released on August 20, updates have included several improvements to FSD. The most recent update can be found here. Now with 60% more users, there will be more updates to address what Teslas are experiencing. Plus, there is already FSD Beta 10.69.3 expected just after AI Day on September 30.

Have you just received Tesla's FSD Beta for the first time? Let us know in our forum.

World’s Largest Tesla Supercharger: 168 Stalls, 100% Off-Grid, Powered by Sun and Battery Storage

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

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

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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.

The future lounge
The future lounge
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Elon Musk Considers Solar Gigafactory in North America to Power AI Boom

By Karan Singh
Not a Tesla App

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.

Catching Up to China

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.

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