Tesla’s former AI Director, Andrej Karpathy, recently made an appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast. Karpathy is an AI researcher, engineer, educator and a founding member of OpenAI. He spoke with Fridman on a variety of topics, including AI, his departure from Tesla, and his interest in returning to the company.
Karpathy’s five-year tenure at Tesla was a pivotal part of the company's AI development. During his time with the company, he helped advance Tesla's self-driving system from lane-keeping on highways to partially autonomous driving on city streets.
After taking a four-month sabbatical, Karpathy parted ways with Tesla in July 2022. When Karpathy announced he was leaving Tesla, he said it was a difficult decision and thanked the Tesla Autopilot team, looking forward to seeing their momentum continue. Karpathy also stated that he wanted to spend more time on his long-term passions including AI technology, open source, and education.
From the podcast, we learned more details about what led to Karpathy's departure (1 hour, 44 minute mark). Apparently, his role at the company had developed into more of a managerial position, which drifted away from his passion for technical work in AI.
Karpathy said, “I think over time during those five years; I’ve kind of gotten myself into a little bit of a managerial position. Most of my days were, you know, meetings and growing the organization and making decisions about sort of high-level strategic decisions about the team and what it should be working on and so on.”
“And it’s kind of like a corporate executive role, and I can do it. I think I’m okay at it, but it’s not like fundamentally what I enjoy, and so I think when I joined, there was no computer vision team because Tesla was just going from the transition of using Mobileye, a third-party vendor, for all of its computer vision to having to build its computer vision system. So when I showed up, there were two people training deep neural networks.”
Elon Musk was quick to react to Karpathy's interview, stating on Twitter that "Andrej will always be welcome at Tesla."
Karpathy played a key role in Tesla's FSD development and it would be great to see him return for a second act. Based on his interview, it sounds like he may be interested in returning to Tesla to work on the Optimus, Tesla's humanoid robot.
Karpathy's Interview
You can watch Karpathy’s full interview with Lex Fridman below.
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Tesla has released software update 2024.38 to its employees for its last round of internal testing. We now have preliminary release notes for this update.
It looks like this update will be smaller and focus on two main changes. However, keep in mind that there could be additional features that may only apply to certain regions or vehicles that are not mentioned here.
The two features are the ability to use Spotify with a free Spotify account (still requiring Premium Connectivity), and improvements to the vehicle’s side mirror functions.
We’ve recently been able to confirm these changes with an employee.
Spotify
Since Premium Connectivity’s free Spotify Premium (for Europeans only) is going the way of the dodo, it looks like Tesla and Spotify will now allow you to log in to your Spotify account with a free account, at least in Europe and Australia. Tesla also recently announced that vehicles in North America that use the “Streaming” app will now be changed to a free version of Slacker that will include ads and other limitations.
If the ability to use Spotify for free is limited to Europe and Australia, where these users already had free access to Spotify Premium, then this isn’t a huge deal. However, if Tesla and Spotify now allow you to stream Spotify in your vehicle with a free account, that will be a huge win for many owners. The free version of Spotify has limited skips and includes ads. Other music services require you to have a premium or paid subscription before allowing you to stream in the vehicle. In either case, you’ll still need Tesla’s Premium Connectivity plan to stream music over the vehicle’s connection, or you could use your phone’s hotspot feature.
Side Mirrors
The side mirrors are finally getting some additional customization options with two improvements.
First, you will now be able to customize the side mirror’s tilt when reversing. By default, a Tesla’s side mirrors will angle downwards while reversing to provide a better perspective of what’s close to the edges of your vehicle, rather than your blind spots. You’ll now be able to customize the level of tilt when this happens. To adjust the tilt angle, go to Controls > Mirrors > Adjust Tilt Position.
This will help folks who are either taller or shorter than the norm – you’ll now be able to customize the angles to better suit you. It’s a simple update, but a much-appreciated one!
Next up for the side mirrors – you’ll be able to fold them in the quick menu. That’s the menu that pops up when you press and hold down the left scroll wheel. You’ll also be able to unfold them from the quick menu as well.
Other Updates
Similar to other recent updates, Tesla now has an Other Updates section where they list smaller features that don’t warrant their own release notes.
In this section, Tesla outlines four improvements, although only two are noteworthy. One of them is the ability to manually fold the side mirrors using the quick function that we talked about above and the other is improvements to the WiFi menu. The four points Tesla mentions in their release notes are:
- The Wi-Fi menu provides more information about your Wi-Fi connection as well as tips for improving your connection.
- Hold down the left scroll wheel and select Fold Mirrors to fold the mirrors in or out.
- This update contains important security fixes and improvements
- This version contains minor fixes and improvements
This update is expected to start rolling out to users in the next week or two, so it won’t take long now before we have the full release notes for this update available.
Tesla has opened up its configurator for non-Foundation Series Cybertrucks to reservation holders in the United States. The non-Foundation Series doesn’t come with all of the extras of the Foundation Series, but it’s quite a bit cheaper.
The Foundation Series includes laser-etched badges on the exterior, an internal cabin graphic on the dash, FSD, lifetime Premium Connectivity, Powershare Mobile Connector + a discounted Powershare Install, $2,500 USD (or $3,500 CAD) of Tesla Shop Credit, and some additional premium accessories. The Foundation Series Cyberbeast also comes with the Off-Road Lightbar.
Although the non-Foundation Series vehicles will not include these additional features, you can add most of them a-la-carte, such as Premium Connectivity, Powershare Wall Connector, FSD and others. The special edition badging and early access are the major things you’ll be missing out on.
Non-Foundation Series
The AWD Cybertruck now starts at $79,990 in the US and is expected to start at $109,990 in Canada, while the Tri-motor Cyberbeast is available for $99,990 in the US or $135,990 in Canada.
The AWD Cybertruck is currently NOT eligible for the Federal EV Tax Rebate in the US. If it was, it would bring the at-purchase price down to $72,500. It seems it is only eligible for the Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit, which can only be claimed when using the vehicle for commercial purposes.
In Canada, it is eligible for the Federal Heavy iZEV Rebate and excluded from the luxury tax due to its weight, thereby bringing the price down to $104,990 before tax—making it less expensive than the Model S or Model X Long Range.
It seems that Tesla intends to begin deliveries right away, as the emails state, “Your Cybertruck Is Ready for Delivery.” Tesla is likely sending these invites to early reservation holders who did not convert their orders to the Foundation Series and to those who made the $1,000 deposit for the Foundation Series but decided not to continue with those vehicles.
So far, these invites have only been sent to early reservation holders and will likely roll out further as orders are converted and stock becomes available. Tesla previously mentioned that they had over 2 million deposits for the Cybertruck, and that number was only climbing. We’re excited to see how fast they roll through the backlog.
Early reservation holders will also find the price of FSD maintained at $7,000 USD (FSD price history), as per the original booking price. The white interior costs an additional $2,000 USD, while changing from the Core Wheels to the Cyber Wheels is an additional $3,500 USD.
There is no news yet of these invites being sent out to Mexican or Canadian reservation holders at this time. The FS Cybertruck just began deliveries in Mexico, and they’re expected to begin deliveries in Canada around late October to early November.
![Tesla Launches FSD for the Cybertruck With Update 2024.32.20 (FSD 12.5.5) [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-screen/cybertruck-full-screen.jpg/20136002e8c6c2b1ecc74a27e07a9602/cybertruck-full-screen.jpg)
