Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving' takes another step, version 12.5 rolling out

30 July 2024

Tesla has begun the wide release of its latest Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, version 12.5. While CEO Elon Musk has used the occassion to once again promise the imminent arrival of fully unsupervised self-driving, we should probably know better by now.

This latest FSD update, is now hitting vehicles equipped with Tesla's Hardware 4 (HW4) suite of sensors and processors. Owners of older Tesla models with HW3 will have to wait as the company grapples with optimizing the software for the less powerful hardware. Musk himself estimates this delay to be around ten days, but history suggests it could take longer.

The gap between HW3 and HW4 performance underscores a growing concern among Tesla watchers: Is the company's older hardware capable of supporting the increasingly complex software required for FSD in its current state, let alone actual autonomous driving? With each update demanding more processing power, it's next to certain that HW3 will be unable to ever achieve the promised level of autonomy.

For those fortunate enough to have HW4, version 12.5 promises significant improvements. Musk has claimed that drivers could go a year without needing to intervene, a bold statement that has been met with skepticism. Even Tesla enthusiasts, while eager to test the new software, find such a claim hard to believe.

The merging of highway and street driving stacks, a feature expected to improve the system's ability to handle complex driving scenarios, has been delayed until a later update, yet again. This further tempers expectations for version 12.5 and highlights the challenges Tesla faces in integrating the diverse requirements of different driving environments.

Despite the lingering doubts and delays, the release of FSD 12.5 marks another step in Tesla's pursuit of autonomous driving. While the promises made by the CEO may never be fullfilled by the current crop of vehicles, the progress made so far is undeniable.

Via