Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Full Self-Driving Beta (FSD Beta) will not run on newer Tesla Model Y units. These all-electric crossovers are equipped with the Hardware 4 suite, dubbed as the next-gen internals needed to take the advanced driver-assistance system to its next development stage. Having robotaxis on the road won't happen anytime soon. Here's the gist of it.
UPDATE 8.29.2023 - Tesla has enabled FSD Beta for all Hardware 4-equipped vehicles.
We have previously shared with you the story of a 2023 Tesla Model Y owner who embarked on a long journey and thought it would be great to try out FSD Beta. The ADAS could have helped them lessen the burden of driving on highways for longer periods. But it didn't.
Long story short, they were allowed to pay for the software and, after installing it, figured out it wouldn't work because the vehicle received a new "brain." That's what Tesla calls the Hardware 4 (HW4), a suite comprising cameras and a powerful computer that can emulate what humans do and act as them.
Tesla didn't let anyone outside the company know that Model Ys built from May 2023 onwards would feature HW4. It just replaced HW3, on which FSD Beta can run, with HW4 and called it a day. It later introduced a bullet point in its online shop saying the actual self-driving part (called autosteer to appease regulators) would be coming soon.
Now, Elon Musk has let everyone know precisely how soon FSD Beta would start working for customers who paid $15,000 for the software suite. According to the executive, it will be "at least another six months" before it's activated.
He explained that the focus is Hardware 3, which can handle even the no-code and neural-networks-only FSD V12. Elon Musk demoed it in a live drive in the Palo Alto area. Only after FSD is "working super well" on HW3 will HW4 become the center of Tesla's attention.
Thus, Model Y buyers now know that their electric vehicles won't be capable of providing them with Level 2 advanced driver-assistance help. FSD Beta has yet to be a true driverless suite. The human is still responsible for everything that happens on the road. The automaker makes it clear in the owner's manual that turning on FSD Beta does not make the car a robotaxi, and the person behind the steering wheel must always remain attentive and in control.
Photo: Tesla
The good news, however, is that Autopilot works on Model Ys with Hardware 4. That's what other automakers call active or adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assist. It's what keeps the car centered in its lane and allows it to follow the flow of traffic based on the speed of the vehicle ahead of it. Some models even have traffic sign recognition and prompt the driver to accept a lower or higher speed limit.
We suspect Tesla went on this questionable route to allow Hardware 4 to gather as much data as possible. That might be why it released it silently. In 2021, Tesla adopted its vision-only camera-based philosophy and left many new customers without any cool features for a while. It removed ultrasonic sensors (useful for parking) and radars (suitable for high-speed traffic scanning), which translated into smart functionalities not being available.
After some time, the systems learned what humans do from collecting data about their driving habits. Those scenarios were fed back into the system by the engineers, got rummaged by the computer, and then the features came back gradually.
All the newer Model Ys might do the same thing – they're serving as test units for Tesla to collect as much video data as possible because the HW4 cameras can "see" better than HW3 optic sensors. Since FSD Beta running on HW3 was trained on code and neural networks that analyzed lower-quality footage, putting the ADAS on HW4 may require mountains of new driving data before it can take over a vehicle.
That indicates yet another worry for Tesla owners. It looks like the automaker wants to ensure that FSD can get out of the Beta stage of development on HW3 with a potential wide release of FSD V12. Then, it might abandon HW3-equipped vehicles entirely and focus on HW4 because it simply includes better means for the software to evolve.
Could this be why Tesla gave buyers a window to transfer FSD Beta onto their new EVs until the end of September? We'll let you answer that one.
For now, no matter the version, Full Self-Driving remains a sushi restaurant that only serves wasabi.
HW4 software will lag HW3 by at least another six months, as our focus needs to be on getting FSD on HW3 working super well and provided internationally.
Car shows on TV and his father's Fiat Tempra may have been Florin's early influences, but nowadays he favors different things, like the power of an F-150 Raptor. He'll never be able to ignore the shape of a Ferrari though, especially a yellow one. Full profile
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