Tesla has been rolling out the latest version of its supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, version 12.5, over the past few weeks, but only to those with vehicles equipped with the newer HW4 computer. While HW3-equipped vehicles are expected to launch this week, CEO Elon Musk said over the weekend that the team is still “working on it.”
Musk said Saturday that the FSD Supervised version coming to HW3 vehicles will be a “different version number” than v12.5.1.3, which began rolling out Friday. HW3, dubbed AI3 in the initial post — after Musk’s recent reference to the upcoming car’s computer as “AI5” — makes up the vast majority of Tesla vehicles on the road.
For this reason, many HW3-equipped vehicle owners have been wondering when they will get FSD v12.5, especially since it has been rolling out in waves since last month and is expected to include a number of improvements.
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“The team is working on it. This will be a different version number,” Musk wrote in a post on Saturday X.
The announcement comes about two weeks after the company began rolling out FSD v12.5.1 to a wider audience, and after Musk explained that the new version would first roll out to Model Y units equipped with the HW4 system, before being rolled out more widely. Musk also said on July 29 that Tesla’s estimated rollout of FSD Supervised v12.5 to HW3 vehicles would be about 10 days away, meaning it would have been released on Thursday if that timeline had been met.
The Tesla CEO also provided some context on why it took so long to release FSD v12.5 for HW3 vehicles, besides including five times the number of parameters compared to the previous version:
“It takes a lot of programming effort to optimize the code enough to run on HW3,” Musk said. “It also has to be validated separately.”
Although the Cybertruck has HW4, FSD Supervised is still not available in any form on the electric vehicle (EV), though it is expected to be released with v12.5. During an event held two weeks ago, Musk said that FSD should be released to the Cybertruck sometime in August, noting that it is difficult to know the exact timing of the release.
FSD v12.5 also includes improvements like merging highway and city traffic into one stack and driver monitoring that lets drivers wear sunglasses without being disturbed. Musk also says the release will be bundled with the Actual Smart Summon release, though it’s technically a separate code.
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What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, or you can reach me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us your tips at tips@teslarati.com.
