Breaking: Tesla Releases FSD on HW4 Vehicles Only a Day After Elon Musk Said it Will Take at Least 6 Months

A couple of days back, Elon Musk hoped on a Tesla Model S and live-streamed his vehicle drive itself around Tesla’s global engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

The X livestream showcased for the first time Tesla’s FSD version 12 in action to the wider public. FSD v12 is Tesla’s next-generation full self-driving software and even though it is called “version 12” is a fundamental architectural rewrite of the FSD software.

FSD v12, unlike the current generation FSD software, FSD Beta v11.4.4, does not rely on explicit instruction to execute the driving task. FSD v12 on the other hand is an end-to-end neural net approach to solving level 5 autonomy.

This means on FSD v12, Tesla is able to do away with 300,000 lines of code that in the current FSD Beta version are used to instruct the vehicle what to do at a roundabout, how to change lanes, what to do at a traffic light, how to respond to street signs and so on.

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For FSD v12, Tesla simply shows the vehicle tons of real-world driving data, and from observing human beings drive, the AI learns on its own what lane lines are, how to read a traffic sign, what to do at a roundabout, and so on.

This is extremely impressive and shows the level of advancement Tesla is making in real-world AI. Although there was one disengagement during Musk’s live stream where the vehicle got confused at a protected left turn, besides that, we can see the new end-to-end neural net approach to full self-driving results in much smoother and human-like driving capabilities.

Musk’s FSD v12 test drive was filled mostly with exciting news, however, one bit of negative information that came out of the live stream and a subsequent X post is Tesla’s timeline to release FSD to vehicles sporting the newest Hardware 4 autopilot computer and sensor suite. The HW4 sensor suite includes improved cameras and an HD radar.

For the past several months now, the HW4 computer has been shipping with all new Tesla models, except the Model 3. Due to the hardware change, owners of new Tesla vehicles have been unable to access the current version of FSD Beta.

The wait has been difficult for some new Tesla owners who upgraded their vehicles specifically to get access to Tesla’s newest FSD software. And to add salt to injury, Musk during the live stream and in a subsequent X post said Tesla needs to retrain the FSD software from scratch to run on Tesla vehicles with the HW4 sensor suite.

Musk's explanation for why that is necessary is that the new FSD v12 software solely relies on video training data to solve autonomous driving. However, because the cameras are different between HW3 and HW4, Tesla will need to retrain the FSD software from scratch to work on HW4.

In a subsequent X post, Musk responded to an X user giving further clarification on Tesla’s timeline to roll out FSD on HW4 vehicles. 

An X user wrote Musk asking “I really want to buy a new Tesla but I don’t know what to get. A 3 or a Y? An S? Will I be stuck without beta for a long time on hardware 4? Are there some product updates imminent? I feel like this shouldn’t be so hard… what do you recommend I buy @elonmusk?”

Musk responded by writing “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.”

Individuals in the Tesla community including me understood Musk’s statement to mean that Tesla has put all available resources into solving level 5 autonomy on HW3 vehicles. This means Tesla will not divert engineering and computational resources to train FSD for HW4 vehicles at least until the EV maker feels like it has solved FSD on HW3.

The 6 months time period Musk put out is likely the amount of time he believes it will take to train the FSD software for HW4 vehicles after Tesla already solves level 5 autonomy for HW3. If we give Tesla the benefit of the doubt and say that the company is able to solve level 5 autonomy internationally on HW3 by the end of next.

Then 6 months from that will push FSD access for HW4 vehicles to the second half of 2025. This means owners of a brand-new Tesla might need to wait 2 years until they get access to FSD.

However, in a surprising move late last night, and a day after Elon Musk’s post, Tesla released FSD Beta to Tesla HW4 vehicle owners in North America. Given Musk’s statement, this was somewhat of a shocker, so what’s going on here?

The way I understand it is that Musk's initial post is talking about FSD v12, and Tesla is indeed prioritizing HW3 vehicles for the next-generation software version. Tesla will only switch to working on FSD v12 for HW4 vehicles after the EV maker feels like the software is working really well on HW3 vehicles and is provided globally.

However, it seems like, given the fact that Tesla is not using an end-to-end neural net approach on FSD Beta v11.4, the EV maker has been able to leverage the work it has already done for HW3 vehicles to launch FSD Beta quickly on HW4 Teslas.

Although this is exciting for new Tesla owners with HW4 vehicles, it seems like once Tesla moves over to FSD v12, HW4 vehicles will once again be left behind by their HW3 counterparts.

Given all the information we’ve so far I’m confident this will be the case, however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted when we learn more about Tesla’s plans. Until then, make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.

So what do you think? Excited that Tesla has released FSD Beta for HW4 vehicles? What do you make of Tesla releasing this software so quickly following Musk’s statement? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.

For more information check out: After Driving a Cybertruck With Fit & Finish Issues, Elon Musk Rallies Tesla Employees To Achieve LEGO Precision

Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.