AutoEvolution – Tesla FSD V12.4.1 Doesn’t Live up to the Hype, Still Praised for Removing the Steering Nag
Editors note: The salvation of Tesla is supposed to be robotaxis. They are to be introduced August 8th. Yet Tesla AV tech is pathetic, and actually getting worse. And here is a bonus video showing how pathetic FSD fanboys are when their car veers right into oncoming traffic.
See original article by Cristian Agatie at AutoEvolution
The much-hyped version 12.4 of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software has been finally shipped to owners. According to Elon Musk, this should bring major improvements thanks to completely retrained models. However, the people who tested the new build confirmed that it’s still disappointing, even compared to the older V12.3.6 build.
Exactly one month ago, Elon Musk offered a rare update on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving development timeline. Musk was convinced that FSD was closer than ever to autonomous driving and likened the V12.4 with a completely new version, aka V13. Musk explained that Tesla has completely retrained models to improve driving comfort and consistency. Another important change is scrapping the steering wheel nags and relying solely on the cabin camera for driver monitoring.
The FSD V12.4 was supposed to bring a “roughly 5X to 10X improvement in miles per intervention vs 12.3.” The first V12.4 build was pushed to Wave 1 testers (mostly Tesla employees) on May 20 with the 2024.9.5 software update. This disappointed people because it meant that FSD users would miss out on all the great features introduced with the Spring update, based on the higher 2024.14 build.
However, it turned out that this FSD build was not ready for prime time yet, and Tesla removed it. Some testers think the problem was with sensor calibration, but it must have been something more difficult to solve. That’s because Tesla took over two weeks to sort things out and release the bug-fix build V12.4.1 to employees for evaluation. This time, things went smoothly, and the first customers reported getting the same build on Saturday.
The good news for many owners is that Tesla rebased it on a newer software version, 2024.15.5. This means that FSD users get the Spring release updates, including Tesla Vision Park Assist, expanded Autopilot visualizations, and the new user interface, among other things. However, they’ll still have to wait for the latest and greatest, 2024.20.1, which brings adaptive headlights and enables Automatic Doors for the Model X.
Despite Elon Musk’s optimism, the first impressions shared by people who tested the FSD V12.4.1 were not encouraging. Some even said that the new build is not quite ready to replace V12.3.6, which is not very flattering. The most annoying problems were hesitation and “unnecessary slowness,” phantom braking, and speed limit issues. However, the biggest problem was random and unnecessary lane changes, which some called “lane dancing.” This marks a huge regression compared to previous builds.
While Vision Park Assist feels much faster on the new build, the car still doesn’t park itself when it reaches the destination. Instead, it will circle the parking lot over and over instead of stopping at the navigation pin. If you want it to park, you need to disengage and initiate Autopark manually. On the plus side, no steering wheel nag feels incredible for everyone, especially considering how annoying it was. Now, it only requires you to look forward at the road instead of grabbing the wheel.
See original article by Cristian Agatie at AutoEvolution
