Tesla Owners Get Antsy Waiting for FSD V12.4, Start to Unsubscribe to Receive Latest Update (2024)

Elon Musk mentioned in May that FSD V12.4 was in the final touches stage and would probably start rolling out in mid-May. However, May is now gone and we haven’t heard an update on the FSD V12.4 timeline.

The biggest features for V12.4 include no-nag, an updated strike-out system, automatic parking spot seeking, and a reduction in interventions.

Software Branches

FSD V12.4 was released to employees with update 2024.9.5, which means it’s behind the Spring Update – 2024.14. This means that cars on the Spring Update can’t receive 2024.9.5 – if it eventually goes out to consumers.

Additionally, Tesla has been working on bug fixes for 2024.14 and just announced update 2024.20, which brings Adaptive Headlight support to the United States and Canada.

Employee Rollout

At this point, only employees have received the 2024.9.5 update. User darwizzy333 on Reddit, an employee who received the update on the Early Access Program, originally said that it was unusable, suggesting that it was the cause for the delay. He initially also provided a screenshot of his vehicle running FSD V12.4 but has since taken it down.

After giving specific reasons why FSD 12.4 was unusable a few days ago, today he stated that his cameras were the cause for the issues. After calibrating his cameras, he says that V12.4 is incredible and that his usual commute is now down to zero interventions.

This gives us some hope that Tesla may still release FSD 12.4 to public users, however, it’s not clear what could be causing the delay. Employees are still testing FSD 12.4, so Tesla is either still working on a revision or still plans to release V12.4.

Owners Unsubscribing

Unfortunately, Tesla owners who bought or subscribed to FSD are stuck on the update they’re on until Tesla releases FSD 12.4 or updates V12.4 to be based on a newer software branch. Once you subscribe to FSD, Tesla would like to send you the latest FSD updates, which we call the “FSD track.” The problem is that the latest FSD updates are usually several releases behind Tesla’s main updates. With Tesla’s redesign and beautiful new parked visualization in update 2024.14, owners are having a hard time waiting for the latest features.

Tesla even officially announced update 2024.20 yesterday, which means that users on update 2024.3.25 are now three major updates behind. Some users are now unsubscribing from FSD, not because they don’t enjoy it, but just so they can receive the newer 2024.14 update.

Once an owner unsubscribes from FSD, Tesla no longer has a reason to hold them back on an update and will push the latest update they’re eligible for — currently 2024.14. However, this requires your FSD subscription to expire, which could take several weeks depending on when you renewed. Unfortunately, owners who bought FSD don’t have much of an option.

At the 2024 Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk confirmed some additional details about Tesla’s upcoming vehicles, as well as some interesting information about Tesla’s Semi.

Tesla Semi Entering Volume Production

Elon Musk confirmed that the Semi has been in low-volume production for a while now, but he also mentioned that the Semi will now be entering high-volume production for the first time.

Musk mentioned that this is a big step as transport companies have expressed interest in the Tesla Semi due to the economic value and sense of EV trucking. He followed on to say that he expects this to move the needle financially for Tesla – this indicates that some current fleet testers, including Pepsi Co, Walmart, and Costco could be ordering larger numbers of the Semi for their fleets.

Drivers from these testing fleets have had nothing but positive words to say for Semi, praising its reliability, power, ease of use, and cabin. Semi could become a large positive for Tesla, as short-range truck haulage accounts for nearly 80% of trucking in North America and China, and 90% in Europe.

New Vehicles

While no new vehicles were explicitly confirmed at the Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk did confirm that Tesla has new vehicles in the pipeline. He expressed that they would be just as amazing and interesting as the Cybertruck.

When asked if Tesla would produce a 12-passenger van, he noted that he would “add it to the list”. One of the shrouded vehicles in the slide has long been rumored to be a van, so there is a good chance that a Cybervan or equivalent could come with a variant that has additional seating, now that it has been talked about.

While no dates have been provided for any expected releases, we do know that the Robotaxi announcement is around the corner on 8/8.

At this year’s Tesla shareholder meeting, Elon Musk announced a slate of changes for Tesla’s FSD hardware. For the first time, Musk talked openly about details of Tesla’s upcoming FSD Hardware 5, or “AI 5” and the differences between hardware 3 and hardware 4.

Hardware 4.0 Divergence

Currently, hardware 4.0 runs Hardware 3 in emulation mode, but with the completion of Tesla’s new AI-focused Supercomputer cluster, hardware 4 will eventually diverge from Hardware 3. Emulation mode simulates hardware 3, which means that today, hardware 4 is very similar to hardware 3. Elon Musk confirmed that the new cluster will be entirely focused on hardware 4 training, rather than hardware 3.

Hardware 4’s cameras are approximately 4-5x better in terms of resolution and fidelity than hardware 3, and hardware 4.0 is about 3-5x faster and powerful in inference capabilities. These are some pretty significant numbers, and Musk said he expects hardware 4.0 to eventually be about 5x better than hardware 3.0.

Hardware 3 - End of Life

While hardware 3 is no longer being produced, Tesla has not indicated that it will be considered end-of-life or legacy. Elon Musk confirmed on stage that hardware 3 would continue to receive training and would still have new FSD versions developed for it.

However, we can well expect that hardware 3 will eventually hit the end of its service life in the future as newer cameras and processing hardware come to vehicles. When that day is, is currently unknown.

Sadly, Tesla has previously confirmed that they do not intend to have a hardware 3 to hardware 4 retrofit, as the size of the MCU and electrical harnesses differ between vehicle hardware iterations.

Hardware 5.0 - “AI 5”

Elon Musk also officially announced Tesla’s FSD hardware 5.0, which he says Tesla is now calling “AI 5”. AI 5 is expected to hit the production lines for customer vehicles in approximately 18 months - around December 2025, with a massive slate of improvements. It is expected to be approximately 10x better than hardware 4.0, and up to 50x better in terms of inference power alone.

Of course, these massive improvements don’t come without a cost – AI 5 will consume about 800 watts of power. In comparison, hardware 3 and hardware 4 use about 200 watts today, so don’t expect any upgrades from hardware 4. Musk said that AI 5 would be able to adjust its efficiency depending on the complexity of the scene and the power needed.

We can expect that AI 5 will likely run in emulation mode when it arrives, and improvements between hardware 4 and AI 5 will take some time, similar to how hardware 4 is still in emulation mode today.

Musk Talking About AI 5

Musk talks about Tesla’s FSD hardware below during Tesla’s 2024 shareholder’s meeting, where he officially talked about Tesla’s upcoming hardware 5.0 for the first time.