Firmware
How Does Autopilot React to Disappearing Lane Markings?
Autopilot has now been live for over a month. Some 40,000 Autopilot-enabled Teslas are currently on the road and combine for roughly a million miles of driving per day. I don’t believe it was clarified if those miles were Autopilot or in total but If we assume that just 10% of those miles are spent using Autopilot, Tesla would have already gathered data from 3,000,000 miles of driving. Fleet learning, the concept that when one car learns something the whole fleet learns something, is one of the many things that makes Tesla’s model of incremental improvements so revolutionary. Changes can be made quickly and the software can be refined using data that would be otherwise impossible to collect. They are even creating incredibly detailed maps using the data collected from these cars.
All of this is good news for many reasons, not the least of which is this: roads are not perfect. Whether the road is just old with faded markings or in the midst of being refreshed via construction, lanes are not always consistent, nor are they always clear. Even where they are perfect, it wouldn’t take long for a car driving at highway speeds to reach a stretch of road where that is no longer the case and the lane marking disappear.
So what happens when Autopilot experiences disappearing lane markings?
Here is how the manual describes perfect operation.
Autosteer builds upon Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, intelligently keeping Model S in its driving lane when cruising at a set speed. Using the forward looking camera, the radar sensor, and the ultrasonic sensors, Autosteer detects lane markings and the presence of vehicles and objects, steering Model S based on the lane markings and the vehicle directly in front of you.
Note: In most cases, Autosteer attempts to center Model S in the driving lane. However, if the sensors detect the presence an obstacle (such as a vehicle or guard rail), Autosteer may steer Model S in a driving path that is offset from the center of the lane.
What it doesn’t describe is what happens when one of the lane markings disappears while Autosteer is engaged. In my experiences, the car does an excellent job of tracking the vehicle directly in front of it. That is one way the Tesla keeps an appropriate driving path. We also know from the owners manual excerpt above that the car also uses the camera, among other hardware components to keep in the lane. In a system this complex, redundancies are necessary.
When one lane is no longer visible to the forward looking camera, the car will favor the other side. This assumes it sees no obstacles preventing that behavior. This may also be the reason I’ve experienced the car taking (or trying to take) an exit when the lane of travel widens and splits. I am hopeful that inadvertent exit taking is one of the things fleet learning and map data will help to eliminate over time. In fact, today I used Autopilot on a highway I don’t often take and on two occasions assumed the car would attempt to follow the exit but was pleasantly surprised when it did not.
![Tesla Autopilot Version 7.0 Dashboard Display [Source: Tesla Motors]](http://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tesla-Version-7-Autopilot-Dash.jpg)
Tesla Autopilot Version 7.0 Dashboard Display [Source: Tesla Motors]
Just as quickly as a clear lane marking can become unclear, the Tesla will sense and act. Drivers should regularly check the center dash screen to understand the status of Autopilot. The act of monitoring the data that is presented on the screen and mentally process that information helps a driver to better understand how the system works. As a result, a driver learns how to work the system. Watching how the car physically reacts to things such as an unclear lane markings also makes drivers more confident in the system’s abilities. Limitations and situations when it is appropriate to take over will become apparent and all combined, lead to responsible and successful trips. We learn from it while it learns from us.
In the video below, I show you exactly what it looks like when the car loses sight of a lane and corrects itself to maintain a safe driving path. Please excuse the quality of the video. Bright sun made seeing the display screen challenging, and I manually held the camera in an attempt to show both the screen and the road ahead, while not showing the driver’s shoulder.
More Autopilot News
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- What happens when you ignore the Tesla Autopilot warnings?
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- Watch Tesla Autopark react to 3 parking challenges
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla announced its Spring 2026 software update, and it’s the most feature-dense seasonal release the company has put out. The update covers twelve named changes spanning FSD, voice AI, safety lighting, dashcam storage, and pet display customization, among other things.
The centerpiece for owners with AI4 hardware is a redesigned Self-Driving app. The new interface lets owners subscribe to Full Self-Driving with a single tap and view ongoing FSD usage stats directly in the vehicle.
Grok gets its biggest in-car upgrade yet. The update adds a “Hey Grok” hands-free wake word along with location-based reminders, so a driver can now say “remind me to pick up groceries when I get home” without touching the screen. Grok first arrived in vehicles in July 2025, but each update has pushed it closer to genuine daily utility. Musk framed the broader vision clearly at Davos in January, saying Tesla is “really moving into a future that is based on autonomy.”
On safety, the update introduces enhanced blind spot warning lights that integrate directly with the cabin’s ambient lighting, building on the blind spot door warning that arrived in update 2026.8.
Dog Mode has been renamed Pet Mode and now lets owners choose a dog, cat, or hedgehog icon and add their pet’s name to the display.
Dashcam retention now extends up to 24 hours, up from the previous one-hour rolling loop, with a permanent save option for any clip. Weather maps now show rain and snow with better color differentiation and include the past hour of precipitation data along the route.
Tesla has now established a clear rhythm of two major OTA pushes per year. As with last year’s Spring update, that cycle started taking shape in 2025 with adaptive headlights and trunk customization. The 2025 Holiday Update then added Grok to the vehicle for the first time. This Spring follows that structure: the Holiday update introduces new architecture, and the Spring update broadens it across the fleet.
Two notable features still did not make it. IFTTT automations, which launched in China earlier this year, were held back from this North American release for unknown reasons, and Apple CarPlay remains absent, reportedly still delayed by iOS 26 and Apple Maps compatibility issues.
Below is the full list of feature updates released by Tesla.
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 13, 2026
It appears that Tesla may be preparing to roll out some subscription-based services soon. Based on the observations of a Wales-based Model 3 owner who performed some reverse-engineering on the Tesla mobile app, it seems that the electric car maker has added a new “Subscribe” option beside the “Buy” option within the “Upgrades” tab, at least behind the scenes.
A screenshot of the new option was posted in the r/TeslaMotors subreddit, and while the Tesla owner in question, u/Callump01, admitted that the screenshot looks like something that could be easily fabricated, he did submit proof of his reverse-engineering to the community’s moderators. The moderators of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit confirmed the legitimacy of the Model 3 owner’s work, further suggesting that subscription options may indeed be coming to Tesla owners soon.
Did some reverse engineering on the app and Tesla looks to be preparing for subscriptions? from r/teslamotors
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite has been heavily speculated to be offered as a subscription option, similar to the company’s Premium Connectivity feature. And back in April, noted Tesla hacker @greentheonly stated that the company’s vehicles already had the source codes for a pay-as-you-go subscription model. The Tesla hacker suggested then that Tesla would likely release such a feature by the end of the year — something that Elon Musk also suggested in the first-quarter earnings call. “I think we will offer Full Self-Driving as a subscription service, but it will be probably towards the end of this year,” Musk stated.
While the signs for an upcoming FSD subscription option seem to be getting more and more prominent as the year approaches its final quarter, the details for such a feature are still quite slim. Pricing for FSD subscriptions, for example, have not been teased by Elon Musk yet, though he has stated on Twitter that purchasing the suite upfront would be more worth it in the long term. References to the feature in the vehicles’ source code, and now in the Tesla mobile app, also listed no references to pricing.
The idea of FSD subscriptions could prove quite popular among electric car owners, especially since it would allow budget-conscious customers to make the most out of the company’s driver-assist and self-driving systems without committing to the features’ full price. The current price of the Full Self-Driving suite is no joke, after all, being listed at $8,000 on top of a vehicle’s cost. By offering subscriptions to features like Navigate on Autopilot with automatic lane changes, owners could gain access to advanced functions only as they are needed.
Elon Musk, for his part, has explained that ultimately, he still believes that purchasing the Full Self-Driving suite outright provides the most value to customers, as it is an investment that would pay off in the future. “I should say, it will still make sense to buy FSD as an option as in our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future. And we are confident that it is an investment that will pay off to the consumer – to the benefit of the consumer.” Musk said.
Tesla crushes NHTSA’s brand-new ADAS safety tests – first vehicle to ever pass
Tesla to fix 219k vehicles in recall with simple software update
