Firmware
Tesla Autopilot, FSD challenges highlighted by Waymo’s difficulties in real-world testing
Tesla is expected to release the first features of its Full Self-Driving suite with the rollout of Software Version 9. The company teased some of these capabilities in the Q2 2018 earnings call, when Elon Musk and Stuart Bowers, a member of the Tesla Autopilot development team, discussed some of the features that would likely be included in the upcoming update. Among these is highway on-ramp to off-ramp capabilities, automatic lane changes, and Integrated Navigation, to name a few.
It took a long time before Tesla was confident enough to announce that it would be introducing Full Self-Driving features to its fleet. Over the years, Tesla had been gathering data from its fleet of vehicles, and in a report last month, MIT’s Lex Fridman estimated that Tesla had acquired around 1.2 billion real-world miles on Autopilot and approximately 7.8 billion miles in Autopilot “Shadow Mode.” This translates to an immense amount of data that Tesla has been using to train its neural network. With enough training, Tesla’s neural network would be able to, in Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy’s words, gain an “understanding of what is around us and around the vehicle.”Â
Tesla might not be a prominent player in the self-driving market today, but the real-world data that it has gathered over the years would likely be a difference-maker once it starts introducing Full Self-Driving features to its fleet. Nidhi Kalra, a senior information scientist for the RAND Corporation, previously noted that there is just no replacement for real-world miles like the ones that Tesla’s fleet are gathering every day, since simulations like those utilized by Waymo to train its autonomous cars are a “simplification” of the real world.
The information scientist’s words appear to be ringing true. A report from The Information recently noted that Waymo’s self-driving car program is currently facing some difficulties in Chandler, AZ. Waymo is a leader in the self-driving car race, considering that its autonomous vehicles have driven a total of 5 million real-world miles and 5 billion simulated miles as of May this year. Despite this, reports from residents in Chandler, where Waymo’s autonomous cars are currently testing, show that even Google’s self-driving unit is having issues training its cars to interact with real drivers on the road.
For one, Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans reportedly run into problems when crossing a prominent T-intersection close to the company’s headquarters. Since the vehicles are programmed to follow all driving rules strictly, the autonomous cars are finding it difficult to deal with human drivers on the road, most of whom do not follow driving rules. In the particular T-intersection, for example, Waymo’s vans have a tendency to stop as the vehicle analyzes what it needs to do, making them a nuisance to some drivers in the area. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Waymo’s vans are also reportedly running into some problems with several unprotected left turns onto fast roads, and with merging into heavy traffic. The autonomous cars are reportedly having difficulties in highways when there are a lot of vehicles on the road as well.
Waymo appears to have been a bit too optimistic about its expectations for its self-driving car program. Last fall, the company announced that it would start rolling out vehicles that do not have safety drivers. As it turns out, this is only true in relatively small residential areas in Chandler, AZ, where there is little traffic. For areas that are more congested, Waymo still utilizes safety drivers. It’s just not Waymo, either. According to the publication, even GM Cruise’s self-driving Chevy Bolts are regularly taken over by safety drivers in their operations.
For now, Waymo is continuing its attempt at making its self-driving cars even better, highlighting its focus on safety and its experience on the road in a statement to The Information.
“As the only company with a fleet of fully self-driving cars on public roads today, safety continues to be our highest priority. The vehicles are continually learning, and we’ve developed robust testing and validation processes that will allow us to safely expand our vehicles’ driverless capabilities over time,” a Waymo spokesperson said.
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.
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