Firmware
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s views on Full Self-Driving safety get validated by TSLA bears
During Elon Musk’s appearance at MIT research scientist Lex Fridman’s podcast, the Tesla CEO stated that he believes the improvements in full self-driving technology will eventually make driver input detrimental to vehicle safety. Musk also stated that there will likely come a time when human input while driving will be as unnatural as manually operating an elevator to travel between the floors of a building.
Musk’s statements are arguably optimistic, especially since even industry leaders such as Waymo have not yet attained fully autonomous driving despite working on the technology for years. Waymo currently leads the pack in autonomous tech, but the full-self driving operations of the Google subsidiary remain confined in geofenced areas today. Other industry leaders such as GM Cruise are largely on the same page.
Tesla, for its part, has taken steps towards full self-driving, but unlike companies like Waymo and GM Cruise, the electric car maker’s strategy is focused on artificial intelligence and input from its vehicles’ cameras, a setup that Elon Musk likens to the way humans and animals navigate with their eyes. Tesla’s upcoming Autonomy Investor Day this April 22, 2019 is expected to showcase just how far the company has gone in its pursuit of autonomous driving technology using Elon Musk’s strategy.
Tesla is a polarizing company, and it inspires dedicated supporters and passionate critics alike. Social media platforms such as Twitter host clashes between these groups on an everyday basis, and the frequently negative slant on Tesla’s coverage from mainstream media do little to help clear the air. Among Tesla’s critics, there are groups of individuals, some of which have taken a short position against the company (and hence are incentivized to drive down TSLA stock), have become more passionate as of late. With the date for Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day approaching, a number of these Tesla skeptics have called for actions that will likely disrupt the electric car maker’s demonstrations on April 22.
Among these suggestions are braking in front of Tesla’s test vehicles, as well as intentionally swerving into the electric cars’ lane to ensure that the company’s demonstrations are authentic. These suggestions are incredibly dangerous, both for Tesla’s electric cars and their occupants, as well as the Tesla bears themselves. Intentionally swerving into the lane of another vehicle is never an advisable driving maneuver, and such actions on the road have resulted in numerous (and sometimes fatal) accidents in the past.
It is exactly these suggested behaviors that Elon Musk was talking about when he spoke with the MIT researcher about the future of driving. Full self-driving systems are built with safety in mind, and thus, there is a very little chance that autonomous vehicles will intentionally drive in a manner that is dangerous for itself and other cars on the road. The suggested “tests” from Tesla’s critics are easy to do if one is manually driving a car, but maneuvers like intentionally swerving into another lane will likely not be performed by a properly-designed and properly-calibrated full self-driving vehicle.
There is no doubt that full self-driving technology is still in its infancy today, but once the data is there and the neural nets have been trained, there is very little that can be argued against the safety and convenience of autonomous vehicles. Ironically, by aiming to disrupt the electric car maker’s upcoming autonomous driving demonstrations later this month, Tesla’s critics have ended up validating one of Elon Musk’s boldest points.
Watch Elon Musk discuss his points on autonomous driving technology in the video below.
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 confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
