The release notes for Tesla FSD Beta V11.3 have been shared online. Observers from the electric vehicle community suggest that Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 11.3 is rolling out to the company’s employee FSD Beta testers, at least for now.
The following are Tesla’s FSD Beta V11.3 release notes:
- Enabled FSD Beta on highway. This unifies the vision and planning stack on and off-highway and replaces the legacy highway stack, which is over four years old. The legacy highway stack still relies on several single-camera and single-frame networks, and was setup to handle simple lane-specific maneuvers. FSD Beta’s multi-camera video networks and next-gen planner, that allows for more complex agent interactions with less reliance on lanes, make way for adding more intelligent behaviors, smoother control and better decision making.
- Added voice drive-notes. After an intervention, you can now send Tesla an anonymous voice message describing your experience to help improve Autopilot.
- Expanded Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) to handle vehicles that cross ego’s path. This includes cases where other vehicles run their red light or turn across ego’s path, stealing the right-of-way.
- Replay of previous collisions of this type suggests that 49% of the events would be mitigated by the new behavior. This improvement is now active in both manual driving and autopilot operation.
- Improved autopilot reaction time to red light runners and stop sign runners by 500ms, by increased reliance on object’s instantaneous kinematics along with trajectory estimates.
- Added a long-range highway lanes network to enable earlier response to blocked lanes and high curvature.
- Reduced goal pose prediction error for candidate trajectory neural network by 40% and reduced runtime by 3X. This was achieved by improving the dataset using heavier and more robust offline optimization, increasing the size of this improved dataset by 4X, and implementing a better architecture and feature space.
- Improved occupancy network detections by oversampling on 180K challenging videos including rain reflections, road debris, and high curvature.
- Improved recall for close-by cut-in cases by 20% by adding 40k autolabeled fleet clips of this scenario to the dataset. Also improved handling of cut-in cases by improved modeling of their motion into ego’s lane, leveraging the same for smoother lateral and longitudinal control for cut-in objects.
- Added “lane guidance module and perceptual loss to the Road Edges and Lines network, improving the absolute recall of lines by 6% and the absolute recall of road edges by 7%.
- Improved overall geometry and stability of lane predictions by updating the “lane guidance” module representation with information relevant to predicting crossing and oncoming lanes.
- Improved handling through high speed and high curvature scenarios by offsetting towards inner lane lines.
- Improved lane changes, including: earlier detection and handling for simultaneous lane changes, better gap selection when approaching deadlines, better integration between speed-based and nav-based lane change decisions and more differentiation between the FSD driving profiles with respect to speed lane changes.
- Improved longitudinal control response smoothness when following lead vehicles by better modeling the possible effect of lead vehicles’ brake lights on their future speed profiles.
- Improved detection of rare objects by 18% and reduced the depth error to large trucks by 9%, primarily from migrating to more densely supervised autolabeled datasets.
- Improved semantic detections for school busses by 12% and vehicles transitioning from stationary-to-driving by 15%. This was achieved by improving dataset label accuracy and increasing dataset size by 5%.
- Improved decision making at crosswalks by leveraging neural network based ego trajectory estimation in place of approximated kinematic models.
- Improved reliability and smoothness of merge control, by deprecating legacy merge region tasks in favor of merge topologies derived from vector lanes.
- Unlocked longer fleet telemetry clips (by up to 26%) by balancing compressed IPC buffers and optimized write scheduling across twin SOCs.
Here are the V11.3 release notes again if you haven't seen them. Very happy to see improvements in rain reflections as that was rare, but could give some insane errors #FSDBeta @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/ZIOcIhmUMd
— Dirty Tesla (@DirtyTesLa) February 20, 2023
Several longtime FSD Beta testers have pointed out some key improvements that would likely be very appreciated by users in V11.3. These include the systems’ improved handling through high speed and high curvature scenarios, as well as improvements to Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). With the improvements in place, FSD Beta V11.3 would behave closer to a proper human driver.
Comments from longtime Tesla FSD Beta testers also suggest that V11.3 is still only being released for company employees for now. Considering Tesla’s past updates, it would not be surprising if the greater FSD Beta fleet gets the V11.3 update in the coming week or so. This is, of course, unless V11.3 ends up going the way of FSD Beta V11, which was released to employees in November but not to the greater fleet of FSD Beta testers.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX issues statement on Starship V3 Booster 18 anomaly
The incident unfolded during gas-system pressure testing at the company’s Massey facility in Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX has issued an initial statement about Starship Booster 18’s anomaly early Friday. The incident unfolded during gas-system pressure testing at the company’s Massey facility in Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX’s initial comment
As per SpaceX in a post on its official account on social media platform X, Booster 18 was undergoing gas system pressure tests when the anomaly happened. Despite the nature of the incident, the company emphasized that no propellant was loaded, no engines were installed, and personnel were kept at a safe distance from the booster, resulting in zero injuries.
“Booster 18 suffered an anomaly during gas system pressure testing that we were conducting in advance of structural proof testing. No propellant was on the vehicle, and engines were not yet installed. The teams need time to investigate before we are confident of the cause. No one was injured as we maintain a safe distance for personnel during this type of testing. The site remains clear and we are working plans to safely reenter the site,” SpaceX wrote in its post on X.
Incident and aftermath
Livestream footage from LabPadre showed Booster 18’s lower half crumpling around the liquid oxygen tank area at approximately 4:04 a.m. CT. Subsequent images posted by on-site observers revealed extensive deformation across the booster’s lower structure. Needless to say, spaceflight observers have noted that Booster 18 would likely be a complete loss due to its anomaly.
Booster 18 had rolled out only a day earlier and was one of the first vehicles in the Starship V3 program. The V3 series incorporates structural reinforcements and reliability upgrades intended to prepare Starship for rapid-reuse testing and eventual tower-catch operations. Elon Musk has been optimistic about Starship V3, previously noting on X that the spacecraft might be able to complete initial missions to Mars.
Investor's Corner
Tesla analyst maintains $500 PT, says FSD drives better than humans now
The team also met with Tesla leaders for more than an hour to discuss autonomy, chip development, and upcoming deployment plans.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) received fresh support from Piper Sandler this week after analysts toured the Fremont Factory and tested the company’s latest Full Self-Driving software. The firm reaffirmed its $500 price target, stating that FSD V14 delivered a notably smooth robotaxi demonstration and may already perform at levels comparable to, if not better than, average human drivers.
The team also met with Tesla leaders for more than an hour to discuss autonomy, chip development, and upcoming deployment plans.
Analysts highlight autonomy progress
During more than 75 minutes of focused discussions, analysts reportedly focused on FSD v14’s updates. Piper Sandler’s team pointed to meaningful strides in perception, object handling, and overall ride smoothness during the robotaxi demo.
The visit also included discussions on updates to Tesla’s in-house chip initiatives, its Optimus program, and the growth of the company’s battery storage business. Analysts noted that Tesla continues refining cost structures and capital expenditure expectations, which are key elements in future margin recovery, as noted in a Yahoo Finance report.
Analyst Alexander Potter noted that “we think FSD is a truly impressive product that is (probably) already better at driving than the average American.” This conclusion was strengthened by what he described as a “flawless robotaxi ride to the hotel.”
Street targets diverge on TSLA
While Piper Sandler stands by its $500 target, it is not the highest estimate on the Street. Wedbush, for one, has a $600 per share price target for TSLA stock.
Other institutions have also weighed in on TSLA stock as of late. HSBC reiterated a Reduce rating with a $131 target, citing a gap between earnings fundamentals and the company’s market value. By contrast, TD Cowen maintained a Buy rating and a $509 target, pointing to strong autonomous driving demonstrations in Austin and the pace of software-driven improvements.
Stifel analysts also lifted their price target for Tesla to $508 per share over the company’s ongoing robotaxi and FSD programs.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Version 3 booster crumples in early testing
Photos of the incident’s aftermath suggest that Booster 18 will likely be retired.
SpaceX’s new Starship first-stage booster, Booster 18, suffered major damage early Friday during its first round of testing in Starbase, Texas, just one day after rolling out of the factory.
Based on videos of the incident, the lower section of the rocket booster appeared to crumple during a pressurization test. Photos of the incident’s aftermath suggest that Booster 18 will likely be retired.
Booster test failure
SpaceX began structural and propellant-system verification tests on Booster 18 Thursday night at the Massey’s Test Site, only a few miles from Starbase’s production facilities, as noted in an Ars Technica report. At 4:04 a.m. CT on Friday, a livestream from LabPadre Space captured the booster’s lower half experiencing a sudden destructive event around its liquid oxygen tank section. Post-incident images, shared on X by @StarshipGazer, showed notable deformation in the booster’s lower structure.
Neither SpaceX nor Elon Musk had commented as of Friday morning, but the vehicle’s condition suggests it is likely a complete loss. This is quite unfortunate, as Booster 18 is already part of the Starship V3 program, which includes design fixes and upgrades intended to improve reliability. While SpaceX maintains a rather rapid Starship production line in Starbase, Booster 18 was generally expected to validate the improvements implemented in the V3 program.
Tight deadlines
SpaceX needs Starship boosters and upper stages to begin demonstrating rapid reuse, tower catches, and early operational Starlink missions over the next two years. More critically, NASA’s Artemis program depends on an on-orbit refueling test in the second half of 2026, a requirement for the vehicle’s expected crewed lunar landing around 2028.
While SpaceX is known for diagnosing failures quickly and returning to testing at unmatched speed, losing the newest-generation booster at the very start of its campaign highlights the immense challenge involved in scaling Starship into a reliable, high-cadence launch system. SpaceX, however, is known for getting things done quickly, so it would not be a surprise if the company manages to figure out what happened to Booster 18 in the near future.
SpaceX issues statement on Starship V3 Booster 18 anomaly
Tesla analyst maintains $500 PT, says FSD drives better than humans now
