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Tesla FSD Beta V11 release gets the “next week” treatment from Musk
Elon Musk has posted a quick update on the potential rollout of FSD Beta V11, the highly-anticipated update to the electric vehicle maker’s advanced driver-assist suite. As confirmed by the CEO, FSD Beta V11 is quite remarkable as it uses a single software stack for both highway and inner-city driving.
Musk’s recent comments were shared on Twitter. Amidst the ongoing controversy behind his decision to suspend a number of notable journalists on the social media platform over alleged violations of Twitter’s doxxing policy, Musk was asked about the highly-anticipated FSD Beta update.
When asked by the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley group if FSD Beta V11 is still expected to be rolled out before Christmas, Musk noted that the update should release “next week.” While such a timeframe may seem exciting, Musk’s “next week” estimate has become an inside joke of sorts among those who closely follow Tesla. Musk, after all, has missed estimates for V11’s release in the past.
Next week
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
Musk noted last month that the initial rollout of FSD Beta V11 started on 11/11/2022 at 11:11 p.m. PST. Musk later stated that Tesla was looking to release FSD Beta V11 before Thanksgiving. The holiday came and went, and no V11 wide rollout happened. The delay seemed a bit understandable, however, since Tesla did conduct a wide release of FSD Beta to its fleet — it was just V10.69.3.1, not V11.
Due to FSD Beta V11’s initial release being over a month ago, the update’s full release notes have already been shared online. If the release notes are any indication, it would definitely seem that the highly-anticipated update would be well worth the wait. Following are FSD Beta V11’s release notes, as shared by Tesla enthusiasts online.
-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.
– Improved Occupancy Network’s recall for close by obstacles and precision in severe weather conditions with 4x increase in transformer spatial resolution, 20% increase in image featurizer capacity, improved side camera calibration, and 260k more video training clips (real-world and simulation).
– Improved merging behavior by leveraging lane geometry and lane bounds, association with coarse map information and better gap selection algorithms, allowing for a smoother and safer experience.
– Added highway behavior to offset away from blocked lanes and generic obstacles like road debris while also adding a smooth hand- off between in-lane offsetting and lane changing.
– Improved speed-based lane change decisions to better avoid slowing down traffic in fast lanes, and interfere less with navigation.
– Reduced sensitivity for speed-based lane changes in CHILL mode.
– Improved lane changes to allow higher jerk maneuvers if required to stay on-route or to move away from lane blockages.
– Improved smoothness at highway lane splits by being less strict about centering between lane lines and allowing lower jerk maneuvers, where safe to do so.
– Reduced latency of trajectory optimization by 20% on average, without sacrificing behavior, by leveraging numerical tricks for more efficient computations.
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Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature not available on typical Model Ys
These camera washers are crucial for keeping the operation going, as they are the sole way Teslas operate autonomously. The cameras act as eyes for the car to drive, recognize speed limit and traffic signs, and travel safely.
Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature that is not available on typical Model Ys that people like you and me bring home after we buy them. The feature is something that many have been wanting for years, especially after the company adopted a vision-only approach to self-driving.
After Tesla launched driverless Robotaxi rides to the public earlier this week in Austin, people have been traveling to the Lone Star State in an effort to hopefully snag a ride from one of the few vehicles in the fleet that are now no longer required to have Safety Monitors present.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Although only a few of those completely driverless rides are available, there have been some new things seen on these cars that are additions from regular Model Ys, including the presence of one new feature: camera washers.
With the Model Y, there has been a front camera washer, but the other exterior “eyes” have been void of any solution for this. For now, owners are required to clean them manually.
In Austin, Tesla is doing things differently. It is now utilizing camera washers on the side repeater and rear bumper cameras, which will keep the cameras clean and keep operation as smooth and as uninterrupted as possible:
🚨 Tesla looks to have installed Camera Washers on the side repeater cameras on Robotaxis in Austin
pic.twitter.com/xemRtDtlRR— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
Rear Camera Washer on Tesla Robotaxi pic.twitter.com/P9hgGStHmV
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 24, 2026
These camera washers are crucial for keeping the operation going, as they are the sole way Teslas operate autonomously. The cameras act as eyes for the car to drive, recognize speed limit and traffic signs, and travel safely.
This is the first time we are seeing them, so it seems as if Safety Monitors might have been responsible for keeping the lenses clean and unobstructed previously.
However, as Tesla transitions to a fully autonomous self-driving suite and Robotaxi expands to more vehicles in the Robotaxi fleet, it needed to find a way to clean the cameras without any manual intervention, at least for a short period, until they can return for interior and exterior washing.
Tesla made a dramatic change to the Online Design Studio to show its plans for Full Self-Driving, a major part of the company’s plans moving forward, as CEO Elon Musk has been extremely clear on the direction moving forward.
With Tesla taking a stand and removing the ability to purchase Full Self-Driving outright next month, it is already taking steps to initiate that with owners and potential buyers.
On Thursday night, the company updated its Online Design Studio to reflect that in a new move that now lists the three purchase options that are currently available: Monthly Subscription, One-Time Purchase, or Add Later:
🚨 Check out the change Tesla made to its Online Design Studio:
It now lists the Monthly Subscription as an option for Full Self-Driving
It also shows the outright purchase option as expiring on February 14 pic.twitter.com/pM6Svmyy8d
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
This change replaces the former option for purchasing Full Self-Driving at the time of purchase, which was a simple and single box to purchase the suite outright. Subscriptions were activated through the vehicle exclusively.
However, with Musk announcing that Tesla would soon remove the outright purchase option, it is clearer than ever that the Subscription plan is where the company is headed.
The removal of the outright purchase option has been a polarizing topic among the Tesla community, especially considering that there are many people who are concerned about potential price increases or have been saving to purchase it for $8,000.
This would bring an end to the ability to pay for it once and never have to pay for it again. With the Subscription strategy, things are definitely going to change, and if people are paying for their cars monthly, it will essentially add $100 per month to their payment, pricing some people out. The price will increase as well, as Musk said on Thursday, as it improves in functionality.
I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve.
The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD). https://t.co/YDKhXN3aaG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2026
Those skeptics have grown concerned that this will actually lower the take rate of Full Self-Driving. While it is understandable that FSD would increase in price as the capabilities improve, there are arguments for a tiered system that would allow owners to pay for features that they appreciate and can afford, which would help with data accumulation for the company.
Musk’s new compensation package also would require Tesla to have 10 million active FSD subscriptions, but people are not sure if this will move the needle in the correct direction. If Tesla can potentially offer a cheaper alternative that is not quite unsupervised, things could improve in terms of the number of owners who pay for it.
News
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Tesla Robotaxi has a highly-requested hardware feature not available on typical Model Ys
Tesla makes big Full Self-Driving change to reflect future plans
