Tesla has started the rollout of the latest version of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta version 12 to employees, ahead of expectations that the automaker could launch FSD beta v12 to the public sometime this year.
The FSD beta v12.2 is going out to Tesla employees and “special groups” for the first time, according to a Friday post on X from Teslascope. The point version of the FSD beta was spotted on software version 2023.44.30.15, which Teslascope says also began going out on Friday.
Full Self-Driving (Beta) v12.2 is now going out to @Tesla employees and special groups for the first time.
— Teslascope (@teslascope) February 9, 2024
In response to one user in the thread, Teslascope predicted that Tesla could still roll out FSD beta v12 to the public before March, adding that they’ve been told “the goal is to release an update any day now to the public.”
Tesla began rolling out FSD beta v12.1.2 on limited customer vehicles last month, after first launching the highly-anticipated FSD beta version 12 to employees in November, according to CEO Elon Musk. While Musk said last year that FSD v12 would lose its “beta” distinction, the recent versions going out to employees and special groups have included the term in their release notes. Teslascope and others have predicted that the initial v12 release will likely include the beta term, though they still expect it to be dropped sometime this year.
V12 is the right build for this to happen. Won’t happen immediately but sometime this year we believe.
— Teslascope (@teslascope) February 9, 2024
Musk also shared the FSD beta v12 in a public livestream last year, and while it showed some kinks, many pointed to how the upcoming version would change autonomous driving.
In addition to including certain new features, like the automatic set speed offset, version 12 is expected to be a complete overhaul of the software, upgrading the “the city streets’ driving stack to a single end-to-end neural network trained on millions of video clips,” according to Tesla.
In the biography of Musk published in September, biographer Walter Isaacson detailed some of the development of FSD beta v12 and the somewhat recent shift to a “neural network planner” approach to the software.
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