In the release notes of the latest Tesla FSD Beta v11, Tesla explains what is happening to Autopilot with the new update, and it adds the capacity to send voice feedback.
Tesla FSD Beta v11 is both an exciting and scary step as it is supposed to merge Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot highway stacks.
FSD Beta enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car’s navigation system, but the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times.
Since the responsibility rests with the driver and not Tesla’s system, it is still considered a level-two driver-assist system, despite its name. It has been sort of a “two steps forward, one step back” type of program, as some updates have seen regressions in terms of driving capabilities.
Tesla has frequently been releasing new software updates to the FSD Beta program and adding more owners to it.
Since the wider release of the beta last year, there are currently over 400,000 Tesla owners in the program in North America – virtually every Tesla owner who bought the FSD package on their vehicles.
The update is an important step because it includes many new neural networks, as Elon Musk stated, but from a consumer perspective, it’s also important because it is expected to merge Tesla’s FSD Beta software stack primarily used on roads and city streets with Tesla’s Autopilot software stack, which is used as a level 2 driver assist system on highways.
It has been delayed several times, but recently, Musk confirmed that a new version (v11.3) is going to a closed beta fleet this week – indicating that it might finally be about to be more widely released.
Now NotaTeslaapp, which tracks Tesla software updates, has obtained the FSD Beta v11.3 release notes, and they contain some interesting information.
Tesla starts out by explaining in more detail what it going to happen to Autopilot with this update:
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.
As expected this leaves the door open for some regression at first, but Tesla makes it clear that it believes this is the way to go long-term.
Another interesting new feature revealed by the release notes is the capacity to send Tesla voice memos about your FSD Beta experience. That’s something that Beta testers have been asking for a while as they can use it to give Tesla more details about a specific situation that they experience with the system.
A big part of the rest of the notes appears to focus on curbing some potentially dangerous driving behavior that FSD Beta has been known to do and has recently been described by NHTSA in its FSD Beta recall notice.
As we noted in our reporting of the recall, the notice made it sound like Tesla’s “fix” for the “recall” was simply its usual next software update, but now it looks like they did try to address some of these things more specifically as described in the release notes.
Here are the full Tesla 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 set up 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.
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Bojangles, the North Carolina-based chain known for its fried chicken and biscuits, is joining the growing list of fast food chains installing EV chargers in their parking lots.
The restaurant chain is working with Smart Big Box, Alyath EV, and Energy and Environmental Design Services to install turnkey EV charging stations at a “wide range” of its 800 restaurants, which are concentrated heavily in the southeast US. The rollout starts in late 2025, with most chargers expected to be available by sometime in 2026.
Each Bojangles location getting EV chargers will offer at least four ports. The stations will vary between Level 2 and DC fast chargers.
Bojangles CIO Richard Del Valle said, “Working with Alyath and Smart Big Box allows us to introduce a new convenience that aligns with evolving customer needs.”
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It’s a smart move. The charging stations will let people plug in and power up, and they’re more likely to dine at Bojangles while they’re doing so. Plus, Bojangles will get a reputation for having charging stations, so EV drivers will be more inclined to head toward the restaurants as a reliable power source.
Cristiane Rosul, CEO of Alyath, said the partnership “not only benefits EV drivers but also positions Bojangles as a leader in the future of quick-service dining.”
Smart Big Box has contracted with Energy and Environmental Design Services as the exclusive installer and maintenance partner for all EV chargers.
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Toyota’s electric SUV is now its cheapest vehicle to lease. After slashing lease prices again, the Toyota bZ4X is listed for lease at just $199 per month in some states. That’s even cheaper than a Corolla right now, even though it’s nearly double the price.
Toyota bZ4X is now cheaper to lease than a Corolla
The 2025 Toyota bZ4X already starts at $6,000 cheaper than the previous model year, but with a new promotion this month, it’s even more affordable.
Toyota is at it again, having cut lease prices once more this month following the Fourth of July holiday. The 2025 Toyota bZ4X XLE is now listed at just $199 per month for 36 months. With $3,999 due at signing, you’ll end up paying an effective cost of $310 per month.
The offer is $42 less than before the new promo, or about a 12% price cut. It’s hard enough to find any lease nowadays around $300, but for an electric SUV, it’s a pretty good deal.
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According to online auto research firm CarsDirect, it’s even cheaper to lease a bZ4X now in some states than a Toyota Corolla. The 2025 Corolla LE Sedan is available for $229 for 36 months. With $2,999 due at signing, the effective monthly rate is $312, or $2 more than the bZ4X.
2025 Toyota bZ4X Limited AWD Supersonic Red (Source: Toyota)
Although $2 might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty significant, given that the bZ4X is $16,000 more expensive.
The 2025 Toyota bZ4X XLE has an MSRP of $38,465, compared to the Corolla LE Sedan, which starts at $22,325. That’s a $16,140 cost difference alone.
2025 Toyota bZ4X Limited AWD interior (Source: Toyota)
Toyota’s electric SUV is slightly longer than a RAV4 at 184.6″ in length, but it has a longer wheelbase, which opens up more interior space.
Toyota is also throwing in a free year of unlimited charging (at EV-go-operated public charging stations) for those who buy or lease a new 2025 bZ4X. You can also add a ChargePoint home charger to the cost.
Although the bZ4X is available for just $199 per month, the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 is listed at $179 nationwide this month. With more range, style, and an NACS port for charging at Tesla Superchargers, the 2025 IONIQ 5 offer is hard to pass up right now.
2025 Toyota bZ4X trim
Starting Price (excluding $1,395 DPH fee)
Price reduction (vs 2024MY)
Range (mi)
XLE FWD
$37,070
-$6,000
252
XLE AWD
$39,150
-$6,000
228
Limited FWD
$41,800
-$5,380
236
Limited AWD
$43,880
-$5,380
222
Nightshade
$40,420
N/A
222
2025 Toyota bZ4X prices and range by trim
Like many carmakers, Toyota is currently offering significant incentives on electric vehicles, with the federal tax credit set to expire at the end of September. Accordingly, Toyota’s promotion ends on September 30. Although the bZ4X doesn’t qualify for the credit through purchase, Toyota is passing it on through leasing.
In some areas, like LA, Toyota is currently offering $12,000 off bZ4X leases. With the loss of the tax credit, the savings would drop to just $4,500, which would add over $100 a month to the lease price.
Transport Canada has finished its investigation into Tesla’s questionable filing of $43 million worth of EV incentives in a single day, finding that the claims did indeed represent cars sold before the deadline to file for incentives – still raising questions about disorganization within Tesla.
To recap, Canada suddenly sunsetted its electric vehicle incentives back in January, as the program ran out of money. It caught a lot of EV dealers by surprise, and there was a sudden rush to sell cars and to file for incentives, given that the end of the program was announced with just three days notice.
One of these dealerships that showed a rush was a single Tesla dealership in Quebec, which recorded 4,000 rebate requests in a single weekend, an impossible number at the relatively small location. Other Tesla locations also filed for suspiciously high numbers of incentive claims on the same weekend.
This raised alarm bells, and other Canadian auto dealers pointed it out to Transport Canada, with Huw WIlliams, head of the Canadian Auto Dealers Association (CADA) claiming that Tesla “gamed the system” to hog an illegitimate number of incentive claims out of the limited money left. The total amount was $43 million, which was more than half of the amount left in the Canadian government’s coffers.
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Even accounting for Tesla delivery pushes, and for increased sales as the credit rapidly sunset, these numbers did not seem possible.
This – perhaps combined with Tesla’s unpopular position in Canada at the time given CEO Elon Musk’s participation in a US government which was attacking Canada’s sovereignty at the time – led to Transport Canada announcing an investigation into Tesla’s incentive claims (Canadian Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland even said at the time that future Canadian ZEV incentives should exclude Tesla until the US’ “illegitimate and illegal” tariffs were lifted).
Tesla responded to the investigation in a typically standoffish manner, claiming in a letter that it was “shocked” to hear about the investigation, threatening legal action if payments weren’t resumed, and blaming Transport Canada for causing Tesla’s negative public perception and exposing Tesla’s Canadian employees to harassment (the letter did not, however, mention anything about CEO Musk’s government activities, or his recent actions attempting to spread white supremacy around the globe, and how those are much more responsible for negative public perception of the company).
Well now, the result of that investigation is back, and Freeland said on Friday that Tesla’s claims “were determined to legitimately represent cars sold before January 12.”
Transport Canada also pledged to CADA that all cars delivered before January 12 will have their incentive claims fulfilled, regardless of the program’s budget. CADA estimates it’s owed around $11 million in past-due claims, and Williams still wonders how Tesla knew to file those claims so suddenly.
Electrek’s Take
Questions still remain about this incentive. As pointed out by the Canadian Press, it’s still not clear whether Tesla’s incentive claims were for cars sold on that weekend, or for cars sold prior to that weekend and delivered all in a lump.
Given the physical limitations of the locations involved, it’s likely the latter. Which raises a different kind of alarm bell: that of disorganization within Tesla, as I pointed out as my main concern over this situation in a previous article.
I just don’t see how Tesla Canada can justify leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table for potentially several months, when all it took was the filing of some pieces of paper for them to get it. That’s capital that Tesla could have used to do business, and letting it sit in someone else’s bank account doesn’t benefit Tesla at all.
Now, disorganization is nothing new for Tesla, but businesses usually don’t like leaving money laying around for no reason. And Tesla, with its focus on quarterly results and end-of-quarter pushes, surely would have enjoyed having that extra cash in December, the end of a fiscal quarter/year, rather than the beginning of January when they filed for these incentives.
So regardless of the now proven legitimacy of these claims, this aspect should be cause for some amount of concern. It’s a reflection of a longtime problem in Tesla, where things tend to fall through the cracks until there’s some sort of emergency, and then it’s all-hands-on-deck from whoever happens to be closest to the problem at the time. But this has been an issue within Tesla for so long that it’s hard to see it being fixed at this point – and certainly not under its longtime CEO who seems far more interested in using Tesla to bail out his private companies or turning Twitter into “MechaHitler” than on making actual good decisions for Tesla.
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