Tesla gives update on self-driving roadmap, v13 slips, more promises
Tesla has given an update on its self-driving roadmap. It confirmed that its FSD v13 update has been delayed into next month and it makes more promises.
Last month, Tesla released its first ‘AI roadmap’, which consisted of a more detailed plan about updates and new features it plans to push through the (Supervised) Full Self-Driving (FSD) program.
It was a welcomed way for us to track progress better. Still, we have already noted several problems with it, such as the fact that Tesla uses “miles between necessary disengagement” as a metric to track progress, and yet, it refuses to share any miles between disengagement data.
Furthermore, Tesla claimed that it completed all its September goals on the AI roadmap despite the biggest one being v12.5, achieving “~3x improvement miles between necessary interventions,” and we have seen no evidence of that happening.
In fact, crowdsourced data, the best available data since Tesla refuses to share any, shows that v12.5 is actually a regression compared to v12.3, the last widely released FSD update:
That’s based on over 40,000 miles of v12.5 data.
In the original roadmap, Tesla stated these goals for October:
- Unpark, Park and Reverse in FSD
- v13 with ~6x improved miles between necessary interventions
With October coming to a close today, Tesla has released an update. The automaker says that it accomplished this on its AI roadmap this month:
- End-to-end on highway has shipped to ~50k customers with v12.5.6.1
- Cybertruck build that improves responsiveness
- Successful We, Robot event with 50 autonomous Teslas safely transporting over 2,000 passengers
“End-to-End network on highway”, which constitutes using neural net controls for highway driving instead of just city streets, was supposed to happen back in September, but instead, Tesla has only been able to push it to a limited number of customers in October.
As for what’s coming next, Tesla now says that “end-to-end highway driving” is coming next week, but only for Tesla owners with HW4:
“Full rollout of end-to-end highway driving to all AI4 users, targeted for early next week, including enhancements in stop smoothness, less annoying bad weather notifications, and other safety improvements.”
For now, HW3 owners are stuck with this:
Improved v12.5.x models for AI3 city driving
Tesla also notes that “Actually Smart Summon will be released to Europe, China and other regions of the world” without a clear timeline.
Finally, Tesla comes back to v13, which the automaker now claims will include these improvements:
- 36 Hz, full-resolution AI4 video inputs
- Native AI4 inputs and neural network architectures
- 3x model size scaling
- 3x model context length scaling
- 4.2x data scaling
- 5x training compute scaling (enabled by the Cortex training cluster)
- Much improved reward predictions for collision avoidance, following traffic controls, navigation, etc.
- Efficient representation of maps and navigation inputs
- Audio inputs for better handling of emergency vehicles
- Redesigned controller for smoother, more accurate tracking – Integrated unpark, reverse, and park capabilities
- Support for destination options including pulling over, parking in a spot, driveway, or garage
- Improved camera cleaning and handling of camera occlusions
Tesla added about v13 in its updated AI roadmap:
We have integrated several of these improvements and are already seeing a 4x increase in miles between necessary interventions compared to v12.5.4.
Interestingly, Tesla originally said it would be a “~6x improvement in miles between necessary interventions” in September and during its earnings call just last week, Elon Musk said it would be a “5-6x improvement.”
As for the new timeline for v13, Tesla is now targeting a wide release at the end of November:
This lays the foundation for the v13 series, and we are targeting to ship v13.0 to internal customers by the end of this week. Most of the remaining items are independently validated and will be integrated over November in a series of point releases. We are targeting a wide release with v13.3 with most of the above improvements for AI4 vehicles around Thanksgiving!
As you can see, it’s also again only for HW4 owners.
Electrek’s Take
My key takeaways here are: HW3 owners are screwed. Even though there was some progress with Elon finally admitting that HW3 might not be enough for unsupervised self-driving, we are still far from an actual resolution.
HW3 development is now falling months behind HW4 without even a clear timeline for catching up, and Tesla is only talking about maybe having to develop a retrofittable computer for HW3.
As for the pace of improvement, v13 is now at least a full month behind schedule, and we don’t know if it will actually result in a meaningful improvement in miles between disengagement. Even if it does, Tesla needs about several more updates that bring order of magnitudes improvements in miles between disengagement.
Considering the fact that v13 is now scheduled to come 8 months after v12 and 4 months after v12.5, the pace of improvement looks to be nowhere near what Tesla needs it to be to achieve its stated goal of 600,000 miles between critical disengagement by Q2 2025.
At this stage, it remains a pipe dream, in my opinion, which is based on the best data available. I will change my mind as more data comes in.
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![Day 1 of the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025 [Gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/07/54629423281_6315c46dff_k.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
Stay tuned for more!
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Last year, Tesla announced a new project called ‘Oasis’, which consists of a new model Supercharger station with a solar farm and battery storage enabling off-grid operations in Lost Hills, California.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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