As October comes to a close, here's an update on the releases

What we completed:
- 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

What's coming next:
- 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
- Improved v12.5.x models for AI3 city driving
- Actually Smart Summon release to Europe, China and other regions of the world
- v13 is a package of following major technology upgrades:
- 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

We have integrated several of these improvements and are already seeing a 4x increase in miles between necessary interventions compared to v12.5.4.
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!

https://x.com/Tesla_AI/status/1851911795381805367

I'm trying to figure out who the winning suppliers of autonomous driving (AD) will be. I believe the answer is Mobileye, Waymo, and Tesla. Not Qualcomm and Nvidia.

AD is going mainstream by 2026-2027. Tesla FSD and Waymo are educating the masses that AD is possible and safe. By 2027, consumers will expect L2-L4 AD in their cars.

Automakers are currently on the DIY (do it yourself) path using Qualcomm and Nvidia chips plus internally developed software to deliver L2 highway driving such as Ford Blue Cruise, GM Super Cruise, BMW Personal Pilot, etc. But Volkswagen has selected Mobileye to offer L3+ in 17 models starting in 2026. Meanwhile Tesla's FSD should be delivering a L3+ experience by 2026. The pressure will be on for OEMs like Ford, GM, and Stellantis to find a solution for L3-L5. Right now, those OEMs are spending $500m+ a year trying to solve the AD software problem. But this is a SOFTWARE problem and automakers are bad at software. The DIY route will become extremely expensive and unattainable at L3-L5.

Thus most automakers such as Ford, GM, and Stellantis will be forced to find a L3-L5 AD partner. Tesla is their archrival, so they won't buy from Tesla. Waymo is potentially their future archrival? Doesn't Google Waymo aim to make cars dumb boxes with four wheels, powered by their AD and infotainment systems? Won't that strip all the profits from companies such as Ford? Thus the only real supplier who isn't a threat is Mobileye. Mobileye is a supplier who will help companies solve the L3-L5 problem while keeping their brand. Using Mobileye will actually increase their profitability as they will be able to charge high margin profits for AD.

Thus, isn't Mobileye likely the big AD winner in 2027 and beyond? There is a lot I don't know here; where am I wrong? Areas I could be wrong:

• Qualcomm doesn't just supply chips, its develops a full software AD driving system and sells a complete end to end solution. Same for Nvidia (but they aren't focused on this market).
• Auto OEMs are able to internally develop systems for L3-L5. My view was they can do L2 since that problem is easier, but at L3-L5 the problem is exponentially harder and they give up due to high costs.
• Waymo is not seen as a threat and Waymo beats Mobileye.
• Some other competitor like May Mobility emerges.

What do you all think?

For those who live in areas that service Waymo, why do you use it?

Excluding tips, it looks like Waymo is slightly more expensive than other ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. So what are the main reasons for using Waymo instead of them?

Does anyone know about the company culture at Wayve and how it's like working there? I've already read the Glassdoor reviews but they're not specific enough. Thanks!

Today only the large cities have Wyamo, and still even in these cities, normal cars are the vast majority. When will driverless cars become the norm?

I have completed a drive from Michigan to Florida a little over 1,000 miles completed in about 18ish hours. (Story background, escalade is sport Platinum and brand new, prior to drive meticulously set up all settings and vehicle. Which seems to missing sensitivity settings for lane assist, similar to Grand wagoneer.)

Let's start with the good things.

I made it alive It made the drive easier Gives a safe feeling to look at your surroundings. Three separate occasions changed lanes when the lane ended. Handled hills and mountains up slopes and down slopes very well.

Negative things

It's constantly changing Lanes for no reason! Super annoying.

Changing Lanes into lanes with vehicles merging onto the highway super unsafe and had to override lane changes many times for safety reasons.

It constantly wants to put you in the right lane.

At random times it disconnects, you have to button smash for 10 seconds until it can reconnect

Different times it didn't understand the lane paths and emergency brakes and turned off super cruise. Super dangerous.

It's ability dodge dangerous vehicles is non-existent. Like a semi truck drifting into your lane.

It doesn't understand the danger of sitting in the blind spots of semi trucks, where a normal driver speeds up a little bit.

It does not synchronize with your driving directions with Android Auto or the other navigation.

I'm surprised there has been no fatal accidents, this Super Cruise is one incident away from killing someone. Either getting sideswiped by a truck, breaking unexpectedly and getting rear-ended or my favorite, changing lanes into vehicles merging onto the highway.

Final conclusion.

I'm happy with it, definitely things can be improved. But it works well enough for most people. Not everyday is someone driving a thousand miles and taking notes on incidents. I hope this can find the individuals that make the upgrades and improvements. Happy to share my drive data.

I look forward to continued use, I just know what to look out for now. And thought you should too.

Cheers 🥂

Anybody else in the self driving car community don't care about Robotaxi? Robotaxi is cool but I don't have plans for that. I want my personal car to self drive me from home to a different destination. Self parking is a bonus. I don't care about using my car as a robot Uber. Yeah that's cool to, but not big on having random people in my car without my supervision.

Would be nice if some of these developers allow car companies to license their self driving technology for consumer cars instead of just Robotaxi stuff.

People often say "better than humans" is good enough for autonomous vehicles. It's true in theory, but will it actually hold up in practice?

I think the bar is much higher because the entire fleet of a company is viewed as one driver. If Waymos start having a fatality per 100M miles, some day in a few years you're going to see a Waymo related fatality every week, maybe every day. Is that something society will actually be ok with?

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