Tesla has again started giving out free 30-day trials of Full-Self Driving (FSD) to customers in Canada and the US. For the majority of those receiving the free trial it includes FSD v12.3.6, which is not the most recent version of the software currently available to customers.
Tesla announced the start of the 30-day trial through an email to owners on Thursday night. The email, titled “The Future is Autonomous,” references the recent ‘We, Robot’ event where the Cybercab and Robovan were unveiled, giving us a glimpse of the future. However, Tesla says they want to give owners the chance to “experience a part of the future for the next 30 days” with a free trial of FSD.
Even if you didn’t get the email, owners told us they received the 2024.32.7 software update in their vehicles, which included FSD v12.3.6. Along with the software, there is a pop-up that says “your Autopilot package has been upgraded” and to “enable/configure the feature in Autopilot settings.” There is also an easy slider button to enable FSD.
UPDATE Oct 18 8:45am PT: What version of FSD you get appears to be dependent on your subscription history.
- v12.3.6 if you’ve never subscribed to FSD.
- v12.5.4 or v12.5.4.1 if you were previously subscribed on one of these versions.
This trial appears to be going out to almost everyone, including those that previously received a trial earlier this year.
As noted above, it is important to know this is not the most recent version and still includes the steering wheel nag. The steering wheel nag is only removed in FSD v12.4 or later, which introduces vision-based attention monitoring that allows you to no longer have to apply force (torque) to the steering wheel intermittently. It also doesn’t include Actually Smart Summon (ASS).
However, just because it isn’t the latest version doesn’t mean v12.3.6 isn’t good. In fact, owners who have experienced v12.5.4.1 say that this version performs better in many scenarios.
Looking ahead, the trial is good for 30-days, so it will be expiring in mid-November. That means there is a very good chance you will get to experience FSD v13, which is slated for a release in October, and is expected to have “6x improved miles between necessary interventions,” according to Tesla.
Did you receive the free trial? What are your first impressions of v12.3.6? Let us know in the comments below.
