Tesla has released a new version of Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta to its internal group of employee testers. The update, version 2022.45.10, addresses the concerns of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which resulted in an over-the-air (OTA) recall and the suspension of the release of FSD Beta to new owners.
In mid-February the NHTSA published a recall notice on its website which stated FSD Beta “allows a vehicle to exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner [which] increases the risk of a crash.” Through their investigation the agency identified four specific scenarios which precipitated the OTA recall:
- traveling or turning through certain intersections during a stale yellow traffic light;
- the perceived duration of the vehicle’s static position at certain intersections with a stop sign, particularly when the intersection is clear of any other road users;
- adjusting vehicle speed while traveling through certain variable speed zones, based on detected speed limit signage and/or the vehicle’s speed offset setting that is adjusted by the driver; and
- negotiating a lane change out of certain turn-only lanes to continue traveling straight.
Tesla later published a new page to its website stating they were pausing the deployment of Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software to new buyers or subscribers until such time as they could release a new version to address the concerns raised by the NHTSA.
It looks like those fixes will come when Tesla finally releases the long-awaited single stack version 11 to public testers. Version 11.3 has been in the hands of employees for several weeks now, and today release notes have been shared showing the next incremental v11.3.1 (2022.45.10) includes a feature called “Over-the-Air (OTA) recall”.
Unfortunately the exact release notes for that feature were not shared, but we presume they will detail the four points listed above. (h/t: @erichester)
We still don’t know when FSD Beta v11 will be deployed to public testers. The update, which combines the city streets and highways stack into a single neural net first appeared last summer, and since then has been delayed numerous times despite claims from CEO Elon Musk of its imminent release.
Hopefully this is a good sign and that FSD Beta v11 will be released soon and that new testers will be able to download the software they paid a lot of money for.
