Elon Musk Updates Timeline for Tesla’s FSD v12.5 on HW3 Vehicles

Elon Musk announced that Tesla is finalizing the release of FSD v12.5 for HW3 vehicles, promising improved functionality soon.

In recent weeks, Tesla has started updating its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised software to version 12.5 for certain vehicles equipped with the more recent HW4 computer.

Per Teslarati, despite expectations that the release of HW3-equipped vehicles will occur this week, CEO Elon Musk stated over the weekend that the team is "working on it."

Musk Confirms Different Release Number for HW3 FSD Update

The FSD Supervised version that will be distributed to HW3 vehicles will have a "different release number" from v12.5.1.3, according to Musk's Saturday statement. The distribution of this version started on Friday. Most Teslas on the road use HW3, which was originally called AI3 but changed to AI5 in response to Musk's recent mention of an upcoming vehicle computer.

Because of this, many people whose vehicles have HW3 sensors have been wondering when they will be able to install FSD v12.5. This version has been gradually released since last month and is said to provide several improvements.

"Team is working on it." Musk announced the change in the release number in his Saturday X post.

Nearly two weeks have passed since the company started rolling out FSD v12.5.1, and Musk has already revealed that the update will roll out to Model Y units with HW4 hardware before going out to the rest of the fleet.

Furthermore, Musk mentioned on July 29 that the expected deployment for Tesla's FSD Supervised v12.5 to HW3 vehicles will be around 10 days. If this timeframe is to be adhered to, it would have been released on Thursday.

Tesla Team Optimizing FSD v12.5 for HW3 Vehicles

Included in the fivefold increase in parameters compared to the previous version, the CEO of Tesla has also offered some background on why the rollout of FSD v12.5 to HW3 vehicles was delayed:

"It takes considerable software effort to optimize the code enough to run on HW3," Musk stated. "It also needs to be validated separately."

Even though the Cybertruck has HW4, FSD Supervised is still not available in any way in the EV, though it is projected to be released with version 12.5 at the latest. During an event a few weekends ago, Musk mentioned that FSD is expected to be released to the Cybertruck around August, while the exact timing is difficult to predict.

Improvements to FSD v12.5 include a unified highway and city stack and driver monitoring that doesn't bother drivers when they wear sunglasses. While this version is essentially its own piece of code, Musk has stated that it will be released alongside Actual Smart Summon.