With the imminent release of Tesla Inc's (NASDAQ:TSLA) Full Self-Driving (FSD) v11.4 to employees this week, Musk said the new version will feature “so many major improvements” and that it should be called v12. However, the billionaire CEO commented on Twitter that the v12 “is reserved for when FSD is end-to-end AI, from images in to steering, brakes and acceleration out.”
Back in late 2020, Tesla released its FSD Beta to 3000 or so individuals in the company’s Early Access Program. However, that number has currently grown to more than 400,000 vehicles, and now the capability comes standard with any purchase of the full self-driving feature in the U.S. and Canada.
Today’s Tesla vehicles utilize cameras for inputs, which output a three-dimensional representation of the environment that surrounds the car. It then uses traditional path algorithms for outputs like steering, acceleration, braking, and other driving behaviors.
End-to-end would only utilize the cameras on a vehicle to input the neural network, while the output would be the steering, acceleration, braking, and other driving behaviors. The entire FSD suite would be coded in a single neural network and can be learned by relying on driving behaviors input by humans.
The CEO didn’t offer a timeline for this particular update. The automaker is currently starting to expand the release of v11.4 beyond its internal fleet.
Shares of TSLA are up 0.35% in mid-day trading on Monday.