After a long wait of weeks and months, Tesla (TSLA) has finally started pushing the Full Self-Driving Beta v12 update to non-employee users. The wider public release began Monday with FSD Beta version 12.2.1 (2023.44.30.20).
Tesla owners who have received the FSD v12.2.1 update have started posting videos of their experience on social media, especially on X (Twitter). Initial testers of this version say it’s “mind-blowing”.
Although it has been a couple of days since the FSD Beta 12.2.1 rollout began, only a limited number of Tesla owners have received the update.
As of this writing, according to the Tesla software tracking website TeslaFi.com, a total of 58 Tesla cars were installed with the FSD Beta v12.2.1 update out of 19,454 contributing vehicles.
Elon Musk promised a “smooth as silk” Autopilot update in 2017. With the release of the FSD Beta v12.2.1, the promise seems to have started to be realized as Tesla owners report the smoothness of the drive with this update.
A Tesla owner drove his car for 45 minutes and never needed to intervene. He compiled the following videos of this experience which he refers to as “smooth and human-like”.
In another review of FSD Beta 12.2.1, a Tesla owner with the YouTube channel AI DRIVR showed how smoothly this FSD Beta version handles the streets (watch below). His Tesla took the parking lot speed bumps of a local Costco far better than the previous version 11.
FSD 12.2.1 slows down the vehicle on these speed bumps and smoothly crosses them. According to AI DRIVR, FSD Beta v11 did not even notice these bumps and just went over them as they did not exist. In the following video, he also shows us how FSD Beta 12.2.1 slowed significantly for a basin on the road.
Improved U-turns in FSD Beta 12.2.1
The Tesla Full Self-Driving software has been struggling a lot with U-turns since its inception. We even compiled a report last year on how FSD Beta 11.4.2 was not able to take U-turns without human intervention.
In a couple of new videos recorded by Tesla owners show how Tesla has suddenly smoothed out U-turns with FSD Beta 12.2.1. In the following video, the Tesla owner reports that FSD Beta didn’t even require an accelerator press as a green signal to go ahead and take the U-turn. The vehicle completed it smoothly all by itself.
Verdict
The feedback from Tesla FSD Beta 12.2.1 users till now has definitely surprised the world. The improvements that we see are a giant leap forward from the previous version of FSD Beta. It’s still not perfect but is a huge leap forward from v11.
Tesla is fast making significant progress toward the path of Level 4 autonomy. In the coming weeks, months, and years we should expect a big surprise from the Tesla AI team to solve the most difficult algorithm in human history — fully autonomous cars. Robotaxis will follow — Elon Musk‘s dream for the future of transportation.
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