Tesla rolls out FSD 12.5.1.5 to HW3 customer cars, read first impressions by early tester

It took a short while for Tesla (TSLA) to release the FSD v12.5 to Hardware 3 (HW3/AI3) from internal testers to customer cars.

Just yesterday, Tesla Autopilot Director Ashok Elluswamy confirmed that the company’s AI software team has achieved a comparable performance of FSD v12.5 on HW3 cars as HW4 ones.

The automaker must have been testing FSD v12.5 on HW3 cars for the past few days at least. This testing resulted in the much-awaited rollout of FSD Supervised 12.5 for HW3 Tesla vehicles. According to rough estimates, around 85% of the total Tesla vehicles have the legacy Hardware 3 computer installed in them.

As we suspected and expressed in our previous FSD HW3 report, Tesla did not roll out the same version for customers as it used for in-house testing. Internal employee cars used the FSD v12.5.1.4 (2024.26.15) point release while the customer cars are getting the newer version 12.5.1.5 (2024.26.20).

Tesla started deploying FSD v12.5.1.5 to customer vehicles yesterday around 10:00 PM and around 10:00 AM today there were a total of 18 installs with 6 pending (out of 20,046 data-contributing vehicles on TeslaFi.com).

The rollout of FSD v12.5.1.5 to HW3 cars is a slow start. Tesla is most probably going to test it with a limited pool of early access original group (OG) FSD beta testers first and then go wide release with another version after ironing out bugs and issues.

One of our readers, Joseph Mosher confirmed to us that he received FSD v12.5 on his Tesla Model 3 RWD with Hardware 3/AI3 today. “I received update 2024.26.20 this morning and it includes FSD 12.5.1.5. My Tesla is a M3 RWD with HW3,” he commented on our last report.

First Impressions of HW3 FSD v12.5.1.5 (2024.26.20) by @AI DRIVR

Tesla YouTuber AI DRIVR who belongs to the OG early access FSD testers is one of the first to get FSD v12.5.1.5 on his HW3 Tesla Model S. He did not release a video yet but posted his first impressions of the new FSD update after a ~45 min drive.

AI DRIVR owns both HW4 and HW3 cars and is an ideal candidate to compare FSD v12.5 on both versions of the hardware.

In his brief testing of the HW3 FSD v12.5.1.5, he mostly experienced a drive similar to what he did on the upgraded HW4 Tesla car. However, there were some issues he faced as well. For example, his HW3 Tesla stopped at an intersection that did not have a Stop sign. The HW4 vehicle never stopped at this location, he stated.

Here are his main findings of the HW3 FSD v12.5.1.5 he posted on X (Twitter):

• The 12.5 magic is definitely still there. it takes natural paths through all the turns, has very good lane positioning, and much better acceleration / braking than any version so far.
• It’s not hands free and still nags just as much as before, which was expected as there is no interior camera in the legacy S.
• The last few mph coming to a stop is a bit less smooth than my Y, likely because this car can’t regen to 0 mph (you can feel when it starts using the brake pedal).
• More micro braking and overall slower than usual in the drives that I did, but it was pitch black outside. Need more testing to see if there’s a real difference.
• It stopped at an intersection in my neighborhood with no stop sign, the HW4 Y has never stopped there before.

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