FSD BETA Monthly Subscription and future UPDATES

[TomServo]

I subscribed to FSD on May 22nd to use on a long road trip, and to my surprise I was enrolled in FSD BETA on 2023.12.10 (V11.3.6).

Now that I have been granted access to BETA if I continue the subscription will I remain in BETA regardless of any future updates I receive and install or could some future update kick me out of BETA?

 

[JB47394]

I subscribed to FSD on May 22nd to use on a long road trip, and to my surprise I was enrolled in FSD BETA on 2023.12.10 (V11.3.6).

Now that I have been granted access to BETA if I continue the subscription will I remain in BETA regardless of any future updates I receive and install or could some future update kick me out of BETA?

Regardless of future updates? Absolutely not. Every update offered to your car can change anything and everything about how it operates. That includes the way the doors open, access to music, automatic safety systems, charging, autonomy systems, everything. This is what is meant by a software-defined car. So if you install an update, it could alter your car in any way that Tesla chooses - just as Tesla chose to include a version of FSD beta for people who want temporary access to FSD functionality. They can take it away via the same mechanism. As I understand things, Tesla can also update a car without requiring the owner's consent.

Note that "beta" is not an acronym and need not be in all capital letters. It denotes a particular stage in the software development cycle - beta testing.

Software release life cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TomServo]

JB47394, thank's for the detailed, informative and lucid response. That makes perfect sense how you explained it. And I will no no longer capitalize the word "beta".

 

[JHCCAZ]

I subscribed to FSD on May 22nd to use on a long road trip, and to my surprise I was enrolled in FSD BETA on 2023.12.10 (V11.3.6).

Now that I have been granted access to BETA if I continue the subscription will I remain in BETA regardless of any future updates I receive and install or could some future update kick me out of BETA?

I won't disagree with the previous answer, that Tesla can take it away if they want to. But I'll give you the answer based on the past year or two of FSD beta practice: the short answer is that Tesla will not update your car with software that will make you lose FSD beta.

If you keep the FSD subscription going, and you're enrolled in FSD beta and have it activated in at least one driver profile in your car, it is by far most likely that you will only be offered software update versions that contain the same or a higher version of FSD beta.

However, this also means that you will not necessarily "keep up with the Joneses" regarding feature updates on non FSD beta cars. Until late May when you got it, pretty much everyone on FSD beta was stuck at the 2022.45.x software release, basically the Christmas update. And that was actually a little unusual, because Tesla actually made an effort to get everyone the holiday update features in December. More typically, FSD beta comes in a software wrapper that is very roughly 2 months behind the rest of the fleet. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I've hypothesized on the probable reasons for this; I don't think it's just negligence on Tesla's part, but it does cause some grousing - especially from people who aren't too impressed with FSD beta.

Having explained that, I think there are also indications that Tesla wants to normalize the newer FSD beta code-base and phase out the legacy code-base (aka "stack") that now runs TACC, basic Autopilot, highway Navigate on Autopilot and non-beta FSD. If they do that, it could be that FSD beta updates will become more tightly coupled to the fleetwide standard software updates.

Finally, I'll note that the people like you who recently became new users of FSD beta are currently on a more advanced Fleet software version (2023.12 x) but a slightly less advanced FSD beta version (11.3.6), compared to the larger FSD beta group who are currently on 2023.7.x yet running FSD beta 11.4.x. There are a couple of possible reasons why this happened, but only Tesla knows for sure. Maybe these groups will merge together soon, OTOH maybe the most recent new cars and/or newest FSD beta users will tend to be given the slightly older and better understood versions of FSD beta.

 

[snovvman]

based on the past year or two of FSD beta practice: the short answer is that Tesla will not update your car with software that will make you lose FSD beta.

If you keep the FSD subscription going, and you're enrolled in FSD beta and have it activated in at least one driver profile in your car, it is by far most likely that you will only be offered software update versions that contain the same or a higher version of FSD beta.

This is consistent with all the posts I have read. I have not come across anyone's FSDb taken away by a software update.

Having explained that, I think there are also indications that Tesla wants to normalize the newer FSD beta code-base and phase out the legacy code-base (aka "stack") that now runs TACC, basic Autopilot, highway Navigate on Autopilot and non-beta FSD. If they do that, it could be that FSD beta updates will become more tightly coupled to the fleetwide standard software updates.

I am hoping that they will merge the FSDb into the infotainment update track. Based on my readings, FSDb code is better in AP and EAP mode. It will also make things easier for people to jump in and out of FSDb.