JPMorgan recently met with Tesla’s Investor Relations team and has now provided new details about FSD v15, Tesla’s next-generation AI hardware, and its plans to scale Robotaxi. As expected, Tesla’s FSD v15 will include major performance improvements, comparable to the difference between FSD v13 and v14.
At the same time, Tesla states that it is intentionally not adding additional Model Y vehicles to its robotaxi fleet, as it believes it could soon add Cybercab to the mix.
FSD V15 Is Already Being Tested in Robotaxis
According to JPMorgan, FSD v15 includes improvements to seven core “technologies.” It’s unclear whether JPMorgan is referring to features of FSD v15 or, in fact, different technologies. However, Tesla says that about 40% of these changes are already being tested on its robotaxi fleet.
Tesla VP Ashok Elluswamy stated during Tesla’s Q2 earnings call that robotaxi was already running FSD v15 with 7 major improvements over v14.
As we previously reported when Tesla revealed Robotaxis were already running FSD v15, these early builds appear to be operating on standard hardware 4 Model Ys. Tesla says current AI4 hardware can run FSD v15 and support unsupervised FSD.
V15 will also bring the roughly 10-billion-parameter model that was once expected sooner. Elon Musk confirmed earlier this year that the 10x larger model would instead arrive with v15.
FSD Hardware AI4+ / HW4.5
Tesla also discussed its upcoming AI4+ AI computer with roughly 10% more FLOPS and about twice the memory of AI4. Tesla described the additional capacity as preparation for larger robotaxi models and longer context windows.
That hardware description is especially interesting for Cybercab. We previously reported that production Cybercabs contain more powerful FSD hardware, including more memory than the standard AI4 computers found in consumer vehicles. Tesla has not confirmed that Cybercabs are running AI4+, but based on the information we received, that’s the most likely scenario, rather than an early version of AI5.
Tesla Waiting on Cybercab
Tesla told JPMorgan that it is intentionally holding back on adding more Model Ys to its robotaxi fleet because it plans to launch the Cybercab soon.
The Cybercab is a completely new vehicle, which means that it needs to be trained on FSD from the ground up. Given the required training, these vehicles are likely running AI4+ and FSD v15, since it wouldn’t make sense for Tesla to train it on v14 and AI4, only to have to retrain it later.
Given the new FSD model and the more powerful hardware, we could see a drastic improvement in robotaxi performance when the Cybercab launches.
Cybercab Launch Event Is Coming
These new details arrived shortly after Tesla announced its Cybercab launch event in Austin. Tesla has not announced the event date, but its sweepstakes ends August 23, and winners will be selected August 25.
