Tesla Is Holding Back Model Y Robotaxis, Reveals New FSD V15 Details

After a recent meeting with Tesla’s Investor Relations team, JPMorgan shared new information about FSD v15, the company’s next-generation AI hardware, and plans to scale Robotaxi. Tesla expects FSD v15 to deliver major performance gains, comparable to the jump from FSD v13 to v14.

Tesla also said it is deliberately refraining from adding more Model Y vehicles to its robotaxi fleet, anticipating that Cybercab could be added soon.

FSD V15 Is Already Being Tested in Robotaxis

JPMorgan reports that FSD v15 brings improvements across seven core technologies. It is unclear whether these refer to features within FSD v15 or distinct technologies. About 40% of these updates are already being tested on the robotaxi fleet, according to Tesla.

During Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, VP Ashok Elluswamy said robotaxi was already running FSD v15 with 7 major improvements over v14.

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 is also set to introduce a roughly 10-billion-parameter model that had previously been expected earlier. Elon Musk confirmed earlier this year that the 10x larger model would instead debut with v15.

FSD Hardware AI4+ / HW4.5

Tesla outlined its upcoming AI4+ AI computer with roughly 10% more FLOPS and about twice the memory of AI4. The added capacity is positioned for larger robotaxi models and longer context windows.

This hardware description is especially relevant for Cybercab. Production Cybercabs are said to 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 available information suggests this is more likely than an early version of AI5.

Tesla Waiting on Cybercab

Tesla told JPMorgan it is intentionally holding back on adding more Model Ys to its robotaxi fleet because it plans to launch the Cybercab soon.

Because Cybercab is a completely new vehicle, it must be trained on FSD from the ground up. Given this requirement, these vehicles are likely running AI4+ and FSD v15 rather than v14 and AI4.

With the new FSD model and more powerful hardware, a drastic improvement in robotaxi performance is possible when the Cybercab launches.

Cybercab Launch Event Is Coming

These updates follow Tesla’s announcement of a Cybercab launch event in Austin. The event date has not been announced, but its sweepstakes ends August 23, and winners will be selected August 25.