Tesla's FSD push and crackdown
Tesla is again promising a major safety leap with its next Full Self‑Driving release while simultaneously pulling access from cars that used unauthorized hacks — a strange mix of bold marketing and tight software control. Elon Musk has teased that FSD v15 will “far exceed” human safety and is being pitched as an “unsupervised” leap built on a model reportedly 10x larger than before, even though similar grand claims were made for past versions (v12 in 2023, v14 in 2025). (electrek.co) (teslanorth.com) Meanwhile Tesla has started remotely disabling FSD on vehicles using third‑party bypass devices in unsupported regions — some owners report permanent revocations after paying thousands — and the company has also dialed down the aggressive “Mad Max” driving behavior in v14.3. (driveteslacanada.ca) (notateslaapp.com) (teslarati.com) (teslaoracle.com)
Tesla is selling two opposite ideas at once in April 2026: the next Full Self-Driving release will be so good it can go “far exceed” human safety, and the current Full Self-Driving software can be shut off remotely if owners used the wrong hardware trick to turn it on. On April 9, Elon Musk said Full Self-Driving version 15 is built around a model with 10 times more parameters, which is a way of saying a much larger pattern-matching system trained to turn camera video into steering, braking, and lane choices. He said that larger model is aimed at “unsupervised” driving, even though Tesla’s product on sale today is still called Full Self-Driving “Supervised.” Tesla’s own support pages still say the driver must stay attentive, keep hands ready, and take over at any time, because Full Self-Driving is not sold as a fully autonomous system today. Tesla’s owner manuals also say the cabin camera watches driver attentiveness while the feature is engaged. That gap between the promise and the product is not new. Electrek noted that Musk made similar “safer than humans” claims around version 12 in 2023 and version 14 in 2025, and those releases did not become the unsupervised breakthrough he described. Tesla does have a safety case it points to. Its Full Self-Driving safety page says the system has logged 8.74 billion miles and says collision likelihood goes down when the software is engaged under active supervision. But Tesla is also tightening control over who gets to use that software at all. Multiple reports on April 9 said the company started remotely disabling Full Self-Driving on cars that used third-party Controller Area Network bus devices, which are small add-on modules that spoof signals inside the car to bypass regional locks. Those bypass devices spread in places like Europe, China, Korea, and Turkey, where Tesla has not officially enabled Full Self-Driving, often because local approval and mapping rules are different from the United States. Owners used the modules to make the car think it was in a supported market and unlock features they had paid for or imported. Some owners now say the penalty was not a warning but a permanent revocation, which means a software feature that can cost thousands of dollars can disappear with an over-the-air update if Tesla decides the car broke the rules. Electrek reported Tesla’s crackdown also came with warnings about voided warranties and possible legal consequences for tampering. At the same time, Tesla is toning down one of the most aggressive public faces of the software. Early tests of Full Self-Driving version 14.3 showed “Mad Max” mode making fewer abrupt lane decisions than before, even while keeping a faster, more assertive style in some highway merges. So the April 2026 picture is this: Tesla is promising a giant leap with version 15, softening the roughest behavior in version 14.3, and reminding owners that Full Self-Driving is not just a driver-assistance feature but a tightly controlled software license. The steering wheel may be in the car, but the off switch is still in Tesla’s hands.
