Tesla FSD newspaper: curiosity, astonishment, shock and embarrassment

When I picked up my new Tesla Performance of model 3 In December, he came with a free trial of the complete self-deputy software (FSD) of the company.

Originally, I made the purchase to enjoy a fast sports car. But I was also fascinated by the promise of autonomous vehicles Since I experienced the technology of the first Google drivers as a journalist at the Wall Street Journal more than a decade.

So, for five months, I have been using FSD (in “chill” mode only) to see what he can and cannot do.

I always drive the car. Legally, functionally and out of necessity. Tesla calls for this complete autonomous software, but it is really an advanced driver assistance system. Every moment he is engaged, I am always the driver and Tesla shows it very clear when you are in FSD mode.

The company plans to launch a Robotaxi service in Austin in June. This will come with fully autonomous software that does not require any supervision. However, the reason for this newspaper is to give you an idea of ​​what the last and the biggest Driving Software of Tesla is capable at the moment.

Here are my observations, my feelings and my take-out dishes of more than 1,000 miles in the FSD in the Silicon Valley and beyond. I also shared this newspaper with Bryant Walker Smith, a lawyer who focuses on mobility, driver assistance and autonomous vehicle technology. I included a part of its context and its thoughts throughout. I also shared my newspaper with Tesla’s press office and CEO Elon Musk by email on
Wednesday. They did not respond.

More relaxing, especially in traffic

Let’s eliminate that: this is one of the best cars I have ever driven. From time to time for over 20 years, I have Test cars From the Hummers to the Porsche via Alfa Romeos. The performance of model 3 has an incredible direction, high construction quality and incredible speed, for much less money than BMW M4. It’s a lot and I love it.

In early January, lighting the FSD was a surprise at the start. He managed many more situations than what I expected – essentially everything on most trips.

Diving into traffic, with a perforated destination on Tesla’s on-board screen, is less stressful than managing a stop congestion yourself and trying to decide which turn then take. It is a slightly more relaxing new experience. I arrive for better mood.

Tesla FSD always manages to stop at the stop panels. Obviously, I do it too. But maybe not? It was boring at first, but now I don’t notice it, and it’s safer. I thought I would waste time, but really, there is no difference. What started as an irritation has become a reminder of the ease with which humans normalize the cup of corners during driving.

The FSD is a more efficient driver. It uses less battery power than I do with the car. I know it because I look at the on -board card, which predicts the level of the battery on arrival. Once I go to FSD, this prediction drops and remains lower once you arrive.

Hen and disengagement nesting

Avoiding nests-of-poule, please! My Tesla in FSD drives directly on most nests-of-poule on the road. I try (carefully!) Avoid them by driving myself. Is that why some Tesla owners say they have to replace their tires so often?

I disengaged the FSD in San Francisco a few months ago. There was a car parked on the side of a fine road. I knew I could hurry, but Tesla FSD was sitting there. So I took over, I traveled, then restarted the FSD.

I disengaged another time on highway 80, ranging from Silicon Valley to Lake Tahoe with my wife. We were in FSD (cold fashion) in the slow path. Traffic has accumulated and faster ways started to save. Another car has entered our track, just in front of us. We shouted and I caught the wheel. Maybe FSD would have manipulated it, but I was not willing to discover it.

Speaking of tracks: in cold mode, the FSD remains in the slow path, and it is slow to pass through an intersection of the highway approach. This puts me stuck behind cars that merge on the highway.

When I drive myself, I go to the outdoor tracks before this thing occurs. I know in advance a few houses of houses that something will be groaned, so I adapt early. Tesla FSD does not do this in cold mode. We must therefore slow down and enter complex fusion situations. I suspect that being in other FSD modes, such as the “dispatch” mode, would mean that my Tesla pipes in the faster external tracks of the motorway.

A test and a change of heart

I was impressed in the first two to three months of use of the FSD. When my free trial ended in June, I thought I would probably start paying $ 99 a month for this technology. And I don’t even drive much. I bought this car to drive a fast sports car. Now I barely drive it.

This paragraph above was the push of the story that I had planned to write earlier this year.

Then my colleague Lloyd Lee and I tested Tesla FSD against Waymo in San Francisco on May 1. You can read everything about it here. TLDR: We broadcast a red light in my Tesla FSD mode. Waymo refused to follow this specific path, suggesting that the Waymo software system cannot manage this specific intersection. However, I was shocked by the experience.

Walker Smith says there is “a huge difference between running a red light at an intersection and proactively avoiding the intersection”.

A uncomfortable U-turn

About two weeks after this aforementioned test, I was driving in FSD mode with a friend on the 280 North highway towards San Francisco by a sunny and clear day. Traffic has accumulated, so my Tesla withdrew on an outing. The embedded card showed that the car was planning to wait from a traffic light, then go ahead – recovering on the highway to try to exceed a few other cars stuck in traffic. Similar to what the Waze application sometimes has drivers.

Once the light has become green, my Tesla turns left under the highway instead, even if the Tesla card showed that we should have been straight. Then he turned around at a slightly uncomfortable speed (a little too fast, I felt). The worst part is that he made this U-turn of the outer track on a multi-vow route rather than the designated left lap route. And he made this maneuver in front of several traffic police officers who took care of a minor incident about 70 feet distance.

Fortunately, there were no cars in the left lane, which was the right track from which one turns a turn or simply turning left. If there had been a car trying to turn left at the time, we could have crashed. I’m not 100%sure, but it’s my feeling. There was a risk that it will happen.

After making the U-turn, the FSD system would try to return to the left, finally bringing us back to the 280 North highway. But again, he was trying to turn away from the central route, not the way to the left turn. I disengaged at this stage and I resumed driving.

My friend turned to me in shock. I blush, which was a strange experience. It was as if I was embarrassed by my car.

“Your examples of U-turn are new to me,” said Walker Smith. “They are wild!”

“It is possible that, if another vehicle had been on the left way, then your Tesla would not have tried a turn,” he added. “But it is also possible that it may be.”

At FSD or not to FSD

More recently, about 2 weeks ago, I was in “Chill” FSD mode in San Francisco, leading to Ocean Beach. The car was on a two -lane road, and the Tesla card showed that it was supposed to stop on a left turn at the center of this road. The idea being that we would wait for traffic coming in the opposite direction to break out, then turns left on the two ways going in the other direction. The car put the left indicator, but did not enter the path of the left turn. I disengaged and myself shot the right track.

I always change FSD on many, in “chill” mode. Tuesday, for example, I led on the 101 North highway to work from one of our WeWork offices. This trip, and the trip back home, were without incident and less stressful than driving me in road traffic.

My free FSD trial ends in June. I am now less likely to pay $ 99 per month for this technology. However, when I expect to drive a lot during a special period, I could pay it from time to time.

The key difference

The last words should go to Walker Smith. After reading my newspaper, he made a crucial point.

“Your (and each) version of the so-called” FSD “is only a driver’s assistance system,” he told me. “Consequently, that only works less and until this is not the case. This is why you have to supervise – in fact, why you are always the driver who drives. “

It may seem chic on light linguistic adjustments. But there is a giant gap between “driver assistance” systems that still need human supervision and fully autonomous technology that has no one driving.

Walker Smith slapped me on the wrist for having written in my original newspaper that “I barely drive it”. He described this as “a fundamental misunderstanding and a false declaration of driver assistance systems”. (He also thinks that BI should correct the wording of our San Francisco Waymo test history against Tesla. I checked with my publisher, who said no.)

Walker Smith described the difference between driver assistance and automated driving as “cliffing a 500 -foot cliff with a rope or in the free solo”. Or, the difference between hearing a pilot on a plane called “Hi people, today we will use the automatic driver” and hear the driver say “Hi people, today, you will use the automatic driver because I leave the plane.”

The FSD is incredible software, until it is not. When it works, it looks like the future. When this is not the case, it reminds you that we are not there yet.