Elon Musk keeps promising that a Full Self-Driving breakthrough is just around the corner, always “next year,” but that never seems to materialize. Instead, we see countless examples of drivers pushing their Teslas to the safety limits of automated driving, sometimes with dire consequences.
Despite its deceptive names, Tesla Autopilot nor the Full-Self Driving are neither able to drive autonomously. And yet, many people believe so, ending up in dangerous situations, which prompted authorities to investigate how Tesla safety assist systems work. Full Self-Driving software is in forever beta, being far from perfect. Sometimes, the system makes questionable decisions in real-life traffic, as shown in the video below.
To be sure, the driver of the Tesla Model 3 in the video is well aware of the system’s limitations. He was using FSD specifically to test a new software version (10.12.2) on public roads in Denver, Colorado. The 18 minutes video shows several situations which revealed FSD limitations. In all fairness, the driver ends the video by calling it a bad drive for Tesla. In two cases, the FSD system put the life of the driver and others in danger.
The most obvious FSD blunder was when it tried to steer the car left in front of a light-rail train. Luckily, the driver was spot on in grabbing the wheel and steering the Model 3 clear from the train’s path. The FSD decision is interesting as the train is clearly displayed on the infotainment screen. This means the software was well aware of its presence and trajectory. Even so, the car commanded a left turn, probably thinking it had enough time to clear the intersection in time.
We’ve seen reports of the Full Self-Driving software becoming more aggressive, but this is a dangerously aggressive maneuver. It could’ve ended in disaster had the driver not been alert to the situation. In the video (starting at 16:18), you can hear the train operator blowing the horn at the Tesla before zipping through the intersection at full speed.
A few moments later, toward the end of the video, you can see the Tesla taking another questionable left turn. The car took a larger than expected turn, coming too close to the pedestrians waiting at the crossing. It was the last straw for the driver, who ended the experiment “super disappointed with Tesla.” Hopefully, Tesla engineers will make good use of the reported issues and correct them in future iterations of the software. Unless we’re talking about the 200 Autopilot workers laid off at Tesla's San Mateo facility.
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions. Full profile
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