Brief FSD beta 11.3.6 report

[Padelford]

Drove about two miles on 11.3.6 today. It still stops on a busy road for no reason (no signs, no traffic lights). On a left turn at a busy intersection with traffic lights, it did a messy, abrupt move into the left turn lane, then moved into the intersection for the turn & wouldn’t make the left turn despite plenty of gaps in oncoming traffic. I had to shut it down & complete the turn myself. The intersection wasn’t flat, and the cross road was not perpendicular to the main road I was on.

Tesla will never get beyond Level 2 at this rate.

 

[StanMI]

My experience is similar to yours. Normally it seems like each update is a little better. This one, not so much.

 

[DesmoDog]

Mine is installing this update right now. Sad to see this review. I basically gave up using FSD months ago, it was just to terrifying to deal with.

Wasn't this supposed to be some huge improvement???

 

[ewoodrick]

Drove about two miles on 11.3.6 today. It still stops on a busy road for no reason (no signs, no traffic lights). On a left turn at a busy intersection with traffic lights, it did a messy, abrupt move into the left turn lane, then moved into the intersection for the turn & wouldn’t make the left turn despite plenty of gaps in oncoming traffic. I had to shut it down & complete the turn myself. The intersection wasn’t flat, and the cross road was not perpendicular to the main road I was on.

Tesla will never get beyond Level 2 at this rate.

Have you looked to see what the car is saying that it's doing at the intersection that it stops for?

When in the situation where the car is scared to go, I find that just pushing the accelerator will get it out there. No need to disable FSD.

 

[Howienewsome]

I have it and I can honestly say it is the BEST FSD uodate I have ever gotten. The highway driving is so freaking natural (with the exception of not recognizing lanes that are ending). I am truly impressed with this version

 

[DesmoDog]

Is highway driving "different" with the basic smart cruise control vs FSD? I'm still confused about the differences. lol.

 

[Howienewsome]

It’s navigate on autopilot on highway.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

, I find that just pushing the accelerator will get it out there. No need to disable FSD.

Just watch out for the wide slalom turns when doing this. It turns wide if you push it beyond what it wants to do. Can be quite fun, and then it overcorrects and will subsequently veer towards the curb, as long as you keep pushing it. It’ll correct though! Just keep that pedal down and be ready to whip that steering wheel back on track if you’re going to hit something, like a parked car or whatever.

Extra points are scored for inducing FCW beeping.

 

[BobbyTables]

Fsd was a way to get cash in 2016-2019 when the company’s future was in doubt and they needed bridge financing until their production lines were running well. There was a lot of hype about self driving cars, and Tesla was the only company that allowed ordinary people to spend money to get a piece of the pie. So we did, in droves.

Anyone at the time could have told you it wasn’t about self driving: the car doesn’t have the needed sensors or compute. 1.2 Mp cameras that fog with tiny sensors placed too close to the windshield are inadequate. Even 2014 Subarus had 1.7 mp cameras that were placed further from the windshield (raindrops) at a distance apart that allowed them to use parallax to see distance well.

I didn’t catch on until after I had opted for the option in both of my 2020 vehicles.

That said, 11.3.6 is driving better in Seattle than previous versions.

 

[drtimhill]

Is highway driving "different" with the basic smart cruise control vs FSD? I'm still confused about the differences. lol.

Completely different experience.

 

[ewoodrick]

Fsd was a way to get cash in 2016-2019 when the company’s future was in doubt and they needed bridge financing until their production lines were running well. There was a lot of hype about self driving cars, and Tesla was the only company that allowed ordinary people to spend money to get a piece of the pie. So we did, in droves.

Anyone at the time could have told you it wasn’t about self driving: the car doesn’t have the needed sensors or compute. 1.2 Mp cameras that fog with tiny sensors placed too close to the windshield are inadequate. Even 2014 Subarus had 1.7 mp cameras that were placed further from the windshield (raindrops) at a distance apart that allowed them to use parallax to see distance well.

I didn’t catch on until after I had opted for the option in both of my 2020 vehicles.

That said, 11.3.6 is driving better in Seattle than previous versions.

Why do you think that higher resolution cameras are better? They just mean more data to process. Tesla doesn't really seem to have any issues with resolution. They can see traffic lights from a good distance away.

What's hard is to determine what to do after you get the information.

 

[Dewg]

Why do you think that higher resolution cameras are better? They just mean more data to process. Tesla doesn't really seem to have any issues with resolution. They can see traffic lights from a good distance away.

What's hard is to determine what to do after you get the information.

With existing cameras, the forward visibility is just over 800 feet. With higher resolution cameras, the system can detect finer details at a longer range. Any increase in forward visible range would improve anticipation, deceleration, and improve planning. Going from 800 feet to 1200 feet would be a nice improvement in performance.

 

[ewoodrick]

Is highway driving "different" with the basic smart cruise control vs FSD? I'm still confused about the differences. lol.

Yes and no.

For the yes portion, the act of driving down the Interstate (more specifically divided, limited access, multi lane roads) is mostly just cruise control. Many new cars now implement a version of Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) which adds things like realizing when you are near a car and slowing down and sometimes lane keeping.

FSD starts to add things like knowing when/how to pass the cars in front of you, which includes changing lanes.
And most importantly knowing how to get off of the Interstates.

Tesla implemented a version of FSD many (4+) years ago that did all of this. And it did a pretty good job (although there are a few folks that will say it was unusable)

But when Tesla was developing FSD for streets, the products diverged. They started acting a little differently. I've got a road near me that is an Interstate that turns into a non-Interstate road, still 4 lanes, divided access, but not limited access, no more exits. FSD would act a little differently on the road, dependent on where exactly it was. Most drivers would barely recognize the difference.

So the latest discussion is about Tesla removing the old version of Interstate FSD and replacing with the surface street version.

If you weren't watching closely, you may never have noticed the difference.

 

[ewoodrick]

With existing cameras, the forward visibility is just over 800 feet. With higher resolution cameras, the system can detect finer details at a longer range. Any increase in forward visible range would improve anticipation, deceleration, and improve planning. Going from 800 feet to 1200 feet would be a nice improvement in performance.

And in what situation will that make a difference?

With the latest release, deceleration to a stop light is pretty great! That, I would think, is the long distance requirement. That's an 8 inch object, in color, from a significant distance.

As I mentioned a few weeks back in some thread, I doubt that higher resolution cameras are for the higher resolution. I remember something from the team that resolution was already adequate, they may have even decreased it a little. With higher resolution you can do somethings like increase the sensitivity, like being able to see better at night. I know that there is an issue with NoA turning off on really dark nights.

 

[DesmoDog]

Much appreciated follow up ewoodrick, thanks much.

I gave FSD two tries today with 11.3.6 and it flat out choked both times I tried it. I should have videoed it but it slipped my mind.
Try 1 - Engaged FSD after making a right turn on 25 mph residential road. Coming up to a T intersection with no stop sign for me or on coming traffic. Just across the intersection parked the curb on my right was a guy pulling stuff out of a delivery truck. The car slowed quickly to a stop before the intersection and FSD quit. WTF?

Try 2 - Engaged FSD about 200 feet before a 4 way stop sign intersection and the car stopped properly at the intersection. I waved the guy to my right on and he went and turned right. Just then the driver in the left turn lane facing me decided to go as well. As he was starting to head into the intersection and was turning left, my car crossed over the limit line and seemed intent on driving through the intersection, despite the car now directly in front of me. I hit the brakes.

Frustrating. Not one bit better than the previous version from what I can tell.

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

In my previous life working with IBM software we used to call the code V.R.M Version, Release, Modification. When the Version change there were alot of new features in the software. With release it was a bunch of fixes, improvements to the version. The modifiction (M) was niggly little fixes that nobody really noticed.
So I would say these x.y.a, x.y.b, x.y.c is minor little fixes that were discovered in the prior version. What we really need to see significant improvements is when the Version changes and therein lies thee problem 11.3.1,.2,.3..4,.5,.6 are very minor fixes they discovered after each version. Unless you see an 11.4 or a 12.0 then I will say there will be NO big improvements. If you look at Teslafi Firmware tracker release notes each micro version looks like it was copied from the previous with a few extra words. AND.....the non FSD code updates get some VERY nice fixes that we don't get like the steering wheel roller knobs

 

[Dewg]

And in what situation will that make a difference?

With the latest release, deceleration to a stop light is pretty great! That, I would think, is the long distance requirement. That's an 8 inch object, in color, from a significant distance.

As I mentioned a few weeks back in some thread, I doubt that higher resolution cameras are for the higher resolution. I remember something from the team that resolution was already adequate, they may have even decreased it a little. With higher resolution you can do somethings like increase the sensitivity, like being able to see better at night. I know that there is an issue with NoA turning off on really dark nights.

That's easy. At 85MPH, you're traveling at 125 feet per second. If traffic is stopped ahead, that gives your car about 6.5 seconds to stop. Doable, but jarring.

With an increased range, the time to detect and stop is about 9.5 seconds. The result would be a less jarring braking maneuver.

 

[ewoodrick]

That's easy. At 85MPH, you're traveling at 125 feet per second. If traffic is stopped ahead, that gives your car about 6.5 seconds to stop. Doable, but jarring.

With an increased range, the time to detect and stop is about 9.5 seconds. The result would be a less jarring braking maneuver.

You are assuming that higher resolution equal further distance. That's not really the case. If so, my new iPhone should be able to a few miles further than the original iPhone. I'm pretty sure that some of the first satellite observation birds had relatively low resolution, but they could see hundreds of thousands of mile.

And a car is a LOT bigger than the single lens of a 8 inch traffic light. Should be able to recognize the situation further away.

But speciifcally, with the latest update, have you seen the issue? I haven't had the opportunity to experience an 85 mph to 0 situation yet.

 

[drtimhill]

With existing cameras, the forward visibility is just over 800 feet. With higher resolution cameras, the system can detect finer details at a longer range. Any increase in forward visible range would improve anticipation, deceleration, and improve planning. Going from 800 feet to 1200 feet would be a nice improvement in performance.

Let’s be clear .. this is all speculation. Go look at the posts from a few years back “proving” that FSD could never safely navigate a simple unprotected right turn by various dubious math. Something the car now does every day.

 

[ewoodrick]

Hence my query of "Is it happening"


There seems to be a large number of people who believe that they are experts in autos, vision, and AI here. Just like the millions of armchair coaches for sports.