FSD 11.4.x experiences

I've been in the FSD Beta program since summer of last year, and while I've seen updates with significant improvements, so far my limited experience with 11.4.2 has shown more improvements than I've seen in any prior release.

(As always, YMMV).

We've all developed a feel for what FSD Beta can and can't do. And yes, experiences vary wildly, from "It works well and I use it a lot" to "I've cancelled my FSD subscription". We all have a personal list of situations and edge cases where it doesn't work well, or at all. So when I received the update, I took the car on a route I do frequently: my house to the gym and back. Prior FSD versions have handled this route with varying degrees of success, but the past several versions have demonstrated consistent problems at specific places that 11.4.2 seems to have resolved.

Improvement #1: The car must make two right-hand turns at stop signs to exit the housing division I live in. Visibility to the left is marginal on both turns. Heavy bushes block your view to the left of the first turn, and an uphill crest restricts visibility to the left on the second turn. Previous FSD iterations handled these turns by:

-- Stop well back of stop sign, confusing following drivers
-- Inching forward
-- Inching forward
-- "FSD creeping forward" notice on dash
-- Inching forward (car behind me honks)
-- Sudden, lunging acceleration into the turn.

With 11.4.2, the car pulls confidently up to the stop sign, makes a single, short forward motion to check traffic to the left, and then pulls smoothly and confidently through the turn.

Improvement #2: Lane choices are much better. Going to the gym, the car turns left onto a 3-lane street. In 2.5 blocks it will need to turn left to get onto the highway. With earlier FSD versions, the car would turn into the far left lane, then almost immediately move to the middle or right lane (which lanes seems to depend on traffic). Since traffic tends to back up at the freeway entrance, this often left the car in the wrong lane to get onto the highway, and it would miss the entrance since it couldn't merge into the existing line of cars.

With 11.4.2, the car turns into the left lane and stays there. A similar "wrong lane" situation occurs when I'm returning from the gym, with the car existing the highway to the right and moving into the far left lane when a right turn is coming up in 2 blocks. This also seems to have been resolved.

My experience has been limited so far but it's looking very good. The progress of FSD reminds me of the progress made in speech recognition: I was writing speech recognition software for the Apple ][ computers in the early 80s (yes, I'm that old). At the time you had to train the system on individual words, many repetitions of each word were involved, and the possible vocabulary was very small (10-15 words). Over the years the training sessions became faster and the vocabulary size increased. Sometime in the 90s we hit the point where you could dictate (Dragon Dictate, anyone?) as long as you paused..slightly...between..each..word. And you still had to read a few paragraphs to the computer first.

Now, my iPhone recognizes continuous speech in real time, completely on the device, with no training necessary. This wasn't heralded as a giant breakthrough; speech recognition just got incrementally better over time. FSD seems to be heading along the same path, but MUCH faster. I dunno if Elon will ever achieve L3 or above with the current setup, but 11.4.2 makes me optimistic it will at the least be a very useful feature.

I'm certain there will be people whose experiences are nowhere near as positive as mine. What's your experience with 11.4.x been?

 

[Dewg]

Ahem. So, you tell me: Do you always go at or below the speed limit? What do you do if you're on an interstate that's marked 60 mph, and you're getting passed by everybody doing 65+ mph?

You let them pass you. You don't see semis running 85+, they just run the truck speed limit and let people go around them. On those occasions where I'm on a single lane road, there are usually passing lanes or turn offs for slower traffic. If a bunch of people wanna drive 85+, I am not letting them dictate my speed. I just move to the right and let em have the left lanes. I'm not the guy who's going to block everyone in the left lanes.

What is legitimately going through people's heads when someone comes up behind you and then passes you? "How dare they pass me!"

 

[JulienW]

.....What is legitimately going through people's heads when someone comes up behind you and then passes you? "How dare they pass me!"

People driving slower than me are dumb a$$es and people driving faster than me are stupid a$$es.

 

[Supcom]

People driving slower than me are dumb a$$es and people going faster than me are stupid a$$es.

George Carlin referred to them as idiots and maniacs.

 

[Tronguy]

You let them pass you. You don't see semis running 85+, they just run the truck speed limit and let people go around them. On those occasions where I'm on a single lane road, there are usually passing lanes or turn offs for slower traffic. If a bunch of people wanna drive 85+, I am not letting them dictate my speed. I just move to the right and let em have the left lanes. I'm not the guy who's going to block everyone in the left lanes.

What is legitimately going through people's heads when someone comes up behind you and then passes you? "How dare they pass me!"

One of the major advantages of driving on a limited access highway is that, supposedly, everybody is chugging along at roughly the same speed.

So, in principle, say that there's a speed limit of 55 mph and people Believe In It. Then, on a three-lane highway, the left would be doing 55, the center 50, and the right 45 or so.

What actually happens is the right does 55 or so, the center 60 or so, and the far left 65. Or maybe it's 55 in the middle, 60 on the left, and 50 on the right. Again, no hard and fast rules - but the difference between the fastest and the slowest is on the order of 10 mph. Which is something that humans can handle.

Again, all that would be nice. However, in roads around here, on a 55 mph (nominal) limit road, the left lane is filled with people doing 75, the center with people doing 65-70, the next lane over with people doing 65-60, and people on the far right doing 60-65, with the occasional, "It's the speed limit, darn it!" types doing 55. Or slower.

The danger isn't with the speeders on the left - it's the slowpokes on the right and the moves that people have to take to avoid accidents.

And that's in the sort-of-congested areas. Down in South Jersey, the GSP is nominally a 65 mph road, three lanes. I swear, the left lane is occupied by people (not me!) doing 85+, sometimes being passed by cops on their way to the nearest Dunkin. The far right, which is where I tend to hang out, does 70.

Back in the day, up in Boston, there was this one section of I-95 (used to be Rt. 128) in Woburn that was 4 lanes in each direction and, unusual for Boston, straight and flat. One could see miles. People would speed up and, inevitably, there were slowpokes and crashes. There was getting to be, I kid you not, a fatal accident per day on this three or four mile stretch. The cops got mad. At the time, there was a 55 mph limit that nobody was paying attention to.

The cops started running caravans down the road. Three or four cops would do exactly 55 mph. Anybody who passed them got arrested and ticketed. So, there'd be this big glut of drivers following the cops, then an empty space, then another bunch of cops, followed by another glut of drivers, and so on. They kept it up for weeks. Death rates plummeted. Lots of people got tickets. And some of those people got multiple tickets. It finally got to the point where it didn't take three or four cop cars, it took one. After another few months, fewer cop cars - but people stayed slower.

So, absent crazed cops, what's the actual rule?

First and foremost: Go with the flow. Don't go so slow that one is being whizzed past by everybody else on the road; don't go so fast that one is whizzing past everybody else.

Secondary: Keep an eye on the speed limit. I tend to limit the max to 5 mph higher than the posted, but, if people are pulling 75 on a 65 road, you won't find me in the left lane.

And, darn it, if the speed limit is 55 and the slow traffic is doing 60+, I won't, by gum, be doing 55. That would come under the classification of, "Trying to cause an accident."

 

[Dewg]

One of the major advantages of driving on a limited access highway is that, supposedly, everybody is chugging along at roughly the same speed.

So, in principle, say that there's a speed limit of 55 mph and people Believe In It. Then, on a three-lane highway, the left would be doing 55, the center 50, and the right 45 or so.

What actually happens is the right does 55 or so, the center 60 or so, and the far left 65. Or maybe it's 55 in the middle, 60 on the left, and 50 on the right. Again, no hard and fast rules - but the difference between the fastest and the slowest is on the order of 10 mph. Which is something that humans can handle.

Again, all that would be nice. However, in roads around here, on a 55 mph (nominal) limit road, the left lane is filled with people doing 75, the center with people doing 65-70, the next lane over with people doing 65-60, and people on the far right doing 60-65, with the occasional, "It's the speed limit, darn it!" types doing 55. Or slower.

The danger isn't with the speeders on the left - it's the slowpokes on the right and the moves that people have to take to avoid accidents.

And that's in the sort-of-congested areas. Down in South Jersey, the GSP is nominally a 65 mph road, three lanes. I swear, the left lane is occupied by people (not me!) doing 85+, sometimes being passed by cops on their way to the nearest Dunkin. The far right, which is where I tend to hang out, does 70.

Back in the day, up in Boston, there was this one section of I-95 (used to be Rt. 128) in Woburn that was 4 lanes in each direction and, unusual for Boston, straight and flat. One could see miles. People would speed up and, inevitably, there were slowpokes and crashes. There was getting to be, I kid you not, a fatal accident per day on this three or four mile stretch. The cops got mad. At the time, there was a 55 mph limit that nobody was paying attention to.

The cops started running caravans down the road. Three or four cops would do exactly 55 mph. Anybody who passed them got arrested and ticketed. So, there'd be this big glut of drivers following the cops, then an empty space, then another bunch of cops, followed by another glut of drivers, and so on. They kept it up for weeks. Death rates plummeted. Lots of people got tickets. And some of those people got multiple tickets. It finally got to the point where it didn't take three or four cop cars, it took one. After another few months, fewer cop cars - but people stayed slower.

So, absent crazed cops, what's the actual rule?

First and foremost: Go with the flow. Don't go so slow that one is being whizzed past by everybody else on the road; don't go so fast that one is whizzing past everybody else.

Secondary: Keep an eye on the speed limit. I tend to limit the max to 5 mph higher than the posted, but, if people are pulling 75 on a 65 road, you won't find me in the left lane.

And, darn it, if the speed limit is 55 and the slow traffic is doing 60+, I won't, by gum, be doing 55. That would come under the classification of, "Trying to cause an accident."

Nothing left to say then. I can't change your mind, and you can't change mine.

Just know that laws are on my side, and technology solutions like L3+ will obey traffic laws or they will be regulated or sued out of existence. The only alternative is to change the laws, which may happen, but will be a slow process.

 

[dtdtdt]

Has anyone seen a case where they turn onto a road and then the car accelerates up to the correct speed but really slowly. As in "1 mph per second" slowly.

I’ve run into this after updating to 11.4.4. And not just after a turn. Sometimes, but not always, if I goose the car because it is too slow accelerating after a stop, or if it slowed down when it didn’t need to, then it decelerates as soon as I let off the go pedal, and eventually accelerates very gradually to the correct speed.

 

[GlmnAlyAirCar]

People driving slower than me are dumb a$$es and people driving faster than me are stupid a$$es.

I think George Carlin put it as people driving slower are idiots, and those driving faster at maniacs.

 

[derotam]

The danger isn't with the speeders on the left - it's the slowpokes on the right and the moves that people have to take to avoid accidents.

I think I am going to say all the following is all rhetorical, just wanted to make some comments due to your comment above here.

So two lanes, speed limit 55, left lane drivers going 85, right lane driver going 50....who is the problem?

Going another route....if the average speed limit of drivers is forced to increase because people in the left lanes keep going faster and faster where does it stop?

The majority of people speed not based on a speed they want to go, but a psychologically limited speed based on a relative difference in speed to other traffic. As in my first example above, you generally aren't going to see an 85/55 split across two lanes of normal traffic flow. That is too much of a difference and people I think generally get more cautious the faster they "feel" they are going relative to other close objects.

Enforcement is an issue in a lot of places but unless there are enough accidents, it's not a priority.

Full disclosure...I'm one the faster end of the spectrum when driving.

 

[hybridbear]

Yes, very odd indeed. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

This got me curious about how my Model Y handles F vs C. It appears that the car uses Celsius internally and converts to F for the display. However, the conversion is not accurate. For example, when set to either 15.5 or 16ºC, it displays as 60ºF, while accurate conversion would give 59.9 and 60.8F respectively. Likewise, both 26.5 and 27ºC both display as 81F. These cases are near the low and high limits of the system, so no one notices. Between these flat spots, rather than 0.9F increments for each 0.5C change, they use a 1.0F increment. As a result, from 60F to 63F, the F display is 1 degree lower than an exact conversion. From 64F to 73F it is right on. From 74F to 81F it displays one degree more than the exact conversion. The result is that between setting of 16C and 26.5C, each half degree C of change results in one degree of change in the F display.

To test the internal representation, I set it to 60F, switched the display and it shows 16C. Now changing that to 15.5C and back to F it still shows 60F and going back to C still shows 15.5. So the car is remembering it is set to the C number. If I change the F number to 61 and back to 60, that gets converted to 16.

Your MS is different. But for kicks, you might try switching Controls/Display/Temperature setting from F to C and see how it behaves. My hunch is that it will change 1ºC with each click.

Sorry, I know I have given this the third degree treatment. But computers are usually better at making consistent errors rather than truly odd behavior.

In Celsius it changes in 0.5 degree increments. Good to know about 15.5 & 26.5. In F the car goes from 60 to 81 with LO & HI on each side of those.

Oddly, I have the opposite experience.

After a turn, the car has been rapidly accelerating to the road speed limit, then stops doing that a bit abruptly. So, if the speed limit is 25, the car zips around the turn, gets up to 25, and then hangs there. Doesn't help that even if the speed limit is 25, all the sane drivers go 30-35.

On 10.X.X, there were more cases of slow accel/decel, especially on limited access highway driving. On 11.4.4, when moving out of a slower lane into a faster one, the car speeds up as it shifts over; that definitely wasn't the case with 11.3.x, where it would move over, then seemingly take forever before speeding up.

I've found that this behavior can depend on which FSD Beta profile is being used. In Chill it seems to accelerate more aggressively after turns, especially right turns on red. It's very uncomfortable how fast it accelerates. In our S it never accelerates with less than 75 kW of power according to the power meter display.

 

[GalacticHero]

Nothing left to say then. I can't change your mind, and you can't change mine.

Just know that laws are on my side, and technology solutions like L3+ will obey traffic laws or they will be regulated or sued out of existence. The only alternative is to change the laws, which may happen, but will be a slow process.

Skipping the issue about human drivers speeding, I agree with the last point. IMO the regulatory bodies will require actual autonomous systems to obey traffic regulations, including speed limits. There will then be clickbait headlined articles about the road rage incidents blamed on the autonomous cars.

Mercedes' Drive Pilot, the only approved L3 system so far, largely avoids this issue. The situations where it can operate are essentially traffic jams on freeways, where one is already forced to go slower than the speed limit.

-Edit-
I dove around the Web and can't find any actual users manuals for Drive Pilot (probably because it's not released until the '24 model year.)

 

[Tronguy]

I think I am going to say all the following is all rhetorical, just wanted to make some comments due to your comment above here.

So two lanes, speed limit 55, left lane drivers going 85, right lane driver going 50....who is the problem?

Going another route....if the average speed limit of drivers is forced to increase because people in the left lanes keep going faster and faster where does it stop?

The majority of people speed not based on a speed they want to go, but a psychologically limited speed based on a relative difference in speed to other traffic. As in my first example above, you generally aren't going to see an 85/55 split across two lanes of normal traffic flow. That is too much of a difference and people I think generally get more cautious the faster they "feel" they are going relative to other close objects.

Enforcement is an issue in a lot of places but unless there are enough accidents, it's not a priority.

Full disclosure...I'm one the faster end of the spectrum when driving.

You're right: The speeding maniacs who are doing 85 are the problem. And I'd love to have the cops stop them. But the idea is to get from Point A to Point B without bending metal and crunching stuff. Which includes all that stuff we learned in Driver's Ed, but Go With The Flow works.. until it gets too crazy.

Take that section of the Garden State Parkway south of Asbury Park. No kidding, there's more than a fair number of people in the left lane doing 80, 80+. I, personally, don't go there. There's three lanes, sometimes four. I'll hang out in the center (or center right) pulling 70 (65 mph limit), but, if people are passing me there, I'll move over to the right most lane. Which, thank $DIETY, seems to hover around 70. What I won't do: Hang out on a lane with other traffic going 10+ MPH faster than I am, if I can help it.

Just to make it really clear: Every so often, one gets a speeder who's zipping through traffic at 30+ MPH faster than everybody else; sometimes, they come in pairs. It's usually something like a BMW, but who knows. If one is lucky, one sees the speeder(s) coming - and stays in one's lane, making no false moves. The idiots are human with finite reaction times. If anybody does something not expected, somebody's going to get killed.

Thing is, if these idiots are doing 90+ in a 65 MPH zone, sooner or later some other driver is going to check over their shoulder, not see anyone, and shift lanes - just in time for one of these maniacs zipping in and out of traffic to cause an accident. Or, at the last second, the poor victim of these idiots will see the fast-approaching car, duck, overcorrect, and cause an accident that way.

One can't stop the teenage speeders (they think they're immortal, until they're not). But in the interests of Just Driving Around And Not Causing Problems, "going with the flow" is a heck of a lot better, in my opinion, than sticking to a semi-arbitrary speed limit. Which means watching other traffic and, more or less, do what they're doing, speed limit or no speed limit.

And, come the day when FSD graduates to non-Beta status: If FSD sticks to speed limits when the majority of the cars around an FSD-enabled car aren't, then FSD isn't making things safer, it's making things worse and has Become The Problem. Admittedly, this isn't going to happen everywhere; lots of roads are signed, and drivers on those roads tend to Do What's Right, but that's not true everywhere.

 

[Tronguy]

In Celsius it changes in 0.5 degree increments. Good to know about 15.5 & 26.5. In F the car goes from 60 to 81 with LO & HI on each side of those.

I've found that this behavior can depend on which FSD Beta profile is being used. In Chill it seems to accelerate more aggressively after turns, especially right turns on red. It's very uncomfortable how fast it accelerates. In our S it never accelerates with less than 75 kW of power according to the power meter display.

FWIW, I use the middle (neither chill nor aggressive) setting. And, for whatever reason, have always done that.

 

[BilliardsGuy]

A bit more on sunglasses and hand nags. Today I used Canserver to monitor in real time the car's variable AutoPilotHands. It has a value of 2 when driving and 1 when you jiggle or slightly resist the wheel. It has a value of 3 when it shows the hand nag message.

When wearing dark sunglasses the car will sometimes not hand nag for several minutes and the variable stays equal to 2.There appears to be either:

1. A bug in the eye tracking and hand nag logic or
2. The color of one's eyes or the perceived eye size causes counterintuitive results. with hand nags.

Any one else notice this?

I'm not a regular on this forum, but wanted to post my current - rather significant - problem with FSD. I am up to date on the beta, I think 11.4. I travel certain routes regularly and use FSD to negotiate city streets and freeways in the process. When I have a navigate route established, the computed route shows up blue on the screen and all goes well until at a specific intersection, FSD turns off the indicated route onto a side street that is totally inappropriate, requiring a totally new route calculation that is either much longer or totally inappropriate. This happens repeatedly at two locations for two different regular routes. In the second instance the car turns into a high school parking lot with no exit except to turn around and go back out. The car thrashes around trying to find its way out until I intercede.

In other words the FSD violates its own computed route unexpectedly. Seems like a rather significant flaw. I have gone through several FSD updates and the route violations still take place.

Am I the only one? I do post an objection when I intercede but the problem continues.

 

[GalacticHero]

I'm not a regular on this forum, but wanted to post my current - rather significant - problem with FSD. I am up to date on the beta, I think 11.4. I travel certain routes regularly and use FSD to negotiate city streets and freeways in the process. When I have a navigate route established, the computed route shows up blue on the screen and all goes well until at a specific intersection, FSD turns off the indicated route onto a side street that is totally inappropriate, requiring a totally new route calculation that is either much longer or totally inappropriate. This happens repeatedly at two locations for two different regular routes. In the second instance the car turns into a high school parking lot with no exit except to turn around and go back out. The car thrashes around trying to find its way out until I intercede.

In other words the FSD violates its own computed route unexpectedly. Seems like a rather significant flaw. I have gone through several FSD updates and the route violations still take place.

Am I the only one? I do post an objection when I intercede but the problem continues.

You are not the only one. Mine regularly makes lane changes away from the the direction of the next turn it needs to make (this is in a no traffic condition, it's not trying to get around cars.) Then it wants to do a u-turn to come back. Of course, now that I know it really is going to do the very stupid thing, I intervene. Sometimes I record a message, sometimes not. It happens so often I get tired of it.

 

[JB47394]

One can't stop the teenage speeders

With the advent of software-defined cars, we certainly can. It opens the door for all sorts of government-imposed limitations - such as obeying the traffic laws.

 

[Dewg]

With the advent of software-defined cars, we certainly can. It opens the door for all sorts of government-imposed limitations - such as obeying the traffic laws.

If I recall correctly, EU was mandating a governor on new vehicles to limit the speed.

 

[Tronguy]

If I recall correctly, EU was mandating a governor on new vehicles to limit the speed.

Wowsers. Amazing. What about all those people driving Lamborghinis and BMWs? What about the Autobahn? Is this system going to read speed limit signs?

Went Googling. Yep: New cars have to have Intelligent Speed Assist that can limit auto speeds. But.. it doesn't have to be On. Interesting. Guess the EU is still open for business with crazed teenagers.

 

[frankvb]

Went Googling. Yep: New cars have to have Intelligent Speed Assist that can limit auto speeds. But.. it doesn't have to be On. Interesting. Guess the EU is still open for business with crazed teenagers.

There are a few major differences - most European countries do not allow driving below the age of 18, and passing a driving test is way more difficult than in the US. On the other hand, legal drinking age can be as low as 16.

BTW: I do hope the determination of the actual speed limit is way better than Tesla's as it is frequently wrong (can go both ways, either too high or too low).

 

[swedge]

There are a few major differences - most European countries do not allow driving below the age of 18, and passing a driving test is way more difficult than in the US. On the other hand, legal drinking age can be as low as 16.

BTW: I do hope the determination of the actual speed limit is way better than Tesla's as it is frequently wrong (can go both ways, either too high or too low).

I'm OK with the current user-adjustable default speed and the scroll wheel to tweak it. What I don't want is the car reporting to the traffic cops whenever we exceed the posted limit or proceed through a stop sign at 2 mph.

I'm also OK with California's "basic speed law" which makes exceed some posted limits OK if you can prove that your speed was safe for the conditions. And generally posted speeds are not allowed to be lower than the measured 75'th percentile speed. There is even a speed-trap prohibition, preventing surprise lower speeds where not justified.

None of that allows or justifies the zoom-zoom high speed (80+) zig-zag lane changing racing which is prevalent on the urban freeways here in Oakland. Or the tire burning "side shows"... Hopefully "Full Self Driving" will never automate that crazy stuff nor cop-less, over the air cyber-ticketing with in car cameras and facial recognition to prove who was driving.

 

[Vines]

I had a super scary day with my FSD subscription today. I was on 85 South out of mountain view and just had come off 101N via the normal right exit. I was in the Left lane, which becomes the middle lane.

As highway 85 became 3 lanes, I moved into the fast lane and engaged FSD. After approximately 15 seconds the car attempted to automatically change lanes over the yellow line, and into the concrete divider where it gets wider. I was just briefly looking away from the road so it was extra surprising.

If I had not manually intervened 100% i was driving on the shoulder and headed into the wall.

This isn't an edge case, this is core function. I cannot believe we are changing lanes over yellow lines on well marked divided highways in a clear daylight condition.

I canceled my fsd subscription, I may crap a diamond tonight.