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?

 

[Genie]

Mine has been entering bus lanes since 10.2 and just did it 5 minutes ago on 11.3.6 (please let me drive tomorrow on 11.4.2).

Mine lunges for bus stop/pullouts on 11.4.2. It has also driven on and over double yellows with oncoming traffic to give extra room for a bike on the (wide) shoulder. I’ve only been on 11.4 for 2 days and I’ve had a couple good scares.

 

[eli_]

"Lunges" for bus stops is a good description of what I'm seeing on 11.4.2 and a great reminder to stay super alert especially on new builds. Now to wait for 11.5...

 

[Supcom]

Starting with 11.4.2 my car now enters a bus lane where it's not allowed to. And I checked the 11.4 release notes...



View attachment 942460

The car likely misread the road markings to say TESLA ONLY instead of TRANSIT ONLY.

 

[Padelford]

11.4.2 is definitely better than 11.3.6 in many ways.

 

[Supcom]

11.4.2 is definitely better than 11.3.6 in many ways.

So many that you apparently can't begin to list them.

 

[B_E_V]

11.4.2 is better, worse, different, and unchanged. My observations after four days of use.

• Definitely not as stubborn about engaging as 11.3.6. The grey T is not always present, but much more frequently present.
• The paved but unmarked road I live on has a town default speed limit of 30 MPH. FSD now sometimes brings up a notification that maximum speed has been limited because of road type, and usually incorrectly thinks the speed limit is 25 MPH. If I recall correctly, I can still set a higher max speed, but FSD ignores that staying below 30 MPH. That is new to me with 11.4.2.
• As a human driver, when I creep forward far enough to see an oncoming vehicle coming from the left, I stop creeping so I don't scare the oncoming driver into thinking I'm pulling out ahead of him. With 11.4.2 it keeps creeping to the point where I get scared and have to hit the brakes. Unfortunately, I cannot simultaniously watch both the oncoming car, and the preview screen. When I've tried to watch the preview screen, FSD's I'm going to stop here bar keeps jumping around anyway.
• FSD is very nervous when it is the oncoming vehicle, and inappropriately brakes for cars that to my eye are not even creeping at all. I wish it looked at hub caps so see if the wheels are turning.
• It has been missing a bunch of speed limit signs since the update, which until now was a pretty rock solid behavior. Once it drove past four different signs in a row which would have increased the speed limit it was showing. Another time on the same road it noticed the second sign.
• After taking some turns, such as right turns at green stop lights, now it accelerates after the turn like a Prius driver trying to set an efficiency record. Tested on Chill and Average. That is new.
• Often when 11.4.2 seems smoother, I think it is simply FSD going slower.
• I'm also seeing more phantom slow downs with 11.4.2.
• Taking a left turn at some right angle intersections, If no car is present to the left, FSD still drives over where that car would be, crossing their left hand lane marker. If a car is present, FSD still starts with that same path, then awkwardly adjusts its path part way into the intersection to just barely (so far) miss the other car. That is unchanged, and remains scary when the other car is just arriving.
• At most freeway exits I've intervened with 11.4.2 when it seemed to be going past the exit, this has been much worse than 11.3.6 which was already a regression from 10.69.25.2.
• Last night I decided to risk missing the exit. Instead of promptly getting right before the freeway exit, FSD hung out in the left lane, then at the very last minute cut across just barely getting on the exit. Any cop who saw that would have pulled me over for a sobriety test. I was on Average.
• The simple roundabout near my home is different, but sometimes more dangerous than before. While FSD is usually smoother going around, now it sometimes rushes in where I would wait, then phantom brakes once in the circle. Perhaps I didn't notice before because I more frequently had to nudge it into and through the circle with the prior release. I wish FSD paid attention to what way the wheels of other cars were pointing in the roundabout, and whether the hub caps were turning on cars waiting to enter the roundabout.
• Using the turn signal to cancel an FSD lane change, and using the turn signal to instigate a lane change still has a race condition. If you want FSD to get over earlier before a turn, sometimes it works, sometimes it cancels a lane change FSD wanted to make anyway. That is unchanged.
  • I really wish that only signalling the opposite direction cancelled an FSD initiated lane change, to eliminate the race condition.
• FSD will hit the brakes and significantly slow down for a turn before finally signaling the turn at the last minute. That rudeness really annoys me, and is unchanged.
• FSD still signals many non-lane changes when it doesn't for example change into a turn lane.
• FSD at some intersections where multiple lanes are turning in the same direction, still tries to take someone else's lane on the new road. That is unchanged.
• FSD still wants to stop for an upside down Y style intersection on my street where the other merging branch of the Y has a stop sign, and FSD is not supposed to stop on my branch.
• The fire stations around here have flashing yellow lights which only switch to red when the fire engines are leaving the station. FSD always wants to treat those flashing yellow lights as red stop lights.
• The visualization yesterday showed an ambulance with lights flashing as a normal grey van. I presume that is unchanged.
• FSD changed into the middle lane of three highway lanes, claiming to be switching to a faster lane. However, we were supposed to take the next exit to the right, and the closest car ahead of us was a long way away. This might be new. Think I was on Average, but I might have been on Chill.
• I really wish there was an option I could set so that turning the wheel also disengages cruise control when it disengages FSD. After more than a year with this car, I still forget that only the brake disengages both. If I get into an FSD disengagement related wreck, that will probably be why.

I still run FSD most of the time. This release seems to be prompting me to override FSD more than before, but I might just be forgetting my first four days with 11.3.6. Despite that, I hope they release an 11.4.# update soon.

 

[Supcom]

I really wish that only signalling the opposite direction cancelled an FSD initiated lane change, to eliminate the race condition.

The simpler case would be any use of the turn signal stalk would cancel an active turn signal. After a year and a half, I still push the stalk the wrong way to cancel a turn signal.

 

[eli_]

• Last night I decided to risk missing the exit. Instead of promptly getting right before the freeway exit, FSD hung out in the left lane, then at the very last minute cut across just barely getting on the exit. Any cop who saw that would have pulled me over for a sobriety test. I was on Average.

This sort of thing is one of the biggest safety issues with FSD Beta IMO. It generally doesn't fail gracefully when it misses forks, turns, or other navigation-related maneuvers. I.e. if it fails to enter a turn lane because of a short deadline or heavy traffic, it will still try to turn illegally from the middle lane. It doesn't follow traffic laws, it tries to follow the navigation route despite all costs. I'd rather miss turns and exits than do illegal and dangerous things to meet short deadlines.

 

[kabin]

FSD induced road rage happens.

 

[Dewg]

FSD induced road rage happens.

Don't worry, society will adapt. Once the honkers car is fully autonomous and he can take a nap, he'll stop caring.

 

[DanCar]

Had my first drive yesterday. Didn't notice any big differences with earlier version. I need a banzai mode for lane shifting to get off the freeway. I don't want to move out of the fast car pool line into stop and go traffic 2.5 miles before my exit. My exit isn't congested, but the lanes to get there are.

 

[kabin]

Don't worry, society will adapt. Once the honkers car is fully autonomous and he can take a nap, he'll stop caring.

Yes. It's just a matter of time, money, and tech advancement and FSD like cars will begin to approach human driver/biker/pedestrian expectations and safety.

 

[eli_]

I had a morning commute on 11.4.2 without any disengagements or embarrassing/annoying situations, which is not at all typical but was an improvement over the previous build. Older builds had constant issues with route-based lane changes, getting out of turn restricted lanes, or just making unnecessary lane changes. Managed to avoid all of those. It even moved over for a construction closure at the appropriate time without waiting until the last second.

 

[CharleyBC]

I had seven errands to run this morning, so I got to give 11.4.2 my first try. I'd read a few posts about how much smoother and smarter it was, so I was hoping for greatness. Frankly, I didn't notice much net difference. Here are a few highlights.

• Near home there's an unprotected left at a T intersection that has often challenged FSD. Today it stopped pretty accurately at the stop line, so that part was good. Visibility at this intersection is excellent since the Almeda fire, but the car started creeping for visibility. This is always a nerve-wracking thing. With the car in motion--even slowly--I fear it's about to go when it's not safe. And I have to think that's how it looks to other drivers. I don't know why it can't just sit still when there's oncoming traffic. The "winner" was a municipal bus approached to make a left turn into the street that I was coming out of. My creeping cut seriously into the room a vehicle the size of a bus needed to make the turn. I hit the brake, and the bus just cleared.
• There's a sharp right turn that makes about a 45-degree angle. The steering through this turn was very twitchy and jerky.
• Getting from a local road onto the freeway onramp, we make a right turn. The car cut the turn much too tight, going way over the white line that marks the shoulder.
• It used to be good at making freeway exits. Today we did two, and in both cases I was thinking it might have forgotten to take the exit, but then it did, rather abruptly. Not graceful. This is new to me.
• Appropriately, it signaled to enter a left turn lane. Then it turned the indicator off. While waiting for the light, fully stopped in Hold mode, it turned the signal on and back off. Once we started moving, it turned it on again, and made the turn. I think most people turn on the signal to enter the left turn lane, and simply leave it on until the turn is complete, regardless of wait time or how long the lane is.
• This was a first: it initiated the windshield washers for about five swipes. I guess if it feels it needs it, that's okay with me. Note, I said washers, not just wipers.
• We were approaching a hairpin (about 45 degrees, actually) right turn from Route 99 to a neighborhood street. Speed was about 35-40. It showed no signs of slowing even as we got so close that it seemed unsafe to turn at all at that speed, especially so sharply. I jammed the brakes and made the turn.
• There's a place where the road makes a 90-degree bend. It's not an intersection--just a bend, so there's no other choice. We drove it both directions, and in both cases it signals a turn. No real harm, I suppose, but it's superfluous and no humans that I've seen do it that way.
• It got nicely into a left turn lane for a freeway onramp, and waited for the light behind a lot of other traffic. When we finally moved, about halfway from where we'd been waiting to the actual turn, the car veered half a lane to the right and then back again. Its suddenness reminded me of the move you might make if you were suddenly dodging a dog in the road or something. But the lane was clear.
• On the freeway offramp heading home, it slowed way down--almost stopped--several car lengths before the stop sign at the end of the ramp. There were no vehicles ahead. Then as it picked up speed again, it moved well across the white line that marks the shoulder. I yanked control, and didn't let it drive the rest of the way home.

Yes, many of these got my little voice report to Tesla bout what happened.

 

[B_E_V]

I wrote and @Supcom quoted part of:

• Using the turn signal to cancel an FSD lane change, and using the turn signal to instigate a lane change still has a race condition. If you want FSD to get over earlier before a turn, sometimes it works, sometimes it cancels a lane change FSD wanted to make anyway. That is unchanged.
  • I really wish that only signalling the opposite direction cancelled an FSD initiated lane change, to eliminate the race condition.

@Supcom responded:

The simpler case would be any use of the turn signal stalk would cancel an active turn signal. After a year and a half, I still push the stalk the wrong way to cancel a turn signal.

Currently when FSD 11.4.2 Beta is driving, flicking the turn signal stalk

• allows the human to cancel a Beta initiated lane change.
• allows the human to suggest that Beta initiate an Auto Lane Change now.
• allows the human to comply with local traffic signs directing all drivers to use their directional signals (signs Beta ignores).
  • In this case Beta normally complains that Auto Lane Change is not currently available.
• and to signal for other reasons irrelevant to my point.

The issue that I have encountered more than a few times is a race condition. I don't think Beta is getting over fast enough, so I want to nudge it by flicking the turn signal to start an automatic lane change. However, a millisecond or more before my flick is registered, Beta decides to start the same lane change. Beta then interprets my flick as cancelling Beta's lane change. Beta has often already moved the car part way into the lane we both want it to be in before it reacts to my flick as an emergency cancellation and swerves back into the lane neither of us want. Which is why I wrote:

• I really wish that only signalling the opposite direction cancelled an FSD initiated lane change, to eliminate the race condition.

When the human is driving, last I checked, a short push in either direction cancels an active turn signal. So I don't know how you could push the stalk the wrong way unless you are using a full long push.

Related, I really like the optional setting that lets the car automatically cancel the turn signal after you change lanes. Though now I get a little bit annoyed for those few turns where I still have to manually cancel the turn signal. The new habit also messes me up a tiny bit when I drive my wife's ancient ICE car.

 

[powertoold]

FSD induced road rage happens.

That's not FSD induced road rage. It's NHTSA induced.

FSDb did absolutely nothing wrong there. I think Alansubie and Knightshade would agree too

 

[bimmer88]

Been driving around testing it a bit today... Has not been working well for me. Doesn't seem to brake and stop as smoothly as 11.3.6 did. Had a few times where it just seemed like it was slamming on the brakes when it didn't need to. There's a small roundabout near my home that 11.3.6 had no problem with. Today, it just stopped right in the middle of the roundabout. When it was turning into a left turn lane to make a left at a light, it tugged REALLY hard to get into the left. Definitely not smooth. Also, when I was driving down a certain road, it kept trying to drive into the shoulder then pulling back in. It didn't do this with 11.3.6. Experiencing a lot of regressions with this version...

 

[kabin]

That's not FSD induced road rage. It's NHTSA induced.

FSDb did absolutely nothing wrong there. I think Alansubie and Knightshade would agree too

For many I suspect the frustration isn't from NHTSA's 0mph stop as it's safe and expected. Rather it's FSDj's unexpected sluggishness of transitioning from slowing to initiating the start while viewing the scenery for save entry points of which it misses too many.

A normal human driver can do all of that in real-time while FSDj dawdles in junk-time. It feels like FSDj has limited resources requiring large block chunky sequential processes which isn't getting it done.

 

[Rikster]

Been driving around testing it a bit today... Has not been working well for me. Doesn't seem to brake and stop as smoothly as 11.3.6 did. Had a few times where it just seemed like it was slamming on the brakes when it didn't need to. There's a small roundabout near my home that 11.3.6 had no problem with. Today, it just stopped right in the middle of the roundabout. When it was turning into a left turn lane to make a left at a light, it tugged REALLY hard to get into the left. Definitely not smooth. Also, when I was driving down a certain road, it kept trying to drive into the shoulder then pulling back in. It didn't do this with 11.3.6. Experiencing a lot of regressions with this version...

My experience has been the same! I had much smoother drives and fewer disengagements with 11.3.6 compared with 11.4.2. Some minor improvements also, but mostly much "harsher" driving with the return of the super-twitchy yoke on many turns, crazy acceleration on some turns, etc. No improvement in lane selection that I can detect either...

 

[powertoold]

For many I suspect the frustration isn't from NHTSA's 0mph stop as it's safe and expected. Rather it's FSDj's unexpected sluggishness of transitioning from slowing to initiating the start while viewing the scenery for save entry points of which it misses too many.

A normal human driver can do all of that in real-time while FSDj dawdles in junk-time. It feels like FSDj has limited resources requiring large block chunky sequential processes which isn't getting it done.

Huh?