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I can’t wait to sign up for beta FSD and try it out at end of March 2021. However some things I noticed no one or hardly anyone talks about....is the various unexpected and odd things that the car has to be able to recognize and avoid. In California, we have horribly maintained roads and highway, and some of the potholes I have seen could literally destroy your car if you drive through them. Other things like when I drive around in some county roads and in Berkeley or San Francisco and probably other cities...a bag of trash, metals pieces, garbage in the road, a Leader right in the middle of the freeway from some person not securing that to their truck well, .... all of these things a driver normally avoids while driving. I would like to hear about these things. So maybe some people are Lucky enough to drive perfectly manicured streets and highways, but I notice having to avoid these types of things relatively often. i use my enhanced autopilot bought in mid 2018 with my lrm3 almost some part of every drive I do, and I just added FSD for another $5k. Plan to try the FSD beta, but really wondering how car can see and navigate these other things we typically see on our roads. Anyone know the answers to my questio about ability to detect and avoid non standard things on roads?
 
I also live in California (Southern) and for all of the reasons you cited I rarely find myself even using basic autopilot. I don’t want to drive over potholes or other random items on the road. We have poorly marked lane dividers and other odd configurations that constantly confuse my car and cause it to drive in the wrong lane. And probably my biggest concern is that my car is constantly driving in other driver’s blind spots, which I would never do when I’m driving the car myself.
 
I think you're overestimating the (a) usefulness of beta FSD (b) the timing of it and (c) avoidance of anything on the road.

I don't expect it will see anything on the road presently, potholes, dead animals or debris. My current EAP only recognizes bicyclists about 25% of the time these days. I have to turn it off and move over or they will get hit.
 
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Watch the YouTubers posting their drives with the new beta software. It takes everything the software has to just stay in the correct lane while driving. Left turns against traffic are as much fun as Russian Roulette, and if the driver's aren't on the ball, they will die in a T-boned manner.

Given basic driving is still so far from being ready to go, you can expect pothole avoidance and defensive driving to be about 100 years away.
 
...Plan to try the FSD beta...

First thing first: How are you going to be able to access the Early Access Program Limited Release FSD beta?

Most people who paid for FSD as way back as 2016 have not been able to access it. Most of us can only access Public Release beta FSD.

...i use my enhanced autopilot bought in mid 2018 with my lrm3 almost some part of every drive I do, and I just added FSD for another $5k...

Since you already use Enhanced Autopilot and Public Release beta FSD, you should already know how Tesla beta performs. They are not perfect. Even if you can get a hold of the Early Access Program Limited Release FSD beta, you can expect that it'll be imperfect and you'll have to take over and drive if you don't want accidents.

...we have horribly maintained roads and highway, and some of the potholes I have seen could literally destroy your car if you drive through them. Other things like when I drive around in some county roads and in Berkeley or San Francisco and probably other cities...a bag of trash, metals pieces, garbage in the road, a Leader right in the middle of the freeway from some person not securing that to their truck well, .... all of these things a driver normally avoids while driving. I would like to hear about these things. So maybe some people are Lucky enough to drive perfectly manicured streets and highways, but I notice having to avoid these types of things relatively often...

If you read Tesla's warranty, it wants its cars on a perfectly paved road, not the ones you described above such as potholes, trash...

Tesla thinks it can deal with those conditions once the technology is good enough but it's unknown when.

Tesla has been telling DMV that its Autopilot/FSD is L2 even in its final release so it's unknown when the technology to deal with your concerns above will be addressed.
 
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My 3 day old M3LR came with a "Full Self Driving Preview" option in the Autopilot menu. I'm guessing they want new owners to try it and buy it. I'm not really interested but I activated it just to see and the only difference I noticed is that it seems to throw pillar camera errors when driving on dark roads. I had it on and there was a large (very visible) chunk of retread in my lane right in line with the right wheels. I let it go as long as I could to see if it would try to avoid it but at the last second had to take over and swerve right to split the wheels so it went under the car instead of driving the wheels over it. Don't know if that answers your question but I came to the conclusion it won't try to avoid debris like that. Maybe a small animal or something but this piece of tread was laying pretty flat and only stuck up about an inch or two. I suspect it would do the same for a pothole: just drive over it.

Mike
 
My 3 day old M3LR came with a "Full Self Driving Preview" option in the Autopilot menu. I'm guessing they want new owners to try it and buy it. I'm not really interested but I activated it just to see and the only difference I noticed is that it seems to throw pillar camera errors when driving on dark roads. I had it on and there was a large (very visible) chunk of retread in my lane right in line with the right wheels. I let it go as long as I could to see if it would try to avoid it but at the last second had to take over and swerve right to split the wheels so it went under the car instead of driving the wheels over it. Don't know if that answers your question but I came to the conclusion it won't try to avoid debris like that. Maybe a small animal or something but this piece of tread was laying pretty flat and only stuck up about an inch or two. I suspect it would do the same for a pothole: just drive over it.

Mike
If you are talking about the "Full Self Driving Visualization Preview", that only shows the visualizations. It does not change the cars behavior, nor does it do what FSD Beta does.
 
First thing first: How are you going to be able to access the Early Access Program Limited Release FSD beta?

Most people who paid for FSD as way back as 2016 have not been able to access it. Most of us can only access Public Release beta FSD.



Since you already use Enhanced Autopilot and Public Release beta FSD, you should already know how Tesla beta performs. They are not perfect. Even if you can get a hold of the Early Access Program Limited Release FSD beta, you can expect that it'll be imperfect and you'll have to take over and drive if you don't want accidents.



If you read Tesla's warranty, it wants its cars on a perfectly paved road, not the ones you described above such as potholes, trash...

Tesla thinks it can deal with those conditions once the technology is good enough but it's unknown when.

Tesla has been telling DMV that its Autopilot/FSD is L2 even in its final release so it's unknown when the technology to deal with your concerns above will be addressed.
I got the points you made, but I think for actual full self driving, the car would need to deal with the real world and that includes the things we face on the road daily. I still really like the capabilities as they are and find use for it, but what I am looking forward to an option to have the car be able to drive you somewhere without having to monitor it. Maybe it is a long ways from now, but I would expect Tesla to be thinking about the real world situation now if they actually want to get to autonomous driving.
 
...YouTube...

No need to hear from a third party when you can hear directly from Tesla/Elon Musk!

In 2015, Elon Musk said the system would mature enough to drive from coast to coast on its own without any human intervention by 2018.

In 2016, he revised the autonomous drive to 2017. No longer need to wait for 2018!

Then, now, 6 years from the first announcement, we are still nowhere near that capability there!

On March 6th, 2021, he tweeted:

"Due to high levels of demand for FSD Beta, adding “Download Beta” button to Service section of car display in ~10 days"

It's now March 23rd, 2021, or only 17 days later, but I would not be surprised if days become weeks, weeks become months and maybe it'll be fulfilled years from now instead.
 
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...what I am looking forward to an option to have the car be able to drive you somewhere without having to monitor it...

Waymo has started allowing the public to take rides in its driverless cars with no safety drivers or anyone to backup in case if there's something wrong since 10/2020 (without any gag clause like Non-Disclosure Agreement).

The problem is it's only for 50 square miles in the Phoenix, Arizona suburb. The autonomous levels go from 0 for manual driving to a maximum 5 for machine driving with no restrictions. Waymo has a geofencing restriction so it's Level 4.

Thus, Waymo seems to already address your concerns of potholes, trash... as long as those conditions happen in the geofencing area.
 
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