FSD Beta 10.5 - will autopilot on freeway suffer?

[tharvey]

Greetings,

I'm currently waiting for the 10.5 beta with a SS of 98%. I'm starting to wonder if I really want the beta or if I should opt-out. I use autopilot on the freeway daily during my commute with my 2018 M3 and I trust it completely having no phantom breaking events (none on the freeway... I have encountered some on back-country 2-lane highways when large oncoming vehicles pass me). I'm concerned that with the beta the freeway autopilot will move to pure vision and it sounds like there are a lot of phantom breaking events happening. Driving on California freeways I'm sure to get rear ended if my car suddenly hits the breaks for no reason. I'm equally concerned that when they move to a single software stack the freeway autopilot will suffer regressions.

Honestly from what I read I probably will try the beta for a couple of hours and decide its not worth engaging city street FSD but I don't want to compromise my current trust and reliance on freeway autopilot.

What are your thoughts?

 

[hellocar]

In my case, I haven’t been having noticeable problems with freeway Autopilot, but it sounds like some people have.

 

[VanFriscia]

Ditto what hellocar said. I've gone on a couple small trips using NoAP for highway driving and it's been smooth for me. I believe Elon has said that v11 FSD will merge the highway & city driving stacks and I imagine we'll see some regressions at least for a little while at that time. As it currently stands, there's a world of difference in behavior between the two (particularly with phantom breaking).

 

[JulienW]

Here is a copy of a post I made last week of my anecdotal experance.

Wiki - MASTER THREAD: Actual FSD Beta downloads and experiences

We've definitely seen cases where it's clear phantom braking is not warranted, like shadows of trees. Or when there's really nothing at all. So these need to be eliminated. Ofcourse. We are just saying there needs to be better definition of phantom braking.

teslamotorsclub.com

First FSD Beta road trip and for me what I found. When driving at highway speeds (65MPH) on the FSD BETA Stack (NOT Vision AP Stack) on straight and wide 2 lane highways with minimal traffic the Phantom Braking is BEYOND horrendous. I could not go more than ½ a mile without having 1 or 2 events. It would happen with no shadows or anything to see but straight wide open highway. It would sometimes slow to 50MPH. Found the ONLY way to dive at highway speed on the Beta Stack was to keep the accelerator pedal pressed to the correct point. This of course leads to "Cruse Control Will Not Brake" warnings and TOTALY defeats using it but is the only way it will work. If this is a preview of Beta Stack integration Tesla is NO where near close.

So strange that the FSD Beta Stack is so completely overwhelmed by FB at highway speeds but the AP Vision Stack isn't. Seems like FSD Beta is going in the WRONG direction for FB at highway speeds on all Stack integration....

 

[Reddy Kilowatt]

I have been drive AP for years and now have 10.5 beta. I probably have 3000 miles on 10.5 beta. I have not noticed a large difference. I am getting some Phantom braking at shadows and large caution signage for some reason, but it is minimal to me. I keep my foot at the gas pedal, just in case. AP is not stacked with FSD on the highways that I know of. it flips as soon as you exit the highway to FSD. As noted above by Julien two lane rural highways is a bit jumpy. I swear it was looking for stop signs or traffic lights and hits the brakes ( i'm using the wide screen which shows all the intersections). It gets better every time I travel the same road.

 

[VanFriscia]

When driving at highway speeds (65MPH) on the FSD BETA Stack (NOT Vision AP Stack) on straight and wide 2 lane highways with minimal traffic the Phantom Braking is BEYOND horrendous.

I don't doubt what you say because in my experience, FSD Beta in rural driving ~40MPH+ is an exercise in frustration, but I'm curious - how are you doing highway driving with the FSD Beta stack? When I get on the highway, it reverts to the vision AP stack. I have seen a few instances where it gets confused where I'm driving and will briefly flip between the two, but not for any significant amount of time.

 

[PDX-Y]

I'm concerned that with the beta the freeway autopilot will move to pure vision and it sounds like there are a lot of phantom breaking events happening.

As of right now, highway AP is still the older stack, not FSD. You'll actually see the screen visualizations change as you enter the on-ramp and it will drive like it always has. And on all beta cars, the old stack in all circumstances is always available via software configuration. By design, you aren't giving up capabilities.

As far as "it sounds like there are a lot of phantom braking (sp) events" ... sigh. That's very situational. There are people who have had this trouble for a long time, and folks like me who've seen it only 2-3 times in 7000 miles. There are people who claim they almost get rear ended and killed every time, and there are people like me who've watched the speedometer and verified that even a pulse of hard braking doesn't affect velocity by more than 10mph or so.

To wit: that CNet article had the desired effect. This is a meme now, and no longer a fact people can debate rationally. Happens with all things Tesla at some point, it's just the world we live in.

The truth is this: FSD beta is mindbendingly wonderful, and improving rapidly every two weeks. It's the most fun I've had in a car in decades, and totally worth the purchase price. BUT, it is not done. It is not an autonomy solution quite yet, you have to watch it as it works. You should use it if you specifically want to see it work. You should use it if you want to help test the product. If you just want a toy to play with and aren't able to handle the occasional excursion without rushing to the internet to tell everyone how mY cAr ALmOst kILLEd mEee... then maybe hold off.

 

[JulienW]

I don't doubt what you say because in my experience, FSD Beta in rural driving ~40MPH+ is an exercise in frustration, but I'm curious - how are you doing highway driving with the FSD Beta stack? When I get on the highway, it reverts to the vision AP stack. I have seen a few instances where it gets confused where I'm driving and will briefly flip between the two, but not for any significant amount of time.

It should only go into the AP Vision highway stack when you are on a limited access highway. I was was on a 2 lane rural highway/road.

 

[SilverString]

I have been driving the Beta since 10.3.1 - got it 10/27 - and I have never seen this "stack switch" appear... I am assuming I've just not been on the right kind of highway or interstate. Are you saying that the red road borders and dotted line snake-like feeler disappears too? and everything looks like the previous NOA before the beta update?

 

[VanFriscia]

I have been driving the Beta since 10.3.1 - got it 10/27 - and I have never seen this "stack switch" appear... I am assuming I've just not been on the right kind of highway or interstate. Are you saying that the red road borders and dotted line snake-like feeler disappears too? and everything looks like the previous NOA before the beta update?

Yep, that's exactly right. The visuals and logic revert to the previous stack (which is also now vision-only, even for radar-equipped cars).

 

[MrYenko]

There’s a single-lane express overpass on my commute that causes it to go from highway AP to FSD stack and back several times during the curve. It definitely happens.

(I75 south to 826 south express lane, for anyone in south Florida)

 

[m25nyc]

Has anyone compared FSD beta with regular FSD autopilot in and around metro New York City, NJ, Westchester, Long Island?

QUESTION 1: If you have compared the two, as of today, are you finding the beta a downgrade, same, or upgrade just regarding your experience on the NYC metro area parkways and highways?

I'm waiting FSD beta and wondering if it's worth it since for my use case FSD autopilot works so well already.

I am finding the "regular" FSD autopilot and navigate on autopilot far beyond Lexus, Mercedes or Volvo's lane keep on the parkways (narrow controlled access with sharp curves) and interstates. Lane changes - not so reliable but steering at all speed ranges, and speed control, nearly perfect on highways.

And on NYC streets - traffic light detection and speed control seems to work even on side streets, about 95% of the time better than me, and I just use cruise / speed control even if steering is available which it is on some blocks. For me with a multi-hour work drive by car, from outer regions to outer regions that couldn't be done by public transit, regular autopilot is great.

QUESTION 2: Once in a while autopilot (FSD "regular" version) gets "jerky" on stop-and-go traffic in the city (but not on the highway) and I have to take over for a block or two then it gets smooth again - haven't been able to figure out why as it seems unrelated to anything I can see (similar roads, similar time of day, similar traffic density and flow). Acceleration is on chill.

QUESTION 3: I am especially interested in how often FSD beta vs. FSD regular autopilot disengages automatically or requires you to disengage manually, while staying in lane and just going with the traffic flow on parkways/highways (restricted access roads), as other cars weave in and out in front of you and as the traffic rapidly changes from flowing smoothly to slow down to stop and go. This is the most mentally taxing part of my 2 hour commute and the one that Tesla AP (FSD non-beta) is handling so much better than Volvo, Mercedes or Lexus' current "best" driver assist.

QUESTION 4: FSD beta vs FSD regular AP "quality" on speed control / cruise control (but not autosteer) on city streets? I do not care as strongly about steer on city streets and prefer to be driving with no autopilot on all turns within the city since there are so many low frequency hazards - kids on monocycles going the wrong way on the sidewalk veering into traffic, pedestrians darting across last moment from between trucks, etc.

 

[Goose66]

there are people like me who've watched the speedometer and verified that even a pulse of hard braking doesn't affect velocity by more than 10mph or so

So you don't think hard braking from, say, 50 mph to 40 mph (and then immediate acceleration back to 50 mph) is a big deal? It's not only extremely jarring to driver and passengers, after the third time or so the person behind is growing increasingly frustrated and is often right on your tail, eventually leading to a rear-end collision. I don't know if people are having significantly different experiences with hard braking on FSD Beta - maybe they just have significantly different opinions of what's dangerous and what is not. To me, this is the most annoying feature of FSD Beta (I usually make 10 to 15 Autopilot snapshots on this over my 8 mile commute daily), and it is the most frustrating because regular Autopilot had more or less licked this problem.

The visuals and logic revert to the previous stack (which is also now vision-only, even for radar-equipped cars).

Are you sure this is the case, because for me (2018 M3 LR), the difference in phantom braking is night and day between Autopilot/NoA and FSD Beta 10.5/10.6.1?