At the risk of Annoying People Again, I hereby link my
post on the subject that, this time, happened to be on the Investors Forum of TMC. It dates from November, but the rules haven't really changed:
- FSDb is Very Definitely Not A Finished Product.
- It Will Do the Wrong Thing at the Worst Time. That includes getting you killed.
- If one is looking for a stress-free life, running around with FSDb is not how one achieves that.
- When one picks up the mantel of running FSDb, you're a Beta Tester. Your purpose in life is to get Horribles delivered to Tesla so they can Improve the Product. This particular item tended to make a lot more sense when Tesla gave one a Video Record button for the death-attempting (note: Not "death-defying") things that FSDb would do; the general understanding at the moment is that taking over from the car may trigger something in the car's software that will, under the right circumstances/place/time, send informative clips to the Tesla development group. (People have noted GB of data pushed to Tesla at night. But only sometimes.)
- Advantage for you: Mainly, a means to push the package forward to the point where you get a real FSD, rather than an FSDb. Secondarily: A chance to pay with squeaky-new, buggy stuff that occasionally pulls off what appear to be miracles.
- Having said all of the above: Complaints or no complaints (and there's tons of legit complaints in the forum, not that we ever see any responses from Tesla), FSDb has been getting better over time. My rough personal experience is that interventions have dropped by a factor of one-half to roughly one-quarter since I first got involved back in March. I've occasionally made it 15 miles in NJ, one of the most congested states in the Union, without an intervention. The thinking around here is that Tesla thinks that the software has gotten safe enough that people who have bought the FSD package and want to drive the Beta can do so, without having to prove that they're what Tesla considers to be excellent drivers first (the old Safety Score program). Or, another way to look at it: As horrible as the FSDb can get at the moment, it's probably somewhat safer than a horrible driver.
For you: Go ahead and let the FSDb do its thing if you're interested in being a tester, but be absolutely prepared to take over at any moment, don't relax, and keep your eyes on the road and around you. The software is, as currently implemented, not consistent: there are cases where FSDb will
routinely fail at a particular intersection; or fail 1/10 of the time, or 1/3 of the time, or 80% of the time, or once in a blue moon, at random. So just because it worked the last ten times doesn't mean it's going to work on the next.
You've been warned.