FSD Beta Problems I've Experienced

I’ve found that FSD Beta (under 2022.44.30.5) cannot negotiate a particular intersection geometry shown below. The vehicle just stops before the intersection and will not proceed.

Here’s the setup: the vehicle is in blue with the direction of motion shown by a black arrow. The planned path is shown in green. The intersection has traffic lights that I believe the vehicle sees. The vehicle does not pull up to the stop line, instead it stops in the middle of the curve and will not proceed. I’ve encountered two instances of this intersection geometry in my area, and in both cases the vehicle behaves the same. I have to manually drive the vehicle thru the right turn, then re-engage FSD.

I’ve also noted that the vehicle under FSD beta doesn’t do double-left-turn lanes at an intersection very well. It fails to anticipate which of the two left turn lanes it should use for its near-future planned path, and it will slowly maneuver between the two left turn lanes when there are no other vehicles around. I have to take over and re-position the vehicle in the correct lane for the future path.

Yet another problem: FSD beta will not use a particular freeway exit even though it is in the planned route. This exit is at the intersection of I-5 and I-405 south of Seattle in the Tukwila area. The particular exit is the transition between “southbound” I-405 and southbound I-5. It’s a 270 degree transition between freeways. The vehicle, in the right lane, consistently drives right past the exit onto SR-518 (beyond the end of I-405), then slows way down and impedes traffic behind. I have to drop out of FSD and speed up while Nav finds an alternate route. Sometimes, the vehicle will change lanes into the left lane because of traffic before the interchange and fails to change lanes back into the right lane in time to make the exit.

 

[Supcom]

Yet another problem: FSD beta will not use a particular freeway exit even though it is in the planned route. This exit is at the intersection of I-5 and I-405 south of Seattle in the Tukwila area. The particular exit is the transition between “southbound” I-405 and southbound I-5. It’s a 270 degree transition between freeways. The vehicle, in the right lane, consistently drives right past the exit onto SR-518 (beyond the end of I-405), then slows way down and impedes traffic behind. I have to drop out of FSD and speed up while Nav finds an alternate route. Sometimes, the vehicle will change lanes into the left lane because of traffic before the interchange and fails to change lanes back into the right lane in time to make the exit.

This is not an FSD beta problem. When you are on an interstate, you are using NOA. When it fails on FSDb 11.x, it will be an FSD beta problem.

 

[Padelford]

This is not an FSD beta problem. When you are on an interstate, you are using NOA. When it fails on FSDb 11.x, it will be an FSD beta problem.

True, but prior versions of the highway deck could navigate this path correctly, as far as I can recall.

 

[bjhinkle]

It’s disappointing they removed the FSD Beta bug report button. There’s no way to emphasize that a disengagement was due to poor or failing behavior for the dev team to look at.

 

[Supcom]

It’s disappointing they removed the FSD Beta bug report button. There’s no way to emphasize that a disengagement was due to poor or failing behavior for the dev team to look at.

With 300,000+ FSDb drivers tapping the button numerous timers per day, nobody would look at your reports.

 

[Twiglett]

my guess is that they are concentrating on the most important routes, you know, Elons house to the airport and Elons house to the factory.
After that is Chuck Cooks left turn followed by all the routes taken by the folks posting youtube videos.
A distant last place for the rest of us without a camera-submit button.
One thing is for certain, you can tell which roads Elon doesn't travel in the area

 

[kabin]

It’s disappointing they removed the FSD Beta bug report button. There’s no way to emphasize that a disengagement was due to poor or failing behavior for the dev team to look at.

I bet the team was overwhelmed with duplicate issues reported. The team likely gets auto downloads from extreme scenarios with hard braking, steering, and near misses. The rest is probably low priority especially since they are being spread thin and looking forward to new designs.

The team likely already has a good feel for the issues but given design limitations no real solutions other than adding more crutches and the jig has to be up on that.

The big question is how those of us with dead-end hardware equipped vehicles will be treated after more capable hardware and sensor suite are put into production later this year.

 

[kabin]

I’ve found that FSD Beta (under 2022.44.30.5) cannot negotiate a particular intersection geometry shown below. The vehicle just stops before the intersection and will not proceed.

Here’s the setup: the vehicle is in blue with the direction of motion shown by a black arrow. The planned path is shown in green. The intersection has traffic lights that I believe the vehicle sees. The vehicle does not pull up to the stop line, instead it stops in the middle of the curve and will not proceed. I’ve encountered two instances of this intersection geometry in my area, and in both cases the vehicle behaves the same. I have to manually drive the vehicle thru the right turn, then re-engage FSD.

View attachment 895388


I’ve also noted that the vehicle under FSD beta doesn’t do double-left-turn lanes at an intersection very well. It fails to anticipate which of the two left turn lanes it should use for its near-future planned path, and it will slowly maneuver between the two left turn lanes when there are no other vehicles around. I have to take over and re-position the vehicle in the correct lane for the future path.

Yet another problem: FSD beta will not use a particular freeway exit even though it is in the planned route. This exit is at the intersection of I-5 and I-405 south of Seattle in the Tukwila area. The particular exit is the transition between “southbound” I-405 and southbound I-5. It’s a 270 degree transition between freeways. The vehicle, in the right lane, consistently drives right past the exit onto SR-518 (beyond the end of I-405), then slows way down and impedes traffic behind. I have to drop out of FSD and speed up while Nav finds an alternate route. Sometimes, the vehicle will change lanes into the left lane because of traffic before the interchange and fails to change lanes back into the right lane in time to make the exit.

I've seen that sharp turn issue too as well as on youtuber videos. It could be related to the field of view changing so rapidly the image data becomes uncorrelated so FSDb needs extra dwell and processing time. At this point path has zilch decision making confidence. Adding to that FSDb also needs to monitor possible traffic from all directions so FSDb crumbles. This seems to be a frequent shortcoming for the current design. And for some reason B pillar cameras seem to be of little benefit in these cases. I personally think the B pillar cameras are garbage while the vehicle is moving which is probably another reason for the 30 ft stop sign creep. All pure speculation on my part.

 

[Dewg]

I've never experienced this 30ft stop sign creep issue. In my area car handles stop signs just fine, so it's easy for the car to do. Must be a planning/mapping issue in other areas.

 

[DWtsn]

The intersection you see in this pic is my car's nemesis. If I'm driving southbound as Car 1A, my MSLR cannot seem to figure out where the stop sign is and it slams on the brakes way before the "stop line" or stop sign, then will creep up slowly, then make the right (westbound) turn. But every time I come down that road it's like the stop sign jumps out and surprises the car and the braking is very abrupt and very sudden. If there are any cars behind me I have to ensure I don't have FSDb or Autopilot engaged.

Then there is the issue with Car 1, Pickup Truck 2 and Car 3. My car (Car 1 in this case) always struggles with this eastbound to northbound turn. However, the other day my car took it to a new level. My car (Car 1) stopped in the designated left turn lane while awaiting the westbound pickup truck (Pickup Truck 2) and Car 3 was stopped at the stop sign to make the southbound to eastbound turn. In the "sequence", Pickup Truck 2 would've continued, me (Car 1) would've turned left / northbound, then Car 3 would've made their turn.

Instead my car stopped, then suddenly pulled out in front of Pickup Truck 2, which was doing the posted speed limit of 50 mph and turned directly into the path of, and straight into, Car 3, rushing forward to 'beat' Pickup Truck 2 but failing to acknowledge the solid, double yellow line and failing to acknowledge that we were about to slam straight into the front of another car!! I grabbed the yoke, yanked it to the right and pushed the accelerator hard to get out of Pickup Truck 3's way before he hit me.

I am intimately aware that all this technology is in the "beta stages" and we must be ready, willing and able to takeover completely because the car may do unexpected maneuvers, but GOSH DANG IT, there are some things that are not just "unexpected" they are downright insanely inexplicable!! And how are we to let the car "learn" things if we are constantly "the cat on a hot tin roof" and are scared to even let the car do anything for fear it'll do something like that?

I complained loudly to Service via the app, much of my complaint being that we have NO WAY to complain to Tesla Engineering about our issues and they said that I could send an email to [email protected] to voice my complaints/concerns/issues. I have now done so twice with no replies or responses of any kind.

The fact that the technology can react so fast and can make such bad decisions is concerning to me. The situation this car had me in the other day had me milliseconds from a major accident and I would have been the cause of it had it happened.

 

[dgatwood]

At the intersection of Crossman Ave. and Moffett Park Dr. in Sunnyvale, when trying to get on the freeway, FSDb appeared to be trying to turn right at the traffic light.

At the intersection of Renstorff and N. Rengstorff in Mountain View, when trying to turn left onto the highway onramp from the right lane, FSDb tried to get into the center lane instead of the rightmost lane on the onramp. (The first two lanes are a carpool lane and a normal lane for folks in the leftmost turn lane. The rightmost left turn lane should put you in the third lane, not the second.)

At the intersection of Lincoln Ave. and E. Evelyn Ave. in Sunnyvale, FSD beta, when trying to merge onto Evelyn, appeared to be trying to either turn left into oncoming traffic or go perpendicular to oncoming traffic (I didn't look at the visualization; I just disengaged) rather than merging and then changing lanes safely.

At the intersection of Fair Oaks Ave. and Tasman Dr. in Sunnyvale, FSD beta mistakes the train's T-shaped white "go" signal for a green left turn arrow, causing it to try to go into the path of the oncoming light rail. This one falls into the "suicidally dangerous" category.

My car lacks a button for reporting failures.

 

[galimpic]

There is a point on my way home that FSD beta never gets right. It is just behind a left curve, and the right lane suddenly becomes an exit line for a side street to the right, so cars have to be in the left lane as they exit the curve to continue forward. Tesla doesn't change the lane in time, stays in the right lane, and then gives up at the intersection (usually with a pretty violent last try at autosteer that I need to correct before disconnecting). There are signs before the curve that warns about it, but it's not something FSD is able to interpret. Since it also doesn't use maps for its decisions (right?), there is simply no solution for such street arrangement for now. This is one of those situations where the driver has to notice the warning sign and change the lane manually in time. Before situations like that are somehow fixed (AI becoming good enough to interpret custom traffic signs), it will stay at Level 2.

 

[derotam]

I’ve also noted that the vehicle under FSD beta doesn’t do double-left-turn lanes at an intersection very well. It fails to anticipate which of the two left turn lanes it should use for its near-future planned path, and it will slowly maneuver between the two left turn lanes when there are no other vehicles around.

Yeah so I think the issue is that the car doesn't seem to know about lanes that end or even how many lanes you may be turning in to. In your example it is the latter, it does not know that there are how ever many lanes so it doesn't know what turn lane it should be in.

In my case, there is a section where there are two lanes going straight through an intersection. Some time before that intersection if I am in the left lane(important in a sec here), it wants to move into the right lane to "follow the route". The problem is that after the intersection the right lane turns into a right turn only(with dotted left hand white line turning into a solid white line. If I let it stay in the right lane through the intersection it doesn't comprehend that the lane is turning into a right turn only and treats it as just ending and turning into a merging lane so it doesn't try to move over till it basically physically dead ends, well past the solid white line.

The car is definitely trying to adjust on the fly in at least some scenarios such as the above two.

 

[derotam]

And how are we to let the car "learn" things if we are constantly "the cat on a hot tin roof" and are scared to even let the car do anything for fear it'll do something like that?

The car itself does not learn anything. The only thing you can hope for is that when you disengage while in FSD beta that it sends information and video to Tesla for them to analyze the why of your disengagement and then use that data to help feed the Neural Net learning infrastructure at Tesla to be incorporated in a future firmware update for the car.

 

[galimpic]

In my case, there is a section where there are two lanes going straight through an intersection. Some time before that intersection if I am in the left lane(important in a sec here), it wants to move into the right lane to "follow the route". The problem is that after the intersection the right lane turns into a right turn only(with dotted left hand white line turning into a solid white line. If I let it stay in the right lane through the intersection it doesn't comprehend that the lane is turning into a right turn only and treats it as just ending and turning into a merging lane so it doesn't try to move over till it basically physically dead ends, well past the solid white line.

Let's analyze your example: how do YOU know you should be in the left of the two lanes? If you were coming to the intersection for the first time, you could make the same mistake, and would have to move to the correct lane quickly after the intersection, which is what FSD is also trying to do. Now, let's see why it's not a problem for a human driver, but it is for the software:

1. It apparently doesn't remember the layout after it encounters it once - it makes the same mistake at the same place every time. A human driver will remember and avoid the problem the next time. They should fix that.
2. Maybe the fact that the right lane is becoming the merge lane is obvious to a human driver even before the intersection, as they look more forward for such information than software does. Since it is perfectly capable to see everything a driver sees, they should fix that as well.
3. Even if the car ends up in the merge lane after the intersection, it can merge. However, you say that the software is too slow to react and does this too late or not at all, unlike a human driver. Again, something that can be fixed by software/hardware upgrades.

In conclusion, situations like these are completely solvable in the future (like my example above), so I hope in a few years it won't be an issue.

 

[derotam]

Let's analyze your example: how do YOU know you should be in the left of the two lanes? If you were coming to the intersection for the first time, you could make the same mistake, and would have to move to the correct lane quickly after the intersection, which is what FSD is also trying to do. Now, let's see why it's not a problem for a human driver, but it is for the software:

1. It apparently doesn't remember the layout after it encounters it once - it makes the same mistake at the same place every time. A human driver will remember and avoid the problem the next time. They should fix that.

Absolutely, there should be some kind of hysteresis in this scenario. The fun things though is how to solve the problem since there are two off the top of my head... First, if it was just a merging lane then it wasn't technically a mistake to fix, rather it is more of a gain in efficient routing. Second, the lane turns into a turn only and the routing knows that it isn't going to be turning, and therefore could be considered partly a mistake in addition to just needing to be more efficient in navigating.... just looked at it on maps... Its a weird double right into a merge but from a analytical point of view for Tesla there isn't a lot of time/distance to make an appropriate choice because of the solid white lines. so it goes dashed white for 70 feet, then solid white for 156 ft, then blank (for crossing street traffic) for 50 feet, dashed for 138ft, solid for 154 feet, then lastly blank for parking lot cross traffic for 64 feet then into the grass as the lane ends. I think the car sees the white lines and doesn't know what to do.

I tried to let it go all the way once to see when and how it would move lanes but had to abort and force across the solid white line because of upcoming rear traffic. If I get a clear road I'll try it again and see what the car does...maybe I'll post the dashcam.

2. Maybe the fact that the right lane is becoming the merge lane is obvious to a human driver even before the intersection, as they look more forward for such information than software does. Since it is perfectly capable to see everything a driver sees, they should fix that as well.

Yes there does seem to be issues with long distance acquisition and action on that data. Not in my case I don't think though...it's kind of blind going over the hilly intersection till it flattens out on the other side.

3. Even if the car ends up in the merge lane after the intersection, it can merge. However, you say that the software is too slow to react and does this too late or not at all, unlike a human driver. Again, something that can be fixed by software/hardware upgrades.

As mentioned above I think there is a solid white line issue causing system confusion.

In conclusion, situations like these are completely solvable in the future (like my example above), so I hope in a few years it won't be an issue.

Yes, I absolutely agree that these are solvable situations.

 

[galimpic]

I tried to let it go all the way once to see when and how it would move lanes

Be careful with that. I tried that experiment with my trouble point from above and let the software figure its way out from an obvious problem it put itself into. At the very last moment at the intersection it wildly steered and disconnected at the same time, and even though I was prepared to react, I barely missed hitting the curb. I gave up experimenting after that, and as soon as I see it is not doing the right thing, I correct it myself. On intersections, I always look for incoming traffic myself and press on the accelerator so it doesn't have to be hesitant, and I move to an appropriate lane if I it is not doing it in time. Maybe I won't get a medal from Tesla's beta testing team, but with just a little effort in a few known situations, FSD beta becomes a much better experience. Now, if only the trust were mutual, and it stopped asking me to nudge the wheel...

 

[golfcart]

I just started playing with it again the last few weeks and overall I have been able to go a lot of places with minimal interventions (if any) but curves before stoplights do seem to be FSD's nemesis. I get all kinds of strange braking or decelerating behavior around those types of intersections similar to what the OP described.

 

[dgatwood]

FSDb is also often really bad at speed decisions, resulting in passenger discomfort and missed turns.

In particular:

• It accelerates up to full speed even when there's a red light ahead with a line of cars, then brakes way too late to recover all that wasted power with regen.
• When it knows it has to cross multiple lanes of traffic quickly, it still tries to speed up to the full speed of the road, then gets stuck. Case in point, going from NB 101 and turning left at Garcia Ave. is hopeless, because it will race right up past the end of the line of cars in the one left turn lane.

Also, FSDb reliably reads the 35 MPH truck speed limit signs on northbound CA-17 as normal speed limit signs, resulting in suddenly slowing down in the middle of the highway. Drivers must pay exceptionally close attention, because that sort of vehicle behavior on that road has a very high probability of causing a fatal accident sooner rather than later.

 

[ThatMike]

I just experienced another issue.

Stopped at an intersection, three lanes, I am in the middle, on the map it shows straight at current intersection, and turn left 200m after at next stop sign. When the green light turned on, FSD decided to turn on left turn signal and car tried to turn left, then somehow it figured out something was wrong, then on the screen, the most right lane shows blue (assume it was the target lane, but still wrong), it was earlier morning, no cars around me, but is was an intersection, so I decided to take over the control myself.

Do they have QA?