FSD Overfit to Southern California

Over the holiday break I drove to visit my brother in Glendale CA. FSD Beta is head and shoulders better in Southern Cal than here at home in Washington State!

1. There are subtle differences in street markings and signage, and FSD Beta was never confused about (e.g.) which lane was the center lane or what to do when a lane disappears;
2. No roundabouts, of course, so that was never an issue; and
3. Autopilot's propensity to pass on the right makes a whole lot more sense, as California Cruise Control Cretins are everywhere! No shame at all sitting in the left lane of an Interstate with dozens of cars passing on the right.

At least when we got back into Oregon, my attempts to pass on the right were foiled by drivers who would speed up just enough to close the gap ahead so I couldn't get in. Also in Oregon there was this one New York plated vehicle that quickly changed lanes to fall in behind me when I passed on the right; I'm guessing that driver has PTSD from the honking, 'waving' and loud 'greetings' you experience when passed on the right in that part of the country.

Finally - has the California Highway Patrol stopped enforcing the speed limit on Interstates? Not complaining, but won't be posting here how fast we cruised in formation with everyone else (at least until the civil statute of limitation has expired). And I didn't see a single trooper on the side of the road with lights flashing unless there was an obvious accident.

"Testing the Tesla autopilot (self driving mode)" by Marc van der Chijs is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog feed.

 

[tangible1]

RoW often means REST OF WORLD, and indeed in many other countries in RoW vehicles entering from the right even on on-ramps DO have RoW (right of way, meaning one has to yield enough to them to allow their entry) so Tesla is going to have their work cut out for them when they finally begin to deploy FSDb to countries in Europe at least If not RoWorld.

RoW in this context was completely explained.
don't jump out of your chair - READ
and we're talking USA fur chrissakes get out of the Starbucks

 

[tivoboy]

RoW in this context was completely explained.
don't jump out of your chair - READ
and we're talking USA fur chrissakes get out of the Starbucks

I did, I was merely pointing out a different fact.. calm down sparky

 

[tangible1]

I did, I was merely pointing out a different fact.. calm down sparky

why? you're blaming someone else for your own lack of attention.
I'm perfectly aware of that other RoW shorthand and wrote out my meaning in the very first sentence
READ

 

[dflowerz]

I will explain better. The freeway onramp I was talking about was a cloverleaf type entrance and on the 180 degree curve the car slowed down way too much so I had to just speed up. No merging issue there, just the car slowing too much. The other one with the trucks was the two trucks merging into my lane which was the through lane. Normally I would just slow to avoid any issues even though I had the right of way, but FSD got me into a potentially dangerous situation by choosing not to yield until a collision was imminent.

 

[drtimhill]

Yep. I think it is pretty common knowledge that FSD is overfit to CA. I think Elon even admitted it once awhile back. But that's why youtubers in CA routinely do zero intervention drives all the time, and as a result, they claim FSD is already good enough to do driverless. There is even one guy who is using his Tesla to give Uber rides but does not tell his riders that he is using FSD Beta. He claims his riders can't tell that FSD beta was driving them the whole time. He uses this to claim FSD beta is already good enough to be a robotaxi. Of course, people outside CA don't have that experience at all.

Having driven FSD in both WA and CA states then yes, FSD does seem more confident in CA, but I can't say it was night and day different. This is hardly surprising given the early (and probably ongoing) bias toward CA inputs to the NN training, and is almost certainly one of the reasons Tesla opened up the beta more widely when it did.

However, what is interesting to me here isnt that its not driving as well in (say), WA state, but that the CA driving shows the potential for FSD for other states as the training set becomes more representative of the US as a whole.

 

[kakemoms]

When FSD eventually becomes available in other Countries (Europe and so on) it will need to be based on different rules and datasets. Road markings for example, are very different here (Norway) than in California. Turning right on a red traffic light is also a sure way to get a huge traffic ticket here.
Still Autopilot works quite well on bare, clean roads.

 

[Kablooie]

When FSD eventually becomes available in other Countries (Europe and so on) it will need to be based on different rules and datasets. Road markings for example, are very different here (Norway) than in California. Turning right on a red traffic light is also a sure way to get a huge traffic ticket here.
Still Autopilot works quite well on bare, clean roads.

Even different states here have different laws. Teslas will have to use GPS data to know where it is and apply the appropriate behavior according to local laws.

 

[uscbucsfan]

Even different states here have different laws. Teslas will have to use GPS data to know where it is and apply the appropriate behavior according to local laws.

Currently Tesla is ignoring local laws and adhering to most common laws. Example it ignores the following, less popular state laws like: no turn on red, no passing in right lane, or no merging/lane changes in intersections.

I'm sure they will eventually get to that point, but not likely anytime soon.