After about 90 miles of testing V12.3, this release seems like a very interesting but mixed bag.
From videos and reviews, I think I ended up coming in with too high of expectations for smoothness and assertiveness arounds pedestrians. It's more like a 5 steps forward and 1-2 steps back for me, although I suspect it's poorly trained for Colorado road design compared to California.
In areas where it works well (including some challenging situations) it performs
extremely well. Those are incredibly satisfying, and the ceiling for FSD performance is extremely high.
Wins:
- Construction zones
- Pathing through complex situations
- Very smooth (90% of the time)
- Lead vehicles cutting out (doesn't over-brake)
- Multi lane changes
- Roundabouts (95% perfect)
- Speed bump and dip detection
- Uturns! (80% there)
Struggles:
- Basic stop sign handling (deceleration profile, stopping position, creeping, and jerky steering all have problems)
- Inconsistent following distance on suburban arterial roads
- Still overly hesitant in a variety of situations. When I have a trailing vehicle I find I often need to give it a nudge to move through an intersection faster, or bump up speed by 5mph.
- Lane selection (but different problems than v11, ha!)
- Deceleration profile in general (not just stop signs). Rarely holds a constant deceleration from, say, 45mph down to 12mph.
- Auto-speed has been discussed at length. It's smoother at speed limit changes, too hesitant overall, and fixes a place where V11 refused to go more than about 12 mph.
I think that's okay because cars in the outer lane must turn right immediately
I don't believe that's true for roundabouts around here (Denver CO). Or if it is nobody follows that rule.