All right. After a long day of doing some required writing, swapping the snow blower for a lawn mower (and fixing the air filter and carb on the latter), getting the dishes done and, finally, reading through the relevant threads on TMC, it was time: Take the 2018 M3 LR RWD out for a serious test with 11.3.4 FSDb.
For those of you who don't know, I live in Central New Jersey, one of the most congested locales in the U.S. And, while it's not quite the, "We let drunken cows lay out our roads!" that Boston has, it very definitely has its moments. It's generally hilly. If one is going East<->West or NE<->SW, there are tons of Big Roads running West out of NYC or up and down the coast. Interstates, roads that are basically rural with or without markings, suburbia deluxe, and lots and lots of traffic. We may not be pulling 85 mph like you people out in Texas, but, man, we got variety.
And my commute to work is One Of Those. On a standard commute, which I ran back and forth this afternoon/evening, there's two different interstates, four lane local roads, two laners, red lights, stop signs, things that look like cloverleafs but pre-date them, and so on. I'm a-telling you guys: Back in May of 2022, I'd easily do 20 interventions on a 15 mile trip, sometimes 30, and it'd be a rarity to get down to 5. As I've said before, 70% of those were just keeping other drivers from throwing rocks; but 20%-25% were dangerous and could have resulted in bent metal; of the remainder, some 7.5% to 5%, there were
real hazards: The car attempting to merge into
another car in the lane to the left; or this one intersection where it persistently, about 20% of the time going through that intersection (controlled with a stop light), the car would attempt, after a stop,
to run the light with heavy traffic moving back and forth. Whee. Not to mention going over a hill on an unmarked two-lane road, with the car
hugging the middle of the road. Not to mention swing-wide on right to do a left, darn near hitting the curb each time. Ugh.
By the time 10.69 and its variants had come by the number of interventions had dropped dramatically, from that 30 per 15/20 mile trip to around 5; and about 1/6th of the time, miracles would occur: The car would make it to work or back without interventions. It still took white knuckles on the steering wheel because, just like the Release Notes say: "The car will do the worst thing at the wrong time."
So, here's 11.3.4. They've merged the highway and local road set. A few trips around the neighborhood have been relatively short and on, well, "easy" routes. Today was my chance to give it the full monty. I will admit that, at the time of day I was traveling, it wasn't quite the full craziness of rush hour; about 75% of that, in terms of traffic density, so YMMV.
- Leaving the house, right into FSD-b. Left the development and hung a right, sans problems. Another car coming into the lane of the development appeared and made the car stop short while it tried to figure out where the interloper was going; once that car had turned in, the car picked up and ran. A human would have noticed the turn signal on the approaching car, made eye contact, and would have left sooner; but FSD-b isn't that good, or doesn't trust turn signals (not a bad idea), but probably can't read other driver's facial expressions.
- First big test: Route 1 South Bound. Yes, that Route 1. Six lanes of heavy traffic, three in each direction, 50 mph, with $RANDOM stoplights, but no lights at the end of my street, so it's an Unprotected Right, and a nasty one. There was a 1/4 mile gap.. and the car took it, accelerated heavily, and moved right onto the on-ramp of the interstate coming up.
- Absolutely no problems merging. It did run to the end of the on-ramp area, yes, but there was no traffic to the left anyway.
- Car shifted smoothly and cleanly from the far right to the far left of this multilane road, picking up speed as it went. Very human like, no jerks. An important point: It Felt Safe.
- Off-ramp approaching.. and, now for something odd. More on this in a bit. Was in the middle lane, traffic on the right, with about a mile to go, with somewhat slower moving traffic on the righ. The exit was getting closer.. but the car wasn't slowing down and moving right into a gap. It felt like it was looking for a opening.. didn't find one, then slid right, smoothly, with about 0.3 miles to go at 65 mph. As I've remarked before, the move onto the off-ramp lane was a heck of a lot smoother than anything I've seen on FSD-b before.
- Off ramp splits; left lane goes to a traffic light for left turn only; right lane to a yield. At the split, the car jerked the wheel once or twice, then slowly moved into the right lane where I was going; that was awkward, but it did make it. There was a line of five or six cars getting off, with each driver swiving ye head to check for on-coming. The car kept moving up and Not Stopping (something that 10.69.xx did a lot) and, when it was its turn - went for it, smoothly, and accelerated down the right of two lanes. This Is New. 10.69.XX almost always needed an intervention here.
- Route went right at the second light, which has a right-on-red lane. The light was red for the straight-ahead; FSD-b couldn't figure that it could continue, without crossing traffic, so had to goose it. Call it one intervention. 10.69.xx never got this intersection right without a goose, either.
- Road forks up ahead, just after crossing railroad tracks. Early FSD-b would go off into never-never land here; 10.69.xx could make the turn, but it always jerked like crazy. 11.3.4 drove through it just like I would, smoothly, somehow noting that cars coming the other way on the other fork didn't have the right of way.
- Two lanes. Several hundred yards ahead, there's a traffic light and the left lane, which the car was in, turns magically into a left-turn-only lane. 10.69.x.x and earlier never got this right. So, getting closer, getting closer.. Lane stripes go from normal to those little dotted guys, car still isn't getting over, oh, well, hit the right turn signal. Over it went and kept on going.
- A few miles up and the route has an unprotected left turn onto a Very Local Road. The lane the car is in is a relatively wide one; before, on any FSD-b, the car would swing wide right, nearly hit the curb, then approach the turn at a pretty good angle before crossing the center line. With 11.3.4, that didn't happen. I would say that the car was a little shifted towards the center line, but not much; but, seeing as the way was clear, did a smooth left into the bitty local road without a jerk in sight. This Is New. Well, the release notes said they did something about getting rid of the swinging: It's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was.
- Two-way stop (i.e., the road being crossed had the right of way, the road that the car is on has stop signs.). Interesting: I was half-expecting to see that blue line get cast ahead on the screen, with the car sneaking up on it; there was none of that. Yes, the car stopped. But then it slowly went forward, without that blue line, and pulled into the right it was making and went for it. Still slower than I would have done it, but faster than I've seen it.
- The Stop Light of Doom. Yes, I was first in line and had white knuckles: This is where FSD-b had been in the habit of trying to run the red from a full halt. Nope, didn't do it, and didn't show any signs of thinking about moving, which, on previous FSD-b releases, it had. Hope this sticks; if it did, the Tesla people swatted a bug.
- Local road city for the next four miles; two lanes with the occasional traffic light, speed limits varying from 25 to 35 to 25 to 45. No real problems, but had an oddity: The driver in front of me was going the speed limit or less and was hugging the right side of the road. Had it been me driving, I probably would have passed the guy or got real frustrated or something. But there was oncoming traffic and Not Quite Enough Room. FSD-b on 11.3.4 had that thick blue line going ahead and I was seriously wondering if it was going to make a move or not. It never did. After a few miles of this (and a couple of towns) the errant driver clearly found the address being looked for, pulled over, and parked. The car picked up speed and continued.
- First real intervention: One lane forward splits to two lanes forward, in preparation for a large controlled intersection a couple blocks up. Just before the official split with Real Painted Lanes, the road was plenty wide, and there was a driver trying for a UPL with opposing traffic. There was plenty of room to go around to the right, but FSD-b was having none of it and wanted to stop behind the driver. Jerked the wheel, got the prompt, and let Tesla know. It's not exactly a full intervention; if I had waited, the car ahead would have turned and FSD-b would have continued, safely. But, still.
- At the major controlled intersection (two lanes left, one lane straight, and one lane right, all onto a four-laner with Jersey Barriers and 50 mph traffic), FSD-b successfully pulled off a right on red. Cool. Not something that 10.69.xx could be counted upon to do.
- So, the car is definitely weaving back and forth, passing other slower traffic, and what all. At one point the road expands and gains a lane on the right. Almost immediately, FSD-b dives into that lane, plays stop-and-go with cars turning right, and, at the correct intersection, smoothly turns right (without jerking!) into the correct road, then pulls another sharp right onto an on-ramp for an overpass. And then slows rapidly to a halt - there's another car coming onto the on-ramp from another direction, and that car has the right-of-way. The car then picks up speed, follows its nose over the bridge, and then smoothly gets into the left of two lanes. I've tried this before on 10.69.x.x; it works.. kind of.. but 11.3.4 is loads better.
- A long uphill drive to a traffic circle. At the circle.. there's no on-coming traffic, so FSD-b smoothly pulls into its lane and takes the first exit, no halting, jumping, or going nuts. Pulls into the right lane on the circle exit and executes an unprotected left up the hill, smoothly. Huh. There's been a lot of complaints about traffic circles around here. Didn't have trouble with this one, at all.
- Long run up and over a small mountain and crossed a bridge over an interstate. On the far side of the bridge, on the right, there's an off-ramp from the interstate to a stop sign, no light. There's four or five motorcyclists with funny-looking helmets (wings, etc.) on. They're in the road there, about 25 feet short of the intersection, chatting, apparently, and two of them but their bikes in gear and zip up to the road that the car is approaching upon and stop. FSD-b really didn't like that sudden motion and came to a near halt. They were halted and saw me, so gassed it and went through.
- Next is a fun intersection: Five roads come together at odd angles; all of them have large stop signs on the right of each incoming road that are lit up like Christmas with red flashing lights around each sign's periphery. To top it all off, there's this conglomeration of lights hanging in the center of the intersection that display two horizontally organized lights in each road's direction that are alternating "RED!" back and forth. It all just means, "Stop. Then go if it's clear.", but whoever it was that sold red lights made a mint on the place. The car's task was to turn right. I was pretty much expecting 11.3.4, given the maniac display, to freeze and melt in place. Heck, people freeze and melt when they see this display. Instead, the car threw up one of its cutesy blue barriers, crept up a bit, and went for it, no trouble, and a minimal wait at that.
The trip back was pretty good. But, this time, I caught FSD-b doing something new and unexpected.
So, on an interstate, middle lane, 70 mph. There's another interstate coming up that the car needs to get into the right lane for. The car's going
somewhat faster than the cars to the immediate right, but I'm getting nervous: There's only about 0.5 miles or so left. There's a car in front of me, but up a bit, and also moving faster than the traffic on the right. I happen to glance at the display which, of course, is showing all the cars around one. And spot something odd: There's a car on the right up forty yards or so that's highlighted in blue. Another quick glance and there's a car in front of the highlighted one that's
also highlighted in blue.. and there's a big enough gap for the Tesla to safely fit between them. You can guess what happened next: The car in front of me kept on moving up, the Tesla kept moving up, and, just before hitting the major offramp to the right, the Tesla pulled right smoothly into the gap. And off we all went onto the off ramp, no muss, no fuss.
This is something new and different. FSD-b was looking at all the traffic, all the time, knew it wanted to move over a lane. And solved a computer problem on how it was going to do that, and executed same. Frankly, I'm not sure I would have spotted the opening. And if the car in front of me had slowed a bit, said opening would have disappeared. It's for reasons like this that, at this intersection, I usually get into the far right lane much earlier. But, still.
Another comment.
As
@AlanSubie4Life pointed out a month or so ago, FSD-b's braking performance had left something to be desired, especially when slowing down from high speeds to a halt. The car would brake hard; come off the brakes; brake hard again; and so on, oscillating the braking action as a function of time as it slowed down. People sometimes do that, but they try not to. As a part-time controls guy, this looked to me like some underdamped control circuit and, well, it wasn't comfortable.
I was looking for that today on 11.3.4 on those high-speed roads with lights. Maybe I'm just lucky, but that oscillatory action seems to be gone. Yes, the car
will modulate its braking action when coming to a halt, but this seems more related to the movement (or lack thereof) of the cars in front of one. Comments,
@AlanSubie4Life?
Conclusions: 11.3.4 is a large step-up in performance on both local and highways. There are still some rough edges.. but a lot of the major problems that I had been seeing, daily, seem to have melted away, leaving a much smaller subset. There still seem to be some issues about picking the correct lane; but on the trips to and fro today, these seem to be reduced as well.
Finally: Some time back I noted that the release notes keep on saying things like, "30% reduction in this-or-that errors" and so on. Which is kind of scary when one is trying for 9 9's competence (i.e., much better than human) driving. It's not like one can't get there at 30% a step, but it takes a heck of a lot of steps at that rate.
But we're not talking hardware with
only fixed improvements: There can be complete architectural re-writes of software algorithms that can just, well, wipe out whole classes of errors in a fell swoop. 11.3.4 appears to be one of those. Yes, there are regressions. Yes, it's making errors that 10.69.x.x made. But there's just something about this platform that seems.. different, and in a good way.
We'll see. I'm really looking forward to 12. And 11.3.4 looks to be enough of an improvement that I'm going to be using it, a lot, going forward.
... you should stop whatever you do for a living and write parody. I have never read every word of such a long post before, but you held my attention. Great memory recall in all those fine details from 1 drive.
