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Wiki MASTER THREAD: Actual FSD Beta downloads and experiences

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I'm very happy to have the beta.

Well, I got back from my 5-mile drive around the neighborhood. I do have full video of the drive, but I don't want any viral videos, plus my GoPro setup is crap (forgot stabilization was not supported at 4K - need to redo in 2.7K), so I won't be posting the video. But I will give my general impression:

Suffice it to say...it's a work in progress! I have one challenging turn on my entire drive to work. It's an unprotected left. Visibility is generally good. After the left, you have the option of entering the center merge reservation while getting up to speed. Usually, I sort of do this halfway as I rocket up to 50mph in 3-4 seconds. I've been using it a bit more in recent days with the Safety Score.

This is the turn:


This is the center reservation, and the direction I was turning:


Went through it a couple times. The first time the problem was it started entirely too far to the left on Sunset Ridge, nearly in the lane people would be coming in on. It also doesn't creep quite far enough forward, probably (I'll have to review this next time I take the turn). Then, on the first left turn occasion, it nearly entirely missed the center reservation, rocketing across the road to the opposite lanes, before jerking painfully to the left to go with the flow of traffic. This was legal, but it was not smooth! I had a negative reaction in the video. It's not required to enter that merging lane, but what it did wasn't great. Maybe it's because I'm used to driving for the Safety Score? 🤣

On the second time through, it also did a lot of jerking, but did enter the reservation and then get up to speed. It slightly crossed briefly over the double lines at the end of the reservation. Not smooth.

All the relevant clips have been sent to Tesla, of course. I'll probably do more documentation of this in the day sometime, but it's an extremely dangerous turn so I'll have to pick the time carefully.

There were some other minor incidents too, where it jerked to a stop in left turn lanes, etc. It's generally not all that smooth. One exception was traffic control - it was very smooth in its response the couple traffic lights I happened to hit.

I had a couple disengagements due to steering wheel torque. Not because they needed to be disengaged - just because it wasn't taking the line that I would have and my hands on the wheel forced it.

I thought for sure I would get clobbered on Safety Score, but in spite of all the jerking and jamming on of brakes (one time it stayed in TACC after I disengaged steering on a left turn, I didn't entirely realize this, then it saw the left arrow turn yellow, and it jammed on the brakes or something as I was steering), I got a 100 score. A great start to the day. Must have all been masked. Either that or when FSD Beta is enabled you're not graded anymore, only 100s. Don't know which, don't care.

My general impression is that monitoring this is actually going to be quite difficult. It's probably fairly easy if you disengage all the time (for example, on these unprotected left turns), but if you actually let it pick its own line, it's actually quite challenging to determine what it's going to do and react to it (the unprotected lefts are one example - I never would have wanted to be doing them with any traffic around - the other disengagement on a protected left was just because I did not like its line. Not sure what I didn't like (I think I felt it might clip my rear wheel on the curb - but it was NOT going to - but anyway it disengaged). I think I will probably get much better at this with time, but it will be interesting to see how others feel. Just an initial impression - I might change my mind.

I second the impression that it's actually surprisingly bold in some circumstances, and is not afraid to cut corners on residential streets - so I hope it reliably sees all vehicles… It will take some getting used to.

Extreme vigilance is necessary, in any case. I'm definitely not going to use it with a lot of traffic around for a while. Good night!


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Argh. Totally would have made the 100 mile cut off but my car is still just sitting at the service center because the part they are replacing arrived damaged. So instead I just missed it and now I’m hoping that they do another wave soon. Congrats those who got it though.
 
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Whoever is managing the spreadsheet (@jebinc ?) - there seems to have been a big bout of data loss a few moments ago. Someone might've restored an older version. There were increasing numbers of install dates being logged, then suddenly... all the dates/times were gone, down to just a sprinkled few. I just noticed it (but didn't see it happen), but my entry for date/time received is gone, and I know it (and many others) were in there. Hmm...

update: I found it - someone deleted all the data, then someone else restored the version from history - but restored a VERY OLD version (from midnight 😂😂). I picked and restored the actual latest available one (before the delete) with many more filled "received" columns. Data in the 10 minutes between then<->restore may have been missed, but it's still in the history in that gap.
 
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It was overly cautious in some situations (crawling up to stop sign for what felt like forever) and then crazy confident in others.
This was my impression too. Quite slow to make certain turns, and then rocketing boldly around others, cutting the corners (residential streets with no markings).

Pretty sure it is going to be a while before I have a zero-intervention drive. I won’t cede control to the robots without a fight. We’ll see though.
 
I took it on a short drive in the rain with no traffic and it was terrifying, it doesn't drive like a human at all, very uncomfortable, more like an angry and aggressive robot. Steering wheel lurches around strangely as it tries to fit itself to a turn, yet also has an inhumanely precise confidence at times. Blew past the left turn into my development, and U-turned through a roundabout at unsafe speeds. It's like riding a roller coaster, definitely can't turn this on with the wife in the car.
 
Went for 10 miles of FSD drIves, including to a supercharger (it stopped on the street right at the entrance driveway but didn’t pull into the Supercharger parking lot for some reason).

Like many of have said, it’s a work in progress but still pretty amazing. It was nice to do my first drives at 1-2a with hardly anyone on the roads, because there were some really scary/erratic maneuvers that would have scared the crap out of any drivers around me. I hit the camera icon to submit each one, including 3 disengagements because i felt it was about to have an accident (with stationary curbs, walls, etc.) By the by, I checked safety score and it’s counting the drives, but no dings and I’m still 100 despite me slamming on the brakes to disengage FSD beta once (to stop it from rocketing into a trash bin shed).

Drove a mile without any interventions, but it creeped out the driveway very slowly, then took off like a rocket (definitely aggressive turning if Safety Score mattered). A somewhat difficult intersection (cross street is at a weird/skewed angle and lines all over the middle of the intersection (to guide humans turning left or even trying to go straight). Somehow my car was in the leftmost lane, jerked right and changed 2 lanes very suddenly while in the middle of the intersection (again, lots of lines in the middle of this intersection). No cars were around so I didn’t disengage, but man that was scary to end up in the 2nd lane from the right.

Next drive was to go back home, and again it pulled onto the street slowly creeping, turning right, then shot off like a rocket. The right turn into my apartment complex driveway was way too fast and I almost disengaged, but it barely missed the median curb while turning in.

Next, I told it to go somewhere that required freeway route as well. Starting from inside a parking lot, it was unable to find its way out, and this is where it almost sent me accelerating into a trash bin shed instead of turning towards the parking lot exit driveway. I had to slam on the brakes to stop it (no hard braking recorded in safety score). For those that asked, it does not look like single stack. The FSD beta expanded visualization shrunk back to normal AP visualization size (how much of the screen from left to right it takes up), the driving path line switch to solid darker blue, yellow, red, etc. colored lines and spaces disappeared (see existing FSD beta tester vids for reference), and lane markings turned back to gray just like what NoA currently looks like. It does switch back to FSD beta (and visualizations) when it takes the freeway exit ramp. There was a right turn onto a large (4 lanes in one direction) road, then directions route needed to cross all 4 lanes to get to the 2 left turn lanes to make the next left. Rocketing after the overly cautious right turn resulted in not making it to the left turn lanes. It changed 3 lanes over, slowed to a stop at the light, but I was sitting in the leftmost lane going straight with a greenight. No cars around again, so I let it try a few seconds to figure out what to do, but I eventually gave up and just went straight through the green light intersection instead of reversing.

I’ve submitted quite a few clips where it did something scary, but one thing I’ve already started doing is turning on rear/side repeater cameras when it approaches a turn so I can see more clearly whether the wheels will clear the curb. FSD beta sometimes cuts it too close for comfort and I’m sometimes disengaging to avoid curb rash.
 
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