Wiki MASTER THREAD: Actual FSD Beta downloads and experiences

[brkaus]

Yep it’s an unfortunate truth that no 2.0 cars got the beta. I’m in contact with most of these people on twitter. We’ll see if 10.3 brings any changes

Hopefully this is better once they get to FSD for folks with 99... I don't see anyway I can get to 100.

 

[mackgriggs]

Ok, just got the beta invite email. I reached 100 yesterday around 8pm. Looks like this week....they are doing daily additions for those that have 100. Yesterday they added everyone that got it since the last wave.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I have to say, after having had this FSD Beta for a week, I feel like the dog who caught the (self-driving?) car. Very anti-climactic. This was not really unexpected though.

FSD Beta 11 will be a new and exciting car to chase though. Going to be . Maybe.

but I've never seen anyone report jerky steering wheel, for eg. Tesla team might even think its ok - since "eventually" the car turns properly.

What I find remarkable is that Elon claims to use FSD Beta on some drives - with “no interventions” at the recent shareholder meeting. Does his reality distortion field also extend into his own mind? How can he tolerate all these behaviors without constantly blowing a gasket? Why has he not insisted that the worst behaviors be fixed? It really makes me wonder! I know previously he said some earlier version was actually not very good…but still…he uses it! He has thousands of people who can do all this testing for him and spare him the unpleasantness…yet he uses it. All very odd.
I guess the obvious answer is that he uses it from time to time, just to check the status of development, but actually probably uses it very infrequently - and doesn’t talk about that part and all the problems very much. Meanwhile he clicks “like” on a few Whole Mars Catalog tweets, provides some comments about how awesome AI is, and the narrative continues!

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not disappointed In FSD Beta at all - it’s behaving about how I expected, and I occasionally like to use it - when I have the patience to babysit it and send in bug reports. It is living up to all my expectations. No surprises so far. But I find the narratives about how close it is to being really good…interesting. And confusing, based on personal experience.

 

[ACPark]

What I find remarkable is that Elon claims to use FSD Beta on some drives - with “no interventions” at the recent shareholder meeting. Does his reality distortion field also extend into his own mind? How can he tolerate all these behaviors without constantly blowing a gasket? Why has he not insisted that the worst behaviors be fixed? It really makes me wonder! I know previously he said some earlier version was actually not very good…but still…he uses it! He has thousands of people who can do all this testing for him and spare him the unpleasantness…yet he uses it. All very odd.
I guess the obvious answer is that he uses it from time to time, just to check the status of development, but actually probably uses it very infrequently - and doesn’t talk about that part and all the problems very much. Meanwhile he clicks “like” on a few Whole Mars Catalog tweets, provides some comments about how awesome AI is, and the narrative continues!

Could be he is not using the public build.

 

[MarcG]

Could be he is not using the public build.

Could be, and most likely he is not indeed. But that begs the question: if his version is really so much better in that he rarely needs to intervene, why not make that version available to the “public”? Something doesn’t add up.

 

[ACPark]

Could be, and most likely he is not indeed. But that begs the question: if his version is really so much better in that he rarely needs to intervene, why not make that version available to the “public”? Something doesn’t add up.

If I were to bet: Either there are non public builds with less QA or different features or special features to allow things like turning off nags and lowering the thresholds for the vehicle to act or both.

If such a branch exists, i'd say it's not available because the public apparently needs a nanny.

 

[CitizenKane]

Could be, and most likely he is not indeed. But that begs the question: if his version is really so much better in that he rarely needs to intervene, why not make that version available to the “public”? Something doesn’t add up.

Elon Musk has a long history of exaggerating progress and being too optimistic about timelines. But this is part of being an entrepreneur. There is a grey zone between being a visionary and a fraudster, but to drive your team and the world around you, I believe you need to be a bit ahead of reality. There are multiple witnesses from inside Tesla on how Elon puts up goals his team members do not believe in, but then they work like crazy to reach them and almost do.

So as an external viewer, either as a Tesla investor or car owner, I think one should not be too disappointed with differences between Musk's words or tweets and reality, but rather look at what the company and car objectively do. And in terms of FSD I still see the development as quite remarkable. Which car has a better self driving capability today? Obviously anyone feeling they have paid for something they have been promised and not received should be allowed to claim a refund.

 

[Bill Price]

You do those after you crash, not before.

Sugar! I guess I need to rethink my priorities?

 

[Phlier]

Elon has stated that he runs the latest alpha build on his car, and that he uses FSD both ways on his daily commute.

if his version is really so much better in that he rarely needs to intervene, why not make that version available to the “public”?

There's no way that Tesla would assume the liability of releasing an alpha build state version to anyone outside of the company.

If you were an FSD dev, wouldn't you frost the cake? I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine that the devs make sure that Uncle Elon has a very nice drive both ways to work. And I don't think Elon is naive enough to not think that, too. He has stated that he takes the current private beta build out quite often and takes it through its paces on an extended basis.

Self driving cars has always been one of Elon's passions. He keeps a very close eye on his pet project, but yeah... he does have a tendency to guild the lily when it comes to its actual performance.

As public beta testers, we're testing software that is many iterations away from what Elon is driving on his car; most likely months behind.

 

[Bill Price]

As public beta testers, we're testing software that is many iterations away from what Elon is driving on his car; most likely months behind.

We're testing embryonic software?

 

[OK_3AWD]

There are a lot of things to be improved and fixed, but I have some drives in light to moderate traffic that FSD can complete without intervention. Apart from one location in my area where I'm convinced it would crash (every time), I mainly intervene to respect other road users or because it's been creeping forward very slowly to improve visibility for the last 30 seconds. My top concerns:

1. I still get an occasional scary merge on a freeway entrance. When it happens, the car waits until the last possible moment to move into the lane, and when it finally does it, it darts quickly across the lane, almost to the left line of the lane before centering. Even if I know it's going to correct itself, it scares the heck out of nearby traffic. Good luck doing that in front of a cop without a discussion on the side of the road. Because it is scary for other drivers, I'm only letting it handle entrances where it has never misbehaved.
2. Particularly when making a left turn on a city street, it will move partially onto the opposite (left) side of the road to start, and gradually creep further and further to the left before the turn. If I let FSD handle the turn out of my neighborhood onto an arterial, it fully blocks the opposite side of the residential street before finally making the turn.
3. As many others have noted, the most consistent behavior is the car initially moves left before turning right on surface streets. It's probably a short-term fix to avoid collisions with curbs, but it does it when it still has 3 or 4 feet of pavement on the right side of the car and in areas where there are no curbs.
4. The ridiculously slow creep when moving forward for visibility. In places where a stop sign is significantly short of the intersection, it can take a very long time to do this.
5. There are far too many locations where FSD/AP hugs the left side of the lane. That's pointlessly risky when you have oncoming traffic on surface streets, and pretty stupid when you are in the right lane on a freeway. I've long wished for better lane centering behavior or a way to adjust position within the lane.
6. Phantom braking is common.

 

[Yuri_G]

I have to say, after having had this FSD Beta for a week, I feel like the dog who caught the (self-driving?) car. Very anti-climactic. This was not really unexpected though.

FSD Beta 11 will be a new and exciting car to chase though. Going to be . Maybe.



What I find remarkable is that Elon claims to use FSD Beta on some drives - with “no interventions” at the recent shareholder meeting. Does his reality distortion field also extend into his own mind? How can he tolerate all these behaviors without constantly blowing a gasket? Why has he not insisted that the worst behaviors be fixed? It really makes me wonder! I know previously he said some earlier version was actually not very good…but still…he uses it! He has thousands of people who can do all this testing for him and spare him the unpleasantness…yet he uses it. All very odd.
I guess the obvious answer is that he uses it from time to time, just to check the status of development, but actually probably uses it very infrequently - and doesn’t talk about that part and all the problems very much. Meanwhile he clicks “like” on a few Whole Mars Catalog tweets, provides some comments about how awesome AI is, and the narrative continues!

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not disappointed In FSD Beta at all - it’s behaving about how I expected, and I occasionally like to use it - when I have the patience to babysit it and send in bug reports. It is living up to all my expectations. No surprises so far. But I find the narratives about how close it is to being really good…interesting. And confusing, based on personal experience.

I'd guess regional NN training has a big effect on how FSD drives (Ex: overfit for the bay area). Austin and Silicon Valley probably have the most FSD drivers per capita, therefore the most training, and the best performance.

 

[jebinc]

I have to say, after having had this FSD Beta for a week, I feel like the dog who caught the (self-driving?) car. Very anti-climactic. This was not really unexpected though.

FSD Beta 11 will be a new and exciting car to chase though. Going to be . Maybe.



What I find remarkable is that Elon claims to use FSD Beta on some drives - with “no interventions” at the recent shareholder meeting. Does his reality distortion field also extend into his own mind? How can he tolerate all these behaviors without constantly blowing a gasket? Why has he not insisted that the worst behaviors be fixed? It really makes me wonder! I know previously he said some earlier version was actually not very good…but still…he uses it! He has thousands of people who can do all this testing for him and spare him the unpleasantness…yet he uses it. All very odd.
I guess the obvious answer is that he uses it from time to time, just to check the status of development, but actually probably uses it very infrequently - and doesn’t talk about that part and all the problems very much. Meanwhile he clicks “like” on a few Whole Mars Catalog tweets, provides some comments about how awesome AI is, and the narrative continues!

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not disappointed In FSD Beta at all - it’s behaving about how I expected, and I occasionally like to use it - when I have the patience to babysit it and send in bug reports. It is living up to all my expectations. No surprises so far. But I find the narratives about how close it is to being really good…interesting. And confusing, based on personal experience.

@AlanSubie4Life My feelings/thoughts as well. Re Elon - I would say it's one of three things;

1) What you suggest
2) Someone hardwired (over regressed) his most frequently traveled routes (perhaps without his knowledge), so his experience is better than ours
3) He's a hype spewing machine than can't help but over sell the state of the product.

I'll go with #3, enhanced by a touch of #2.

 

[BM3B]

I have to say, after having had this FSD Beta for a week, I feel like the dog who caught the (self-driving?) car. Very anti-climactic. This was not really unexpected though.

FSD Beta 11 will be a new and exciting car to chase though. Going to be . Maybe.



What I find remarkable is that Elon claims to use FSD Beta on some drives - with “no interventions” at the recent shareholder meeting. Does his reality distortion field also extend into his own mind? How can he tolerate all these behaviors without constantly blowing a gasket? Why has he not insisted that the worst behaviors be fixed? It really makes me wonder! I know previously he said some earlier version was actually not very good…but still…he uses it! He has thousands of people who can do all this testing for him and spare him the unpleasantness…yet he uses it. All very odd.
I guess the obvious answer is that he uses it from time to time, just to check the status of development, but actually probably uses it very infrequently - and doesn’t talk about that part and all the problems very much. Meanwhile he clicks “like” on a few Whole Mars Catalog tweets, provides some comments about how awesome AI is, and the narrative continues!

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not disappointed In FSD Beta at all - it’s behaving about how I expected, and I occasionally like to use it - when I have the patience to babysit it and send in bug reports. It is living up to all my expectations. No surprises so far. But I find the narratives about how close it is to being really good…interesting. And confusing, based on personal experience.

I assume that the FSD team works extremely hard to make sure his common route to work at Tesla in Fremont or SpaceX in Hawthorne are well tested and smoother. He should get in one of our cars and try it.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Could be he is not using the public build.

It’s certainly true he is not using the public build (I think there are tweets from the past about how he’s running something slightly newer). But the idea that is somehow much different that what we have seems persistent here…and there’s never been any evidence that what Elon was currently running was way better than the public release at that time.

In my opinion, it’s very unlikely that there is some build out there that somehow fixes all the issues I have mentioned, with the compromise being safety. I just don’t think that is the tradeoff.

I assume that the FSD team works extremely hard to make sure his common route to work at Tesla in Fremont or SpaceX in Hawthorne are well tested and smoother.

I haven’t seen any evidence that FSD Beta works this way. As far as I can tell it is choppy, lacking in smoothness, etc - everywhere, no matter how well “fitted” it is. I have not seen a single smooth performance in any video, no matter the location. Have to watch the speedometer very carefully - a sudden 3-4mph change in speed is an extremely rough ride. Also watch for appropriately linear reductions in speed during stops, and for the smoothness of the wheel as it turns.

 

[jebinc]

Good morning, all! Just a friendly reminder, especially those not yet with beta FSD, to please keep your data current in the spreadsheet (see post #1) right up until you receive your download! Thank you and be safe out there!

 

[scottf200]

I still get an occasional scary merge on a freeway entrance. When it happens, the car waits until the last possible moment to move into the lane, and when it finally does it, it darts quickly across the lane, almost to the left line of the lane before centering. Even if I know it's going to correct itself, it scares the heck out of nearby traffic.

Thanks for your nice summary. In regards to the above specifically, this appears to be a regular AutoPilot thing.
a) I just came back from a multi-state road trip and there were quite a few cases on regular AP that act exactly as you nicely described above.
b) I think until there is a 'single' stack that even cars on FSDBeta have the same 'highway' code/processing as us regular AP users.

 

[OK_3AWD]

Thanks for your nice summary. In regards to the above specifically, this appears to be a regular AutoPilot thing.
a) I just came back from a multi-state road trip and there were quite a few cases on regular AP that act exactly as you nicely described above.
b) I think until there is a 'single' stack that even cars on FSDBeta have the same 'highway' code/processing as us regular AP users.

I think you're probably right. I stopped letting AP handle entrance merges a long time ago, and I'm only letting it do so now because I'm attempting end-to-end FSD drives. Given that Elon has repeatedly said AP identifies the physically drivable area beyond the lane lines, it's hard to understand why they have not programmed it to err on the right side of lanes at entrances. There's usually a lot of additional pavement to the right.

 

[FloridaJohn]

It’s certainly true he is not using the public build (I think there are tweets from the past about how he’s running something slightly newer). But the idea that is somehow much different that what we have seems persistent here…and there’s never been any evidence that what Elon was currently running was way better than the public release at that time.

In my opinion, it’s very unlikely that there is some build out there that somehow fixes all the issues I have mentioned, with the compromise being safely. I just don’t think that is the tradeoff.

I agree with your thoughts. At one time I thought there might be a newer, better build out there that is used internally at Tesla. But after watching the FSD Beta videos for a year, I no longer think that has been the case. At most, Tesla is internally testing one or two versions ahead of what is made public.

The other thing that makes me think this is if you watch the two Autonomy Day presentations. When you first watch them (especially the first one), Tesla makes it sound like they have all these cool technologies and algorithms already up and running. But when you watch the second presentation, you see that the stuff talked about in the first presentation is now only starting to see the light of day. One can assume that all the cool, new stuff shown at this years presentation is probably a year or more away.

 

[willow_hiller]

I haven’t seen any evidence that FSD Beta works this way.

It's probably a very different stack at this point, but we do have videos proving that it's possible for Tesla to overfit a small area. The test-drives given after Autonomy Day were probably only capable of driving that route: