Road markings make a HUGE difference: positive FSD Beta report

[diplomat33]

There is an intersection I take that they recently repaved but had not repainted all the lane markings yet. When you approach the intersection, the two lanes become left turn only and there is a third right turn only lane that appears on the right side of the road. There are overhead turn only signs but the right turn lane did not have lane lines. FSD Beta 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 would get confused. It did not seem to understand that the space on the right was a lane. It would not move over to the right turn lane or try to move over too late or start to move over and then swing back. But today, they finished repainting the lane lines and there are now clear lane lines for the right turn lane. I am happy to report that FSD Beta 10.5 handled it perfectly. It detected the right turn lane and smoothly moved over when it was supposed to.

This result should not be surprising since we know FSD Beta is vision-only. Obviously, it will perform better when lane lines are better. I think it shows that some poor performance of FSD Beta could be caused by poor road markings. It might also explain why FSD Beta works better in some geographical areas. Those might be areas with roads that are maintained better.

Just wanted to share this good report. I think it is clear proof that good lane markings make a huge difference and definitely help FSD Beta.

 

[eli_]

Locally we have tons of "Botts dots" that are used for lane marking in lieu of painted lines and I feel the predictions are made much worse by these things, especially because they are sometimes sparse and easily occluded in traffic. A lot of times they will alternate between solid and dashed lines every other frame in the visualizations, or sometimes randomly switch between white and yellow. I feel like it causes the car to falsely identify center turn lanes or opposing lanes because they intermittently are predicted as yellow lines.

 

[EVNow]

I am happy to report that FSD Beta 10.5 handled it perfectly. It detected the right turn lane and smoothly moved over when it was supposed to.

How is it in the map - OSM & TomTom ?

 

[diplomat33]

Locally we have tons of "Botts dots" that are used for lane marking in lieu of painted lines and I feel the predictions are made much worse by these things, especially because they are sometimes sparse and easily occluded in traffic. A lot of times they will alternate between solid and dashed lines every other frame in the visualizations, or sometimes randomly switch between white and yellow. I feel like it causes the car to falsely identify center turn lanes or opposing lanes because they intermittently are predicted as yellow lines.

View attachment 737016

Yes, I noticed these botts dots too on my roads. The new road that was repaved had them until they finally painted proper lane lines today.

 

[diplomat33]

How is it in the map - OSM & TomTom ?

I am not super familiar with OSM and TomTom.

This is what OSM shows.

This is the Google Maps view. The intersection is the same, they just added a fresh layer of asphalt and repainted the lane lines.

To be clear, I am driving up from the bottom (State Rd 46) and turning right at the intersection.

 

[EVNow]

I am not super familiar with OSM and TomTom.

Here is the thread where we are talking about maps.

FD Beta : TomTom Map, Roundabouts and the Speedlimit

TL;DR : Let us use this thread to talk about map changes that could potentially make FSD Beta behave better Thanks to the post below by @MP3Mike I discovered an interesting little fact. Tesla probably does use TomTom maps rather than Google or OpenStreet for city FSD Beta driving. I've two...

teslamotorsclub.com

This result should not be surprising since we know FSD Beta is vision-only.

FSD Beta is really Vision + 2-D Maps. Thats why I asked about maps - when I get time I'll look at more detailed maps. Need to check how many lanes are there and how each lane is marked.

Basically when FSD drives - it has some idea of the world in terms of 2-D map. It tries to associate the lanes and roads and traffic lights etc it "sees" to the ones in the map + car's GPS co-ordinates. When there is a good agreement between the map and what it sees - FSD drives well. If they don't match what FSD does is unpredictable.

 

[SilverString]

With 10.5 I notice a definite improvement since 10.3.1 in keeping to the right on roads with no lines. What scares me its that it moves to the center on hills that it can't see over.

 

[TheBrumBrum]

Yeah lane markers help a lot in general. Though sometimes my Y decides to ignore the turn lanes or even moves a lanne in the wrong direction.
It's s shame Raleigh, NC doesn't believe in marking intersections...or even remarking busy roads where the markings are just worn down.
At some intersections you just can't tell what lane goes where until your at the line and can start eliminating the bad options.

Got to say though long term detailed maps and gps can help with it. If the car can't line that up with reality it's fine to take a detour. Let's be real humans can't make sense of it as fast as the car eventually will.
However, some sort of personalized persistent long-term learning would be awesome.