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Tesla’s FSD Beta 10.3 Coming This Friday 10-22-2021

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never said otherwise.

You're the one who made up OTHER reasons they couldn't release it to anybody once it WAS ready, reasons which simply aren't true.




But you DO know what it'll look like?

Again, multiple states have ALREADY passed regulations around this- such that they could roll it out THE DAY IT IS READY with no additional "regulation" needed.

Those states are "done"

Other states have only done half the work (CA for example where they have some laws around testing and reporting, but consumer rollout is still restricted)

Other states haven't done any of the work and have nothing on the books either way.



None of those situations adds up to a get out of jail free card for Tesla wherein they could claim it's done but they can't roll it to anybody because REGULATIONS.



So your insistance that's what they'll do is unsupported by any available facts.


Rather than admit you didn't know it was legal in many states today you seem to be moving the goalposts to speculating that, somehow, for some reason, there'll be some FUTURE regulation that somehow manages to support your original, not-true-today, claim, because.... REASONS.






And I pointed out they literally can not do that based on what we know about regulations today


Yet you initially insisted that wasn't correct and that it wasn't legal anywhere-- and even after I corrected you on this you keep doubling down.

Tesla has used the "pending regulation approval" line since 2016.

Obviously they knew enabling autonomous driving would be contingent on regulatory approval, and they also knew the regulatory landscape would shift over time. Neither you nor I can predict what the regulatory landscape will look like in 2025 (or whatever year Tesla achieves internal requirements for L4).

I personally hope that we'll have federal regulations governing autonomous vehicles to simplify things. Where they define what the safety requirements are, and how interacting with self driving cars will look like. We don't want to have 50 different rules governing it.

The pending regulatory approval line was both to protect Tesla against things they have no control over, and to make sure the customer was aware of that.

The reason I personally don't really care about the NOW is we're simply not ready. They would run into hurdles the second they released it. But, I'm willing to entertain your idea that it would be legal in some mystery state to deploy an L4 vehicle today. So lets say we had a really cool L4 aftermarket conversion kit for some car with where we used the existing Vision. Radar, Lidar but we used our own Self driving computer. What state do you propose that we sell it in that would be the most friendly to us? In not just allowing it, but offering us some protection so the NHTSA doesn't immediately shut it down?

Colorado?
 
Now that I've had the Beta 10.3.1 for a day and gone on about 8 drives, here's my initial feedback on various situations and overall. All this being said, I still find the car's ability to do any of this incredible and it's very exciting to see that Tesla is actually making real and significant progress towards eventual safe FSD. Do not treat this as "actual FSD." The warnings are there for good reason and I'd still classify this much closer to an Alpha than a Beta. It's current utility is effectively 0 and purpose is much more-so to help build-out better versions of the software than use it.

The Good


  • Right turns are normally handled fairly well, though often do come with more hesitancy than a human driver would have.
  • Avoids obstacles very well. It will move over for people walking/biking, trash cans, large puddles, or even a car coming the opposite direction infringing on your lane. Predictive path setting and following is probably the thing it currently does best, but you still need to watch the line and make sure.
  • Handles 4-way stops surprisingly well. Little hesitation once it determines that it's "Our turn" (creepy haha). I wonder if the software keeps track of who showed up to the 4-way in which order as it has consistently gone in the order of arrival, as is expected. Very very cool. Turns at a 4-way stop also seem much smoother and less hesitant for some reason, maybe because it's a known turn order.
  • Left turns with no opposing traffic at a green light or with a green arrow are usually handled well.

The Bad

  • A lot of phantom braking, though not full "slam on the brakes" like we saw in the initial bugged 10.3. Sometimes it will hit the brakes a little hard but only for a 1/2 second and let go, other times it will just randomly slow (often faster than what would be considered comfortable) with nothing in front. Lots of brake and go, brake and go movements whenever it is inching up for visibility or preparing to make a turn.
  • Unnecessarily long braking for car in front turning while driving. If car in front turns left or right while driving, FSD initiates a harder-than-needed brake and continues to brake for 1-2 seconds after the car has cleared the path. Depending on your speed setting, the car will often rocket off to speed after this point. Not comfortable driving at all.
  • Will not inch into road on green light while making left turn and with opposing oncoming traffic crossing. I've tried this 5 times so far and each time my car just stays where it was at the red light and unless all oncoming traffic clears, it will not proceed. At lights where 1 or 2 cars can make a left during yellow due to no left green arrow, manual intervention is needed or you'll be sitting at the red light all day.
  • Cannot handle traffic circles. Each time I've tried a traffic circle near my home, it slows down and stops 30-40 feet from the entry to the circle, causing me to be honked at a few times, then will go a little, slam on brakes, go a little, slam on brakes, as it tries to enter the circle, even with no one coming. Initiating in the traffic circle near the exit I needed to take resulted in the car unable to turn out of it. Had to go around again.
  • Turning off high-speed road, car will not utilize shoulder to make way for oncoming high-speed traffic. My development is off of a major road (Rt-206 in NJ) and traffic often goes at 60-65mph. In order to pull into my development, pulling into a shoulder as I approach allows me to slow without interrupting traffic flow. FSD will slow in the middle of the lane and left or right turn hesitantly into my development.
  • Unmarked wide areas. For example, when one lane becomes two or at large areas at multi-way traffic light stops with no markings in the middle the car will lose it and ask you to take over.
  • Sharp left turns (greater than 90 degrees). My car tried this twice and failed miserably both times. The first time, a large SUV was inched out far into the road i was on. Normally the left turn on the high-speed road has the right-away to go around that car and turn left in front of them. The Tesla tried to brake before this car, causing confusion and eventually i waved the person on not realizing cars were behind me. The second time was a sharp left turn at a 4 way stop and the car got half way into the turn and stopped. Had to depress accelerator to finish the turn.
  • Getting waved on is not recognized and requires intervention. I'm curious to see if Tesla eventually builds the ability to recognize other drivers hand gestures into the software to allow the car to go out-of-turn at 4 ways where a driver who doesn't know the rules waves you on out-of-turn.
So, are my experiences above so far are similar to others?

All of my driving is on mostly suburban or rural roads. I was surprised to find that the 10.3.1 FSD software seemed to handle many of the above "Bad" situations as it did, since I've previously seen many earlier build Beta videos on YouTube where many of these situations are handled much better and often in metropolitan settings. Anyone know why this might be? Also, for the cars with radar, 10.3.1 is not using it, correct?
 
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Tesla has used the "pending regulation approval" line since 2016.

Yes, because in 2016 it wasn't legal anywhere.

It is legal right now in many states but then still not legal in others.

So in the places it's STILL NOT LEGAL they won't be rolling it out until that changes, even when it's ready.

But they have no "get out of jail free" card to avoid rolling it out in places it is legal today which is many US states.




Neither you nor I can predict what the regulatory landscape will look like in 2025 (or whatever year Tesla achieves internal requirements for L4).

And yet you keep insisting you're sure they will use regulation as an excuse to not deploy it anywhere.


Despite the CURRENT state of regulation making that impossible because the regulators already allow it


So you're claiming Tesla somehow is going to hide behind regs that not only don't exist, but are the opposite of the ones that DO exist?

But also you can't tell the future.


You must be an excellent dancer.


The reason I personally don't really care about the NOW is we're simply not ready. They would run into hurdles the second they released it. But, I'm willing to entertain your idea that it would be legal in some mystery state to deploy an L4 vehicle today. So lets say we had a really cool L4 aftermarket conversion kit for some car with where we used the existing Vision. Radar, Lidar but we used our own Self driving computer. What state do you propose that we sell it in that would be the most friendly to us? In not just allowing it, but offering us some protection so the NHTSA doesn't immediately shut it down?

Colorado?


As I said, there's many US states where it'd be legal right now

In some you need no paperwork at all, you could deploy it today

in others you'd need to file a self-certification form, basically Tesla just submits a form that says "This is safe and can obey all traffic laws" with no proof needed.

In others you'd need to submit a form like that AND wait for someone in the government to sign it (again no proof is actually needed).


So it varies from "right now" to "maybe in a day" to "maybe in a week or two" in how fast they could roll to all those states.


The fact you still have to ask where "this mystery state" is as if there's only 1 of em makes it clear you just made up an argument without bothering to check what the current regulatory landscape looked like..


Maybe stop moving the goalposts on your get outta jail free argument for a while and do some research?


Here's a starter pack for you!

Florida law explicitly saying self-driving cars, with no human needed, are legal to operate in florida. No paperwork needed. Only requirements are:
Is compliant with federal car safety standards (that apply to all cars- like tires, brakes, windshield, etc)
Can follow all traffic laws of the state.
Is at least L4 (uses the SAE minimal risk condition capability definition)
That's it.
If your car fits those critera it can self-drive today

That's Nevada DMV. Second section cites any car maker can self-certify their car for public operation (NOT testing- that's another section). They have to fill out a certification form and send it in- DMV then reads it and if it's filled out right issues a certificate of operations.
NO testing or checking is done by the regulators except that you filled out the papers correctly.
Again the only things you need to certify is if it's L4 or better (same minimal risk condition language borrowed from SAE) and if it's NOT L4, you can STILL register it as L3 requriing a human... and you have to certify the car is insured, and can obey all state traffic laws.
 
Now that I've had the Beta 10.3.1 for a day and gone on about 8 drives, here's my initial feedback on various situations and overall. All this being said, I still find the car's ability to do any of this incredible and it's very exciting to see that Tesla is actually making real and significant progress towards eventual safe FSD. Do not treat this as "actual FSD." The warnings are there for good reason and I'd still classify this much closer to an Alpha than a Beta. It's current utility is effectively 0 and purpose is much more-so to help build-out better versions of the software than use it.

The Good


  • Right turns are normally handled fairly well, though often do come with more hesitancy than a human driver would have.
  • Avoids obstacles very well. It will move over for people walking/biking, trash cans, large puddles, or even a car coming the opposite direction infringing on your lane. Predictive path setting and following is probably the thing it currently does best, but you still need to watch the line and make sure.
  • Handles 4-way stops surprisingly well. Little hesitation once it determines that it's "Our turn" (creepy haha). I wonder if the software keeps track of who showed up to the 4-way in which order as it has consistently gone in the order of arrival, as is expected. Very very cool. Turns at a 4-way stop also seem much smoother and less hesitant for some reason, maybe because it's a known turn order.
  • Left turns with no opposing traffic at a green light or with a green arrow are usually handled well.

The Bad

  • A lot of phantom braking, though not full "slam on the brakes" like we saw in the initial bugged 10.3. Sometimes it will hit the brakes a little hard but only for a 1/2 second and let go, other times it will just randomly slow (often faster than what would be considered comfortable) with nothing in front. Lots of brake and go, brake and go movements whenever it is inching up for visibility or preparing to make a turn.
  • Unnecessarily long braking for car turning while driving. If car in front turns left or right while driving, the car initiates a harder-than-needed brake and continues to brake for 1-2 seconds after the car has cleared the path. Depending on your speed setting, the car will often rocket off to speed after this point. Not comfortable driving at all.
  • Will not inch into road on green light while making left turn and with opposing traffic. I've tried this 5 times so far and each time my car just stays where it was at the red light and unless all oncoming traffic clears, it will not proceed. At lights where 1 or 2 cars can make a left during yellow due to no left green arrow, manual intervention is needed or you'll be sitting at the red light all day.
  • Cannot handle traffic circles. Each time I've tried a traffic circle near my home, it slows down and stops 30-40 feet from the entry to the circle, causing me to be honked at a few times, then will go a little, slam on brakes, go a little, slam on brakes, as it tries to enter the circle, even with no one coming. Initiating in the traffic circle near the exit I needed to take resulted in the car unable to turn out of it. Had to go around again.
  • Turning off high-speed road, car will not utilize shoulder to make way for oncoming high-speed traffic. My development is off of a major road (Rt-206 in NJ) and traffic often goes at 60-65mph. In order to pull into my development, pulling into a shoulder as I approach allows me to slow without interrupting traffic flow. FSD will slow in the middle of the lane and left or right turn hesitantly into my development.
  • Unmarked wide areas. For example, when one lane becomes two or at large areas at multi-way traffic light stops with no markings in the middle the car will lose it and ask you to take over.
  • Sharp left turns (greater than 90 degrees). My car tried this twice and failed miserably both times. The first time, a large SUV was inched out far into the road i was on. Normally the left turn on the high-speed road has the right-away to go around that car and turn left in front of them. The Tesla tried to brake before this car, causing confusion and eventually i waved the person on not realizing cars were behind me. The second time was a sharp left turn at a 4 way stop and the car got half way into the turn and stopped. Had to depress accelerator to finish the turn.
  • Getting waved on is not recognized and requires intervention. I'm curious to see if Tesla eventually builds the ability to recognize other drivers hand gestures into the software to allow the car to go out-of-turn at 4 ways where a driver who doesn't know the rules waves you on out-of-turn.
So, are my experiences above so far are similar to others?

All of my driving is on mostly suburban or rural roads. I was surprised to find that the 10.3.1 FSD software seemed to handle many of the above "Bad" situations as it did, since I've previously seen many earlier build Beta videos on YouTube where many of these situations are handled much better and often in metropolitan settings. Anyone know why this might be? Also, for the cars with radar, 10.3.1 is not using it, correct?

Radar is no longer being used on FSD beta.

You definitely don't want people to be honking at you. Intervene earlier. This is the data that Tesla needs (although not every intervention will be automatically sent). Yes this is FSD and we are all curious how the car self-drives. But for FSD to improve, Tesla needs us to intervene when it does unnatural things. Once you get a hang of the quirks of the system, I suggest using the accelerator liberally. My experience is that FSD beta feels pretty competent when I give it the accelerator confidence it needs at rotaries and intersections.
 
The Bad

  • A lot of phantom braking, though not full "slam on the brakes" like we saw in the initial bugged 10.3. Sometimes it will hit the brakes a little hard but only for a 1/2 second and let go, other times it will just randomly slow (often faster than what would be considered comfortable) with nothing in front. Lots of brake and go, brake and go movements whenever it is inching up for visibility or preparing to make a turn.
  • Unnecessarily long braking for car in front turning while driving. If car in front turns left or right while driving, FSD initiates a harder-than-needed brake and continues to brake for 1-2 seconds after the car has cleared the path. Depending on your speed setting, the car will often rocket off to speed after this point. Not comfortable driving at all.
You nailed the two must frustrating behaviors from my perspective. Unfortunately the braking beyond the need behavior has been a consistent part of autopilot for a while even before FSD Beta. It's most noticeable in the right lane when the braking continues (far) too long for a car exiting the freeway.
 
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Radar is no longer being used on FSD beta.

You definitely don't want people to be honking at you. Intervene earlier. This is the data that Tesla needs (although not every intervention will be automatically sent). Yes this is FSD and we are all curious how the car self-drives. But for FSD to improve, Tesla needs us to intervene when it does unnatural things. Once you get a hang of the quirks of the system, I suggest using the accelerator liberally. My experience is that FSD beta feels pretty competent when I give it the accelerator confidence it needs at rotaries and intersections.
In that particular case, the car began to slow 30-40 feet from the entry yield sign, and i let it continue because it is often the case that the car will begin braking long before it needs to at stop signs and red lights as well. I took over right as the person honked in that case because it became apparent that FSD was bringing the car to a stop that far away. Some people are more impatient than others. I've been mostly laying off the accelerator as I've really just been exploring capability and quirks, but your point is well taken. I've also been using the report button liberally. I wasn't aware that manual interaction to help it along, such as accelerating when it should but doesn't, will also get sent to Tesla (even if not every single time). I'll take some drives today doing that and see if the experience is better. Now that it's clear that the intention of the current FSD beta isn't for any added Utility, intervention with intention to improve should be the name of the game.
 
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In that particular case, the car began to slow 30-40 feet from the entry yield sign, and i let it continue because it is often the case that the car will begin braking long before it needs to at stop signs and red lights as well. I took over right as the person honked in that case because it became apparent that FSD was bringing the car to a stop that far away. Some people are more impatient than others. I've been mostly laying off the accelerator as I've really just been exploring capability and quirks, but your point is well taken. I've also been using the report button liberally. I wasn't aware that manual interaction to help it along, such as accelerating when it should but doesn't, will also get sent to Tesla (even if not every single time). I'll take some drives today doing that and see if the experience is better. Now that it's clear that the intention of the current FSD beta isn't for any added Utility, intervention with intention to improve should be the name of the game.

I believe the car only has storage for 5 AP snapshots, so you can't use that for every single problem you encounter. Save them for the really wonky stuff :)
 
One thing I really noticed is just how much our brains can process while driving. It’s incredible to see the processing power just try to keep up with a humans ability.
That and something else that I've noticed about me and not the car. FSD beta is in a condition where you have to be ultra alert about other drivers. Even though those driver ed movies tell you to expect the unexpected, after years of driving most drivers are lulled into a sense of complacency.

I now find myself making mental notes of all the people making turns without signalling, running red lights, passing in no passing zones and cutting other drivers off. How FSD will ever cope with all that chaos is a real question.
 
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That and something else that I've noticed about me and not the car. FSD beta is in a condition where you have to be ultra alert about other drivers. Even though those driver ed movies tell you to expect the unexpected, after years of driving most drivers are lulled into a sense of complacency.

I now find myself making mental notes of all the people making turns without signalling, running red lights, passing in no passing zones and cutting other drivers off. How FSD will ever cope with all that chaos is a real question.
It’s way more involved then normal driving
 
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Yes, because in 2016 it wasn't legal anywhere.

It is legal right now in many states but then still not legal in others.

So in the places it's STILL NOT LEGAL they won't be rolling it out until that changes, even when it's ready.

But they have no "get out of jail free" card to avoid rolling it out in places it is legal today which is many US states.






And yet you keep insisting you're sure they will use regulation as an excuse to not deploy it anywhere.


Despite the CURRENT state of regulation making that impossible because the regulators already allow it


So you're claiming Tesla somehow is going to hide behind regs that not only don't exist, but are the opposite of the ones that DO exist?

But also you can't tell the future.


You must be an excellent dancer.





As I said, there's many US states where it'd be legal right now

In some you need no paperwork at all, you could deploy it today

in others you'd need to file a self-certification form, basically Tesla just submits a form that says "This is safe and can obey all traffic laws" with no proof needed.

In others you'd need to submit a form like that AND wait for someone in the government to sign it (again no proof is actually needed).


So it varies from "right now" to "maybe in a day" to "maybe in a week or two" in how fast they could roll to all those states.


The fact you still have to ask where "this mystery state" is as if there's only 1 of em makes it clear you just made up an argument without bothering to check what the current regulatory landscape looked like..


Maybe stop moving the goalposts on your get outta jail free argument for a while and do some research?


Here's a starter pack for you!

Florida law explicitly saying self-driving cars, with no human needed, are legal to operate in florida. No paperwork needed. Only requirements are:
Is compliant with federal car safety standards (that apply to all cars- like tires, brakes, windshield, etc)
Can follow all traffic laws of the state.
Is at least L4 (uses the SAE minimal risk condition capability definition)
That's it.
If your car fits those critera it can self-drive today

That's Nevada DMV. Second section cites any car maker can self-certify their car for public operation (NOT testing- that's another section). They have to fill out a certification form and send it in- DMV then reads it and if it's filled out right issues a certificate of operations.
NO testing or checking is done by the regulators except that you filled out the papers correctly.
Again the only things you need to certify is if it's L4 or better (same minimal risk condition language borrowed from SAE) and if it's NOT L4, you can STILL register it as L3 requriing a human... and you have to certify the car is insured, and can obey all state traffic laws.

By far the best thing about FSD is not that it will be capable of Autonomous driving as it won't be in its current form, but that it forces federal regulatory bodies like the NHTSA to actually regulate autonomous vehicles.

You know Federal regulations takes precedence over state ones. So it won't make a lick of difference if its currently legal in some states.

Tesla is a long ways from having a vehicle capable of L4 so that's a lot of time for the federal government to play catchup. Having federal standards is critical to have alignment on requirements, and how various situations are handled.

Sure its possible that we'll never get federal standards, and it ends up being a much murkier situation. In that case things are going to be on a state by state basis. With this situation Tesla won't be able to use the regulatory challenges to weasel out of costly upgrades in some regions.

This was always a what-if situation so I'm not really understanding your obsession with a tiny detail of it.

I made the claim that a Tesla with HW3 will never be capable of Autonomous driving. It doesn't matter if its "almost all situations" L4 or Elon's interpretation of L5.

With that claim comes technical reasons why I believe it won't, and I think you agree that there are technical reasons why you believe it won't.

Where we differ is you believe Tesla will be able to upgrade the vehicle, and I believe the upgrade will be prohibitively expensive. That Tesla will use various tools to try to weasel out of it. I actually hope they don't cite regulatory, and instead they'll offer FSD transferability. Or other more pro-customer retention methods.