The 'Fool' in FSD?

[pdk42]

...and we all know that, as of now, the standard car (i.e. without FSD) isn't really capable of full self driving.

I don't have FSD, but are you really saying that it differs in a significant way from basic AP in its basic ability to control the car? Watching my car bounce around the lane of a typical UK single carriageway A road is almost comical - it goes too deep into corners; sometimes get uncomfortably close to oncoming traffic; fails to adequately slow down for some bends; gets dangerously close to clipping the kerb at times; fails to recognise parked vehicles reliably; brakes at random and unnecessary times; brakes too late coming up to stopped traffic; blasts through speed limit changes; and overall just has that general feeling that the whole thing is trying to kill me!

From what I've read here and elsewhere, these are all "features" of FSD too. Am I mistaken?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I don't have FSD, but are you really saying that it differs in a significant way from basic AP in its basic ability to control the car? Watching my car bounce around the lane of a typical UK single carriageway A road is almost comical - it goes too deep into corners; sometimes get uncomfortably close to oncoming traffic; fails to adequately slow down for some bends; gets dangerously close to clipping the kerb at times; fails to recognise parked vehicles reliably; brakes at random and unnecessary times; brakes too late coming up to stopped traffic; blasts through speed limit changes; and overall just had that general feeling that the whole thing is trying to kill me!

From what I've here and elsewhere, these are all "features" of FSD too. Am I mistaken?

As far as Tesla are concerned, I think they view it as a continuous spectrum, from very basic emergency assist (on all the time by default) up to FSD, with AP being somewhere in the middle. However, car safety classification bodies, like NCAP, need to try and define boundaries, so that one car can be assessed fairly against another. They seem to have decided, rightly or wrongly, that AP is actually just a form of driver assistance, much like lane keeping assist and similar features are in some other cars.

I'm inclined to agree with the view that AP is just a driver assistance system at the moment. It's not intended to drive the car, just provide the driver with enhanced cues as to what's going on around the car, keep the car in a safe position on the road, hold a set speed/distance from other vehicles etc. Tesla seem to share that view to some extent, as the stated operational limitations for AP are very similar to those for the driver assist technologies in some other makes.

 

[pgkevet]

I don't have FSD, but are you really saying that it differs in a significant way from basic AP in its basic ability to control the car? Watching my car bounce around the lane of a typical UK single carriageway A road is almost comical - it goes too deep into corners; sometimes get uncomfortably close to oncoming traffic; fails to adequately slow down for some bends; gets dangerously close to clipping the kerb at times; fails to recognise parked vehicles reliably; brakes at random and unnecessary times; brakes too late coming up to stopped traffic; blasts through speed limit changes; and overall just has that general feeling that the whole thing is trying to kill me!

From what I've read here and elsewhere, these are all "features" of FSD too. Am I mistaken?

They are carefully crafted features to assure driver attentiveness.............

 

[MrBadger]

I'm inclined to agree with the view that AP is just a driver assistance system at the moment. It's not intended to drive the car, just provide the driver with enhanced cues as to what's going on around the car, keep the car in a safe position on the road, hold a set speed/distance from other vehicles etc. Tesla seem to share that view to some extent, as the stated operational limitations for AP are very similar to those for the driver assist technologies in some other makes.

I don't think that autopilot will ever be anything other than L2 driver assistance. imho If you want to go beyond L2, FSD will be the route to hands off L3/L4 and just my opinion, some of the cost of FSD reflects the change in liability involved in this. I'm not so sure whether EAP would make it out of L2 driver assist status - both routes have arguments for/against but I suspect it will remain L2 highways assistance for exactly the same reasoning of price premium of FSD covering liability.

 

[Yev000]

It depends what you want to pay for when you buy 'FSD'. What I want is a car that can drive my kids to school and hobbies while I continue sleeping at home. Anything less than that, TACC autopilot is enough, it's not like the P is going to drive itself

Because shools and hobbies are out several months of the year, I would prefer it to be a monthly subscription or pay-per-day.

There is already a service, that is subscription based and has full self driving. I belive it's called a Taxi.

 

[Jason71]

There is already a service, that is subscription based and has full self driving. I belive it's called a Taxi.

you're about 10 hours too late with that one

Available now - It's called a taxi

 

[Yev000]

From what I've read here and elsewhere, these are all "features" of FSD too. Am I mistaken?

In the videos of the re-write I've seen this doesent happen anymore. However, this is US only and we have regulations preventing update here in UK, so we might not see the re-write for at least another 6 months.

There is the seering angle limitation for autonomous diving in the regulations as well....

And by the way, thisis UN regulations, not EU. US/Canada/Australia just chooses not to follow them.

https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/2017/R079r3e.pdf

Tesla Limits Autopilot In Europe Due To New UN/ECE Regulations

The code revealed by GreenTheOnly indicates that the changes affect second-generation Tesla vehicles in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Monaco, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and The United Kingdom

The release notes state that Tesla is limiting the steering angle that Autopilot is able to engage, reflecting section 5.6.4.4 of Regulation 79 which limits the maximum lateral acceleration allowed by a "Category B" lane-keeping system to 3 meters per second squared.

So basically, take a corner fast enough and it will come out of AP. Keep it well below the speed limit and it will take the corner just fine. This is obv not workable on some motorways. It should be just fine on city streets where all turns will be well below that limit, maybe with the exception of some fast roundabouts, which is more motorway / dual carriageway territory.

I need to go to Gurnsey and test to see if FSD works better..... Unfotunately there are no motorways there, but some bendy 60 mph roads all the same.

 

[Yev000]

you're about 10 hours too late with that one

Damn....

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I need to go to Gurnsey and test to see if FSD works better..... Unfotunately there are no motorways there, but some bendy 60 mph roads all the same.

Last time I was on Guernsey (about 18 months ago) the blanket speed limit on the whole island was 35mph. Has that now changed?

I wouldn't mind betting that Tesla have included the Channel Islands within the EU/UK geofence area, anyway, even though they should be excluded.

 

[Dilly]

Looking way into the future, I suspect we will not be car owners. Congestion will have made it impractical.
There will just be millions of driverless self charging pods passing by for us to hail (or book) jump in, give your destination and take a nap.
For those on the M25 cryostasis will be available.
Car theft will be a thing of the past

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Looking way into the future, I suspect we will not be car owners. Congestion will have made it impractical.
There will just be millions of driverless self charging pods passing by for us to hail (or book) jump in, give your destination and take a nap.
For those on the M25 cryostasis will be available.
Car theft will be a thing of the past

Joking aside, I think you're right. Most cars are sat doing nothing for most of their life. When I was commuting to work I was driving for around 3 hours each weekday, plus maybe an hour or two at weekends, which equates to about 10% utilisation, probably higher than many I suspect. Back then my car was sat idle for around 90% of the time. Since I've been retired my car usage has dropped a lot, probably no more than 5% utilisation, so idle for maybe 95% of the time. It seems a bit mad to have a depreciating asset sitting idle for so much of the time.

I think that people will look back at the "age of motoring" from some future date and think we were all mad for spending a fortune of transport devices that spent most of their time not transporting anything.

 

[MrBadger]

There is the seering angle limitation for autonomous diving in the regulations as well....

Isn't the limitation lateral acceleration rather than steering angle? iirc 3ms2 / 4ms2 depending on speed. So low speed relatively sharp turns are allowed.

 

[Gasman23]

I think that people will look back at the "age of motoring" from some future date and think we were all mad for spending a fortune of transport devices that spent most of their time not transporting anything.

dunno about that. We don’t look back on people who owned horse and cart and think they were crazy. It just depends on what was available at the time

 

[Glan gluaisne]

dunno about that. We don’t look back on people who owned horse and cart and think they were crazy. It just depends on what was available at the time

May be, but a horse won't operate at anything close to the duty cycle of a car, needs loads more down time. Horse drawn stuff also lasted for a very long time. I recently went to see a wagon that had belonged to my great, great, great, great, great uncle. It had been built for him around 1800, and was still in service until 1950, so a useful life of 150 years (it's now in a museum).

 

[simonh]

Problem is that even TACC is even pretty useless IME. I used to love my speed limiter but we don't get that in the Tesla. Instead, we have to use the TACC if we're doing endless miles of 40-50 mph and want to avoid tripping up. Problem is it is unlike any previous cruise control or adaptive cruise where I knew how it would behave. It doesn't even engage at the speed you are doing but rather what it thinks the road speed is and is often wrong on a motorway in roadworks..

I had one experience of phantom braking when passing under some trees. Then yesterday it was tootling along nicely on a straight road with no traffic when a person crossed the other carriageway to the middle central island. Only for myTesla to approach said central island and literally do an emergency stop as it must have been confused about the position of the person. I had to boot the car through to continue. That's just way too unpredictiable.

But of couse Tesla don't just want to give us some simple boring cruise control or limiter like other cars. Why? Because every time we (the fleet) intervene it's all data to be sent to Tesla to improve their neural net. It does feel like there should be a checkbox if you want to be part of their experiment or if you just want standard everyday car features.

 

[Hurricane]

I regret getting FSD. I was taken in by the hype. Right now it has very little added functionality and just isn’t worth the money. It might be worth it if you keep your car for a long time, but I never keep a car for longer than three years (so will be changing my M3 in less than two years) and I won’t get a worthwhile return on my investment.

Mind you, at least thanks to Tesla I now know what phantom braking is. I’d never experienced it before.

 

[pdk42]

As far as Tesla are concerned, I think they view it as a continuous spectrum, from very basic emergency assist (on all the time by default) up to FSD, with AP being somewhere in the middle. However, car safety classification bodies, like NCAP, need to try and define boundaries, so that one car can be assessed fairly against another. They seem to have decided, rightly or wrongly, that AP is actually just a form of driver assistance, much like lane keeping assist and similar features are in some other cars.

I'm inclined to agree with the view that AP is just a driver assistance system at the moment. It's not intended to drive the car, just provide the driver with enhanced cues as to what's going on around the car, keep the car in a safe position on the road, hold a set speed/distance from other vehicles etc. Tesla seem to share that view to some extent, as the stated operational limitations for AP are very similar to those for the driver assist technologies in some other makes.

That's not the point I was trying to make. I'm not concerned with how Tesla are trying to position it, I'm concerned with how the two are implemented. The basic system (sensors, hardware, most of the software) is clearly the same across AP and FSD. In particular, it seems from all I've read and seen that the underlying driving model is the same for them both. Sure, FSD adds NOA, lane changing, summon, and auto park, but unless someone has evidence to the contrary, they both suffer from the same set of basic limitations and bugs (like the list I gave in my post). Maybe this rewrite will separate them more, but as of now, FSD is as compromised as AP.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

That's not the point I was trying to make. I'm not concerned with how Tesla are trying to position it, I'm concerned with how the two are implemented. The basic system (sensors, hardware, most of the software) is clearly the same across AP and FSD. In particular, it seems from all I've read and seen that the underlying driving model is the same for them both. Sure, FSD adds NOA, lane changing, summon, and auto park, but unless someone has evidence to the contrary, they both suffer from the same set of basic limitations and bugs (like the list I gave in my post). Maybe this rewrite will separate them more, but as of now, FSD is as compromised as AP.

AFAIK, there's no separation between any of the front end sensing and processing, so any sensing/feature recognition issues in FSD will translate across to TACC and the always on emergency assist features. If something gets fixed for FSD, then it seems very likely that it will also get fixed for the other driver assist functions, if it's a sensing/feature recognition issue. I get the feeling that 99% of the fairly common problems, like phantom braking and random steering corrections are just the car systems being confused about what's being sensed, rather than anything specific to the car dynamic control stuff.

 

[GRiLLA]

I'm only really interested in FSD as far as taking over from me on motorways, and allowing me to do something else, and even in the UK with regulations this only feels to be a couple of years away. This has huge value to me getting home after visiting clients, being able to do the same on other roads is of far lower value. In fact I would prefer Tesla ignoring any other streets and just focus on going from L2 -> L3 -> L4 for motorway driving.

 

[DenkiJidousha]

Perhaps legislation will mean Europe/UK gets motorway only FSD at first? As you say, that would still be incredibly useful for long trips and some people's regular travel.