UK - FSD, Motorways, Regulation

[WilberDaForce]

So there’s a lot of talk today stateside about a free month of FSD trial.

Is there any news as to when FSD might come to the UK?

Do regulations now allow it? If not, when might they?

Is there any scope for road limited FSD? For examples, that it can engaged say on Motorways or A(M) roads initially? ( I believe some Fords can now to an extent).

Would be helpful to have sone sort of timescale - even if it is people’s best guesstimate!

 

[boombap]

See here

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

The FSD you’re seeing in the US with all the fancy unprotected turns etc is FSD city streets, they use more or less the same version we do on their equivalent to motorways. As we’ve not got city streets we wouldn’t benefit from that, and motorways wouldn’t be much different other than the restrictions such as indicating to change lane.

And irrespective, it’s still all a level 2 driver assist system and the driver needs to be very aware of what’s going on.

 

[JupiterMan]

he FSD you’re seeing in the US with all the fancy unprotected turns etc is FSD city streets, they use more or less the same version we do on their equivalent to motorways.

I don't think that's the case.

The motorway stack in USA was merged with the city streets stack last year sometime (cant recall the version number, v11 perhaps?). You can tell just by the visuals that the US version is much different.

In UK we are still on legacy code from way before this, with all the current UNECE constraints added on top of course.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I don't think that's the case.

The motorway stack in USA was merged with the city streets stack last year sometime (cant recall the version number, v11 perhaps?). You can tell just by the visuals that the US version is much different.

In UK we are still on legacy code from way before this, with all the current UNECE constraints added on top of course.

You’re probably right, although reading around it some also think we’re already on single stack

 

[MrBadger]

You’re probably right, although reading around it some also think we’re already on single stack

I think there is a lot of empirical evidence to show that we are running a significant amount of the new stack if not all.

For an autopilot system that is apparently not being worked on, there have been some very significant behavioural changes over the last 6 months or so.

The releases also contain FSD code, albeit non functional.

Lack of FSD visualisation does not necessarily mean no new code.

Also important to remember that there are hundreds of flags that control what functionality is enabled and how certain functions behave.

I would personally be surprised that when single stack highways and city streets was rolled out last year, the highways functionality was not rolled out everywhere else, albeit with functional parity to legacy highways. Are they really going to add the overhead of maintaining an additional legacy AP implementation for the new HW4? They have highways working on new stack so they are going to concentrate on that imho.

 

[zoros]

wiberdaforce - IMO, just look around you. For FSD to function properly - never mind safely (on UK roads) the road system needs to be borderline pristine with clear and unambiguous white lining and road signs to boot. VERY FEW roads outside of modern motorways have anywhere near this standard.
It will take years and years for the UK government to allow FSD in the UK for fear of causing too many untimely deaths!
Take a look at FSD in action on pristine highways in the sanctioned areas of the US - nightmare when your beloved Tesla decides to do its own thing at speed and in the face of oncoming traffic.
Now think about britains roads!!!!

 

[JupiterMan]

This argument that UK's roads are "special" somehow is an odd one.

We have seen FSDBeta work down dirt tracks in USA, multilane roundabouts, rush hour traffic in LA/NYC, twisty narrow roads in the hills with traffic parked on each side, pedestrians in the road, e-scooters, gold carts, and yes, many roads with worn road markings...... so what is left?

Driving on left hand side (obvs), and I can think of mini-roundabouts and magic roundabouts in Swindon / Hemel Hempstead. - but even then the magic roundabout is really a sequence of mini roundabouts - if it can do one it can likely do them all.

roads are roads people, there are "special" cases everywhere, they are not unique to one country.

 

[WannabeOwner]

so what is left?

Quite. I see this "It won't work in UK" often, and I don't get it either. I've driven plenty in USA, and seen pretty much every road scenario we have here. Maybe it will stop and wait when a school bus drops some kids off - not sure that would be a bad thing ...

 

[zoros]

Two of dozens of examples of misdemeanors with the FSD.
Please try and remember that ANY mistake the fsd makes - could cost you your life. And simply because of that, it is going to take years and years of data and AI interpretation before anyone in their right mind would engage FSD on the way to work/school etc; completely hands free.
Videos of sitting in the car reading the papers or drinking a coffee and chatting - decades away!
Wake up guys.....
Z

 

[Zilla91]

Some more recent videos of the latest FSD 12 doing stupid sh!t like trying to drive straight into a wall and mounting a kerb

https://twitter.com/x/status/1773032597053976851

I’m sure it’ll be robotaxi ready in 2 weeks

 

[Pants]

For all the hype FSD in the US is still just a Level 2 driver assist feature. In order to get to Level 4 or 5 it has to be reliable all the time, not just most of the time. That’s still a long way off.

A scenario in the UK. You’re stuck behind a slow car towing a caravan on an A road that is windy but does have opportunities for overtaking, though with care and caution. Would a car using FSD be able to execute an overtaking manoeuvre, or would you be condemned to be stuck behind the caravan for mile after slow mile while every other car overtakes?

 

[JupiterMan]

A scenario in the UK.

More UK exceptionalism?

This scenario, and variants of it can exist in any country, not just UK.

At Level 2, this is fine, just disengage and overtake, for Level 4+ or Robotaxi, more of an issue, but one of journey length/time rather than safety.

For all the hype FSD in the US is still just a Level 2 driver assist feature. In order to get to Level 4 or 5 it has to be reliable all the time, not just most of the time. That’s still a long way off.

Tesla will have the data at level 2 knowing exactly how often any disengagements with the level 2 system occur , and in what situations.

Over time they will know when (and where) it will be safe to release at level 3+. Now that groundwork is mostly done on the base code, its now likely a question of data and compute - developments over the last few weeks point in this direction - we could be in the exponential phase of development now, so this could happen a lot sooner than many think.

 

[Pants]

More UK exceptionalism?

This scenario, and variants of it can exist in any country, not just UK.

YES!! I live in the UK and I’m really not interested in what happens in other countries.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

There will be exceptions where the system fails for some time, they might reduce but it’s chasing the tail of edge cases, 1 in 10 miles, 1 in 100 miles, 1 in 1000 miles, 1 in 10,000 miles - it gets harder all the time to find and fix

The L3+ regs, at least in Europe, put an emphasis of thinking ahead and not aborting, recognising it’s not going to cope, and having a nicely managed transition. Not a “bing and over to you”, or worse the driver grabbing the wheel to take over, but a system that says “that’s beyond my pay grade, time for a human, I’ll keep going for a short while or park up safely until ones does”. Tesla don’t appear to have anything in this space.

It’s the difference between being able to successfully drive 99.99% of the time everywhere (Tesla) and the regs which seem to heading for successfully driving 100% of the time but only 95% of situations.

 

[Artiste]

YES!! I live in the UK and I’m really not interested in what happens in other countries.

Exactly. They “might” solve FSD in the US in a few years and achieve Level 4 autonomy, but that’s if no relevance to me.

I admire the optimism of those who think Level 4 will be a reality in this country anytime soon but I can’t help but be sceptical. FSD development has consistently been about hype, over promising and under delivering. Musk has been promising complete autonomy every year since at least 2018. And what about the 1 million robo taxies that were supposed to be on the road by the end of 2020?

Level 4 in this country is still many years away.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Would a car using FSD be able to execute an overtaking manoeuvre

From the way you describe it it seems that you are assuming not, or that this is a situation unique to UK.

I don't know the answer, but I have seen an FSD video where a car was double parked, passing it involved crossing a double-white line, and also there was oncoming traffic, backed up (for a red light)

Once the light turned green, the oncoming traffic cleared, the (FSD) car drove around the double-parked car and crossed the double white line.

This was some months ago, so well before current FSD version - (a video that Chuck Cook made I think; even he was surprised!)

Overtake a caravan? Dunno ... but I suspect that the FSD "solution" is the same as / easily based on the one for any other slow-moving, long, vehicle.

I live in the UK and I’m really not interested in what happens in other countries.

But if the scenario ("perceived as difficult in UK") exists elsewhere in the world (in particular in USA where FSD dev is being done) then it isn't a UK-specific snag.

 

[MrBadger]

For all the hype FSD in the US is still just a Level 2 driver assist feature. In order to get to Level 4 or 5 it has to be reliable all the time, not just most of the time. That’s still a long way off.

A scenario in the UK. You’re stuck behind a slow car towing a caravan on an A road that is windy but does have opportunities for overtaking, though with care and caution. Would a car using FSD be able to execute an overtaking manoeuvre, or would you be condemned to be stuck behind the caravan for mile after slow mile while every other car overtakes?

All the while it’s not level 5 does it matter whether it can handle that scenario?

As it’s only level 2 driver assist, and even if it was level 3, there is no being condemned to being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The driver would take over.

And at level 4, I would expect the operational design domain to stipulate what it could and could not handle so might either avoid the scenario or still allow a legally qualified driver to take over should the odd be so limiting that manual control would be a common necessity.

 

[JupiterMan]

YES!! I live in the UK and I’m really not interested in what happens in other countries.

huh? FSDBeta is currently only available in USA and Canada - its all we've got to go on if you are interested in FSDBeta. There is nowhere else to look?

Exactly. They “might” solve FSD in the US in a few years and achieve Level 4 autonomy, but that’s if no relevance to me.

Missing my point, which is that edge cases appear everywhere, UK is not a special case with weird complex roads that no one else has in the world! As such if they can solve this outside of the UK then there are zero technological reasons why they will not be able to here.

 

[JupiterMan]

All the while it’s not level 5 does it matter whether it can handle that scenario?

As it’s only level 2 driver assist, and even if it was level 3, there is no being condemned to being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The driver would take over.

And at level 4, I would expect the operational design domain to stipulate what it could and could not handle so might either avoid the scenario or still allow a legally qualified driver to take over should the odd be so limiting that manual control would be a common necessity.

The other thing to consider, is that in a RoboTaxi world you might be sipping a coffee and watching some netflix, and not even know you're behind a slow moving vehicle. You'll see an ETA displayed on the screen and its likely many would not really care too much.