My testing of Full Self Driving

Today I installed an update to my Tesla that allows me to test Full Self Driving (FSD). And it is just amazing what it can do. The car practically drove me to work and back. But there are quite a lot of things that make my blood pressure rise.

The first thing was relatively minor. The car did a left turn and stayed in the leftmost lane. And for some reason maintains a speed 5 miles below the limit for quite some time. I had to manually accelerate it. And once or twice the car went over lane markings. There were no cars in the adjusted lane so it was not a big problem.

The next was not as good. My car decided to change the lane when it was crossing an intersection. It is a big no for me in general because I think it is simply unsafe. I never do it and I always teach everyone not to do it.

Then, when I was on the highway, my car decided to change the lane from left to right. But there was a truck in the left lane and the distance was less than the length of the car between us. It was clearly unsafe.

The next thing I was noticed that the distance between me and the car in front of me was relatively short. Much shorter than I prefer. Normally I would use the right scroll wheel on the steering wheel to increase it. But it was not allowed in FSD. Later I checked the settings menu and I couldn’t find it anywhere. On the other hand, the distance from the stopped car in front of me was too big. I would prefer half of that distance.

Also, it turns out that when the car turns left, it always wants to do it from the leftmost lane even in case the current lane can turn left as well. The same applies to the right turn and the rightmost lane.

The last thing I was noticed that my car would start reducing speed far away from the stopping point like a traffic light. It feels strange and I think it confuses other drivers because they don’t understand why I’m breaking so early.

This is what I found after driving around 15 miles. I am still alive. In general, it works quite well but it doesn’t feel natural and will require quite a lot of polishing and fixing. And my verdict stays the same – it is not something that regular people should buy. I would say it is a super early alpha preview of what it can be in like 20 years.