FSD 13.2.6 Review - "Good"

[Bobo_LaDouche]

FSD 13.2.6 has a new and good feel, largely because of the "almost human" feel to acceleration while passing, better lane control, and better pathway on curves. Complex highway lane changes were done without my stress rising, and highway exits were negotiated in quite a reasonable manner. There is a lot of contrast and improvement to 13.2.2

I rate the FSD "good", and it delivers driving at an enjoyable level. This is an incredible improvement from not long ago, so I am impressed with the efforts of the engineers designing FSD.

The following issues could use continued improvement:

1. Better lane control. Much improved, but I am asking for a little more improvement here. The tendency to wander to the shoulder and center is greatly reduced, but some wander still exists; not sure if this is road-tilt effect, but probably not wind. [Wind effect not tested yet, but this has been a big issue.]

2. Velocity control (speed) is remarkably slow to respond when an increase is requested, i.e., traveling 70 and requesting 75, this might not ever happen. On the plus side, quitting FSD and increasing to 78, then re-engaging FSD and slowing to 75 works better than previously. So I just quit FSD every time I pass a speed limit sign, which is frequently. Would be easier to spin the thumb dial and have the car actually respond. Slowing the velocity, the car is responsive.

3. Blind spot awareness - not even a consideration of FSD yet. Hugging the blind spot of other cars is dangerous, so hopefully this could be an implemented feature soon enough. Directly experienced a bad situation today as a result of this.

4. Tailgating - another feature to think about. We tailed a semi-truck piled high with brush today, and it was tossing pieces onto the highway. Easy for the human to see, but not the FSD. I like the maximum 7 setting on tailgating, and wish there was a 14 setting.

The vehicle behaviour around curves is maturing really well - it almost has reached a human level, making smoother arcs and leaning towards the correct sides of the lane while curving. This is what makes FSD 13.2.6 pleasurable.

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[LiveFreeOrDieBob]

Funny, I think 13.2.6 is a lot worse than 13.2.4. 13.2.4 was nearly perfect for me, but 13.2.6 regressed significantly on the truck taking left 90 degree turns into the wrong lane of the perpendicular road. In other words, if you're turning left into a neighborhood, even if there were no lines, a human would naturally stay towards the right side of the road. But for some reason FSD sometimes turns into those roads and hugs the LEFT side, putting the truck, on the wrong side of the road for at least 50 yards before it starts to move over to the right. Even if you're entering a 1-way street, the truck should still default to staying to the right side of the lane unless there is a reason to shift left, but when this issue occurs, the truck hugs the left side of the road.
13.2.2 had that issue pretty consistently, along with clipping the apex of increasing radius left turns. 13.2.4 mostly fixed both of those issues for me. But 13.2.6 seems to have regressed to the point where it's worse than 13.2.2 was. And last night it actually pulled out onto the wrong side of a 55mph non-divided highway with breakdown lanes for both directions, so basically 4+ lanes wide, and it pulled out into the opposing traffic's breakdown lane! Fortunately there were no cars coming, but I was very surprised that it made such a basic mistake when 13.2.4 was intervention-free for me 99% of the time.
I feel like I saw this pattern with earlier versions of the models too, like there is a conscious strategy of incrementally adding certain kinds of training data to the corpus in successive point releases, and that incremental data actually causes regression on certain behaviors in addition to the (presumed) improvements in other areas. I wish there was more detail in the release notes, even if just for a limited number of "power users" so we could provide more complete feedback. I know from experience that AI isn't deterministic in the way most people would think, and sometimes artificially prioritizing certain kinds of data because "you think it needs more of that kind of training data" can be a big mistake. But for those of us with experience in machine learning it would help us know what to look for, so we could provide better feedback, which would in turn help the Tesla AI team better curate the training data used to train the model to avoid regressions like this.
Personally I wonder if the issues I experience here in NH are due to some differences in lane markings or maybe a lack of visible lane markings due to snow or sand. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that the salt up here coats the camera lenses pretty much instantly when you're driving in traffic on a wet road, so the overall image quality is worse than in other regions. But without having any idea what is different between versions, it's impossible to tell.

 

[rlhamil]

Curves are getting better, although a human familiar with a particular curve can sometimes hit it perfectly so it helps them along rather than feeling uncomfortable. I recall one curve where the arrow signs on the outside were always mangled, yet if one hit it right one came out of the curve faster than one went in, and it felt natural.

Still wish that if one is within a mile or so of an exit, it would not change lanes to pass unless traffic in the current lane was stalled; maybe not even then because the backup might be on the exit.

At least once (older version, but problem still there) it missed an exit and had to go on double back to get back on track.

I'd rather be in the lane I need to be in a bit early than go faster at the risk of missing it.

Hopefully future changes that will have it anticipating rather than just dealing with the immediate situation will fix this anyway; if not, it needs special attention, IMO.

In some cases (like freeway medium traffic in separate packs, and descending so one has a long view) a human can with good planning and timing actually drive less aggressively yet get further ahead. A slightly more strategic approach, without neglecting immediate hazards, would be a vast improvement.

 

[CyberLucky]

13.2.6 doesn't often get speed limit signs correct - it sees 110 as 70, 90 as 30 and often doesn't see the signs at all. I drove a couple of hours on a highway with frequent signs showing 110 max and the truck never once saw anything other than 70.

Drifting uncomfortably into the left side of lanes doesn't happen as frequently, but still happens (prior version drifted over the rumble strips on the freeway and would have kept going into the median but for my intervention).

It doesn't handle snowy roads well at all - navigation sent me down a snow covered road and FSD accelerated rapidly - by the time I intervened it was too late and the truck was out of control and hit a snow bank, costing me the front mud flap. I should have taken control the moment it turned into the snow but I wanted to see how it would respond, and it got bad, fast.

It doesn't understand, and instead ignores, a lot of signs, like no right turn on red, or slow down when lights flashing.

It likes to switch to a lane that's about to end, just before it ends.

I still use FSD often, but I don't trust it like I initially did, and 13.2.6 didn't improve much, as far as my experience.

 

[rlhamil]

13.2.6 doesn't often get speed limit signs correct - it sees 110 as 70, 90 as 30 and often doesn't see the signs at all. I drove a couple of hours on a highway with frequent signs showing 110 max and the truck never once saw anything other than 70.

110? Must be metric (Canada?). Never heard of a 110 MPH speed limit, although some freeways in Montana may have no specific limit.

 

[CyberLucky]

Yes, I'm in Canada and those numbers are km/h (I wish that was in mph!).

 

[rlhamil]

Yes, I'm in Canada and those numbers are km/h (I wish that was in mph!).

AFAIK, FSD maxes at 85 MPH, and IMO driving manually above 75 MPH gets tiring quickly for longer trips. Little road warrior left in me, unless some a-hole really pushes my last button, and then I'm not going to get crazy, just humiliate them. (not much that can out-accelerate a CB, and I'm still good at curves even if declining at endurance, so one way or another I can show 'em they're not as good as they think they are)

 

[Cyber1qhorsey]

To make FSD trustworthy, do we need an AI5 hardware version, or better cameras, or both? Does anyone use FSD on rural roads at night?

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