No self-parking yet. For a while, there was a feature called “Smart Summon”, which would call your car to you. It was not very smart, but it was kinda neat to see your car move around without a driver. You held down a button on your phone and the car would slowly creep towards you. It moved too slowly to be an actual danger to anyone, but that also limited its utility.
Supposedly, there will be a release soon with “Actually Smart Summon” that is much improved. I’ll give it a spin when it’s out.
The new v12 FSD seems much better at unprotected lefts than v11 was. v11 could sort of manage completely uncontrolled left turns, but had no idea how to handle a flashing yellow arrow left turns. v12 does them both without any drama.
It’s not all good though. I have two very difficult left turns on my commute home, and so far v12 has not been able to handle either. The one out of my parking lot is just an unprotected left onto a busy four lane (+ center lane) street. v12 pulls out to block the bike lane, which is not necessary to gain visibility. It also creeps forward making it hard to tell if it is about to go when there is traffic, so I hit the brake and cancel FSD.
The second left is a long left turn at a very short light, and it just takes way more situational awareness than most other drivers, let alone FSD, have. You have to start making your left when you see a gap approaching up the street, but before cars have cleared the intersection. Don’t pull out though, or you’ll be stuck there. Lots of pedestrians and bikes, too.
So not quite answering your question.
I hadn’t even realized smart summon went away. It was so useless I hadn’t tried it in a very long time. You can still do the thing where you set a nearby point on the map and tell the car to go there. I haven’t tried that in a long time either, because the car moves so slowly, and still used to drive over curbs. The car moves at a slow walking speed, so not only do you have to wait longer than it would take for an able bodied person to just go get the car, but it also impedes traffic, even in a parking lot.
Had you already pulled out into the intersection at least a bit past the legal stop line while your traffic light was still green or yellow? If not that was you running a red light legally speaking.
Which is extremely common around here and folks seem mystified at the idea that there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing. Which is why I ask.
Well, then it’s a better driver than I am, since I’ve never seen a flashing yellow left and have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. I don’t think those exist out here.
Huge downpour right now (at night), so I decided to take FSD for a spin. Still needs work.
To be fair, it did warn me that FSD would be degraded due to the weather. And the rain is bad enough that I wouldn’t go out myself if I didn’t need to (except to perform an FSD experiment, of course!).
Main thing that went wrong is the lane following. A little surprising since I’ve found that Autopilot sometimes has “superhuman” lane following ability, but the rain+dark was too much here. And the lane visibility was really terrible, even for a human (I lost track at times), but still I think it could have done better. It was ok as long as the lanes had newish reflectors, but lots of places have none or degraded ones, to say nothing about the lines themselves.
One funny moment though was when a car a bit ahead and to the left went through a huge puddle and somehow splashed an enormous amount of water onto my windshield. Easily 10 gallons at once, and directed exactly at me. FSD gave a “take over immediately” warning and turned itself off. I was prepared for that, but it’s not like I could see any better until the water streamed away. So there was a second or two of driving in a straight line and hoping for the best.
Heheh, they’re all over the place around here in Dallas. It basically means “If there’s no oncoming traffic, you can turn left.” Sadly, they’re often in a situation where you can’t see all three oncoming lanes of traffic clearly when someone is in the opposing turn lane.
So, unless I can see all three lanes pretty clearly, I don’t take advantage of them unless I can launch pretty hard and make sure I’m going to clear the first lane in time to clear anything that’s traveling well above the speed limit in the nearest lane to me. If FSD can handle them, it’s doing pretty good. If it doesn’t basically do a rabbit start when it does it, I’d be pretty disconcerted.
Either way, it does seem like we’re still probably at lest a decade away from me being able to jump in the back seat with my banjo and say “Follow that car!” while I play chase music. Because, that’s what I really want a self-driving car to do for me.
Yes, I have a banjo. No, I am not a gentleman. I play it.
Isn’t that just a normal unprotected left? We have plenty of those. I guess the extra mode means the turn lane is independent of the thru lane, and can support both protected and unprotected lefts. Here, the lack of an arrow signifies an unprotected left.
When it goes, it goes pretty hard. That’s a notable improvement of FSD 12 over 11. I haven’t tried it with an unprotected left yet, but with right-turns-on-red at least, it goes for it.
Maybe. I’ll have a better idea over the coming year. FSD 12 was a big boost, and if they can maintain the rate of improvement, it’ll take much less than a decade. But their strategy might peter out or run into some unknown issue. Not to mention the regulatory side. Supposedly we’ll see a slew of incremental updates over the coming months, but we’ll see.
I’ll be pretty pleased with a solid Level 3. I want it to work everywhere (not this Mercedes shit that only works at <48 mph on the highway), and if it drops into manual mode, it needs to give me significant warning. But I’m ok if it’s restricted to no rain, etc. Yeah, taking a nap in the back seat would be nice, but that might take a bit longer.
Well, here a flashing yellow arrow means you have an unprotected left. Basically a difference in signage, I think. Good to know it goes pretty hard. If it tests the limits of traction, it’s in the ballpark I’m personally shooting for when I do it. I personally think anything less is near suicidal in Dallas.
Yeah, anything less than the ability to hop in the back seat and not worry about it being able to recover to the side of the road or a parking lot in a strange situation without it killing folks or impeding traffic is pretty much the minimum for self-driving, in my mind. Anything I’d need to keep a close watch on is an advanced autopilot, at best.
A little bit of a side discussion but how did the automatic windshield wipers work if you used them? That’s one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Teslas. I only had one opportunity to try and it was on my second day of ownership so I may have been doing something wrong but it didn’t work at all. I had to manually turn them on like a peasant.
I’m only on v11.x but today I finally get to try the main reason I got the car. Driving to and from a concert. Santa Barbara to and from downtown L.A.
The flashing yellows are sprouting all over the country because of the number of accidents where idjits in an unprotected left turn situation are mistakenly acting like it’s a protected situation and then turn left directly in front of oncoming traffic. Those drivers can’t seem to distinguish between green arrow and green light.
So now when the green arrow disappears and the green light remains, the yellow arrow flashes continuously as a hoped-for signal for the left turners to exercise caution when turning left, rather than exercising obliviousness.
Typically there’s a sign mounted adjacent to the signal light saying something like
Left Turn on Flashing Yellow Arrow When Clear
What I hate is when, instead of a flashing yellow arrow, there’s a red arrow, even though the visibility of the oncoming traffic is perfectly fine. Probably brought on by the same idjits @LSLGuy mentioned.
Here in Los Angeles, they are standard everywhere there is also a green left arrow. The update happened maybe five to ten years ago. They’re often accompanied by an explanatory sign.
Besides the added safety of explicitly showing that left turns must yield after a green arrow, I’ve seen them used in another situation: You’re waiting at a light in the left turn lane. The oncoming traffic gets a green and protected left green. The through traffic in your direction has a red light, of course. But you in the left turn lane gets a blinking yellow arrow, so you can left turn if there’s no oncoming through traffic, even while the oncoming left turn is still protected.
The safest left turn signaling I’ve experienced is in Korea: all left turns are either protected or prohibited. That is, you have a green arrow or a red arrow. No ambiguity at all.
Well, I’m not particularly concerned about semantic arguments. Autopilot has been a meaningful improvement in my quality of life. FSD is not there yet, for me–but when it goes hands-free, even if I have to be in the driver’s seat, it will be. I’ll be able to mess around on my phone or read a book or eat a burger or just enjoy the scenery. It’ll most likely be safer. If it needs me to take over occasionally, that’s fine, as long as it gives ample warning and can safely pull over if I can’t respond in time.
Whether this “really” counts as self-driving or not is meaningless to me. I’m looking for a substantial jump in functionality over what I have. Tesla’s FSD will get there if they can continue the current rate of improvement.
Somehow I’ve never had a huge problem with them. I know there are a lot of complaints but Tesla’s version always worked better than my old BMW with the dedicated sensor. The only minor issue is that fine mist could sometimes build up, but it’s only a problem with very light rain, so a manual swipe every so often isn’t a big deal.
Not sure why yours wouldn’t be working at all–maybe auto mode was completely disabled? I don’t know what the options look like these days since I haven’t futzed with them for a couple of years.
Japan for sure and probably India. The latter probably has a low per capita car ownership but a really, really large capita.
I would be impressed to see a self-driving car that can work in the chaos of Indian traffic.
Truly. That’s when we’ll know they have it down pat. Perhaps comms between car AIs would help. “Coming into your lane, now.” “Go for it.”
Good luck communicating with the oxcarts that are also on Indian highways.
Around here, any time the light is green you can turn left if clear of oncoming traffic. However, our city is slowly adding impediments to traffic to get us out of cars, and one of them is that they are changing our intersections so that you can only turn left with a green left arrow - at which point the oncoming traffic has a red light. There are no flashing yellows.
So now if you are unlucky and get to a left turn just as it goes red, you will wait while perpendicular traffic goes, then they stop and there’s an interval for left turners on that side, then a full red. Then your side gets to go, except not the left turn peoole. Eventually, your side gets a red light and the green arrows go on, and left turns happen.
All this approximately doubles the time you wait at each intersection. The city approves of this. I expect it to get worse, as they have added bike lanes on the right everywhere, meaning you could turn right at an intersection and hit a cyclist. It’s pretty dangerous, and I’m just waiting for a new light to allow bikes to go while the cars wait on a ‘no right turn’ red. Not that I’ve actually seen a cyclist use a bike lane in my part of the city…
All these differences have to be dealt with by a self-driving car.
I just FSDed from Santa Barbara to West LA and it was an absolute joy. It did a wide open freeway very well and then when I did the 101 to 405 thing it handled bumper to bumper well. It got there with the exact estimated battery percentage predicted.
From the trick taught to me earlier, it was fine with being too slow in the far left lane. I just hit the right turn signal and it moved out of the way. It made for me what world be stressful into no big deal.
I’m visiting my step mom in a few minutes. Tonight I head downtown for a show and then I’ll have her chauffeur me home at midnight. This is why I bought the beast. I am so happy.
I wonder how FSD would do in my neighborhood with narrow streets. If there’s a car parked on one side, two cars can pass but one car must be hugging the curb and the other with a small gap between it and the parked car. People who live here and are used to it will pass, but newbies usually wait for the other car to get by.
And if cars are parked on both sides, one person has to wait in the gaps for the other to get by. So when you see someone coming toward you, there’s a quick assessment of where you’ll meet, who has a gap closest to that meeting point, and then hope they make the same calculation.
Would FSD know to get as close to the curb as possible in the first case? Would it guess that someone has to pull over in the second?