Many of you all know that we have a Tesla Model Y. We have full self-driving (FSD) capability which combines navigation with Autopilot that used to only be available on major highways. But about a week ago the car received an update to turn on full self-driving beta for city streets. Here are my thoughts on the program.
- First, it’s much better than FSD on the interstate. I haven’t had any hiccups in the week I’ve used it, but there are some improvements needed that I will discuss.
- Second, it still doesn’t properly recognise objects directly on the road. So if you are driving and there is a speed bump, it’s going to go over that speed bump without slowing. On one drive between HTX and NOLA, there was a tire in the middle of the road, and had I not taken over I would have run over it.
- Third, you can see the AI coming out in that it’s learning and getting smarter. So it seems that it’s learning from data about routes to learn how to drive the streets better. My guess is the cars that have it turned on are feeding info into a central database and the computer is feeding info to the car to make the program better over time.
- Fourth, if you live in a city where people drive like crap, the program works but you need to be aware that you may need to take over.
We used to have to upgrade the car to get new features or increase range, but with Tesla they are able to push improvements and new features via updates.