Tesla Full Self Driving Supervised V12.6.3: That Don’t Impress Me Much! – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

From the immortal humorous lyrics of Shania Twain, my evaluation of FSD Supervised V12.6.3 (2024.45.32.15): That Don’t Impress Me Much! I’ve been driving with and obsessively using Tesla’s artificial intelligence software in my Model 3 now for over 5 years and nearly 150,000 miles, both on Interstate highways and city streets. Historically, I’ve been blown away by what Tesla’s AI can do, but here are some key problems with the latest version.

Note: All is not lost! There have been several software updates in the last few weeks. The latest one, V12.6.4, came today. It seems to have fixed many of the problems reported below.

• For the first time, I’ve had to turn off the latest version of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” Supervised, because I can’t make it behave.
• In spite of my best efforts to keep my eyes glued to the road and my hand constantly putting torque on the steering wheel, after only a minute or two, I get the blue flashing warning of imminent death at the top of the screen. When I try to increase the torque on the steering wheel, the blue flashing continues until I actually disengage the software. (Note: holding the steering wheel shouldn’t even be an issue because the camera above the rearview mirror is watching my face and is better at observing driver attentiveness than tugging on the wheel.)
• The only option that makes sense is to push the right stick up to disengage the software manually and pull it down again to start it again! (without the blue flashing for another minute or two)
• The length of time FSD Supervised is working is so short that it’s not worth the trouble.
• My only solution is to turn off FSD and only use traffic aware cruise control.
• I can still use FSD sometimes on city streets, but on highways, particularly highways with many curves (like canyon roads), FSD is now unusable.

Elon Musk has been promising every year for the last five years or so that he will have level 5 driving automation working within 12 months in every Tesla car made in the last five years. He even seems to be betting that he will have robotaxis working in the next year or two. While I have seen major improvements in some areas, we seem to be no closer to full automation than we were 3 years ago.

Our editor in chief (Zach Shahan) speculates that we may be in a kind of seesaw loop now — Tesla makes an improvement in one area which makes it worse in another. Example: For the first time, in the last year, FSD usually slows you down for speed bumps and even sometimes for severe dips in the road (Utah above-surface sewers). The Utah surface sewer dips are severe enough that they will literally take the bottom off your car if you hit them at the speed limit. On the other hand, FSD has always had a problem with occasional “phantom braking” — in other words, slowing or braking for no apparent reason. Phantom braking seems to be more frequent now at slow speeds. Perhaps the car thinks there is a speed bump where none exists.

Other issues:

• Less accurate steering: My previous car was a 2018 Nissan Leaf. The automatic steering assist worked fine on moderately curvy roads. My Tesla Model 3’s steering assist was initially much more robust and accurate. It worked fine on much sharper turns, and the latest versions of FSD handle the sharpest turns, including those on roundabouts. It would keep my car in the middle of the lane better than almost any human driver. Until now! Sometimes my car will drift to the right so badly that it has even put my right wheels on the gravel a few times. Not as frequently, it will put wheels on the double yellow lines in the middle of the road. Is there something wrong with my 5-year-old car, or is the steering assist function not as accurate as it was previously? [Editor’s note: I just drove for a few hours to a state/regional robotics tournament where my daughter is competing. I used FSD for probably less than one minute. I turned it on while on a high-speed but pretty narrow rural road, and the car got so close to the center lane that I wasn’t comfortable at all leaving it on. —Zach]
• Can’t set speeds accurately anymore: Using previous versions of FSD Supervised, you could set an exact speed — say, 5, 10, or 15 mph over the speed limit — and your car would quickly speed up to that speed and hold it. It would also continuously show you the speed it had set. Now, FSD Supervised apparently thinks it is smarter than you and sets a speed sometimes only a few miles over the speed limit. Does it think the speed you set is unsafe? I don’t know the answer. Also, after a few seconds, the numerical display of the speed you set disappears, sometimes only replaced by the word. Standard. You have to change the speed you set in order for the speed display to reappear. Note: Tesla keeps messing with the graphics. The speed settings now appear in small blue letters in the upper left corner of the screen.
• It’s now more difficult to stay in the HOV lane: In this part of northern Utah, I-15 has 12 lanes. The inner lanes are High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes. It means that if you have a passenger (2 occupants) or a clean energy permit, you can use the HOV lanes. I usually use the HOV lanes, since I have a clean energy permit. I always use the HOV lanes if I am traveling more than 10 miles on I-15. It means that I have no vehicles on my left and the vehicles are a little farther away on my right because there is a double white line. That keeps vehicles a little farther apart than the dashed lines that separate the other lanes. Also, if I come to a congested area, the HOV lane is usually moving faster than the other lanes. However, FSD Supervised usually tries to exit the HOV lane before I want to. In the previous version of FSD Supervised, I could make my car stay in the HOV lane by pulling down the turn signal lever (as you would do to indicate a left turn) and leaving it down. Tesla, in its wisdom, now turns off the turn signal after a few seconds. My car will usually stay in the HOV lane as expected when there is a double white line on my right. However, every few miles, it is replaced by a dashed line which allows you to legally exit the HOV lane. Then FSD supervised will often exit the HOV lane even though I don’t want it to do so. I must now hold the turn signal lever down or pull it down at just the right instant to keep my car from exiting the HOV lane.
• Speed Bumps: FSD will now slow down for speed bumps, but not 100% of the time.
• Doesn’t slow down for flashing 20 mph school zone lights: When school children are likely to be present, the yellow lights above and below the 20-mph school zone sign will flash. FSD Supervised doesn’t respond to the flashing lights and my wife recently got a speeding ticket for going through a school zone too fast. Every time you disengage FSD Supervised, Tesla gives you the option to send a recorded message explaining why you disengaged. I’ve had one conversation during my ownership with a live Tesla expert. The Tesla expert advised me to record a message every time my car failed to slow down for a school zone. He implied that every school zone needed to be marked in the database and I could help them do it.

If you find any of my articles helpful to you and you want to buy a Tesla, feel free to use my referral link: https://ts.la/arthur73734. If you are buying a new Tesla and use my link (be sure to use it when you make your order), you’ll receive $1,000 off your purchase price of a Model 3 or Model Y and 3 months of Full Self-Driving. (Just be prepared to intervene immediately if it screws up.)