Tilting at windmills: Full Self Driving

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bwilson4web

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Source: https://www.independent.com/2025/07...es-to-fight-against-teslas-self-driving-cars/

Last week ([Fri Jul 18, 2025 | 2:31pm RJW], O’Dowd and his team invited me to go for a test drive that would rely on a Tesla self-driving car to take us around town. The test involved simple tasks such as turning left, stopping at a road closure sign, making a legal U-turn, and not running over the mannequin of a small child trying to cross the street. The Tesla failed every test, ...
  • When we tried to turn left, we pulled into oncoming traffic, and the human driver behind the wheel of the Tesla had to slam on the brakes and take control of the vehicle.
  • When we tried to make a U-turn, the vehicle did not turn the wheel tightly enough and ran out of room. Rather than back up and make a three-point turn, the Tesla chose to stay at a complete stop in the middle of an intersection.
  • When we approached a staged school bus with its stop sign extended, the Tesla drove straight around the bus. When a small mannequin was pulled across the road to simulate a child leaving the school bus, the Tesla ran right over it.
I have seen the left turns into opposing traffic because the cabin camera nags me if I don't keep my eyes looking out the windshield. There have been formerly reproducible incidents I've documented:

The car took an early lane change into the middle lane not realizing the traffic department had installed barriers that would force the car into on-coming traffic. Regardless, I can't replicate it since earlier updates this year.

There was also a street block by construction barrier on the other side of the pedestrian walkway:

Again, my eyes were on the road and after saving the dash cam video, I corrected it before reaching the next intersection.

As for "U-turn," my habit has always been to do them at an intersection as I was taught or when I know, use a "U-turn" lane. FSD handles "U-turn" lanes.

As for a "staged school bus with its stop sign extended," I only have real school busses to deal with. Again, the cabin camera makes sure I am looking out the front windshield. As for small critters, my Model 3 FSD has stopped twice for cats in the road and once for a loose dog.

One interesting thing, the cameras at night identify pedestrians dressed in black on a moon-less, unlighted street. It also slows the car if they are standing within 6" of the curb. I have to glance at the center display to know where to look.

Bob Wilson
 
This is certainly an important and scary topic to me. I have trust issues with the self-driving features of every car. Sensors are only so good, random conditions (sand, snow, oil spill, whatever) can change what the car thinks it knows or sees in an instant.

A recent event near me which unfortunately killed and injured a few -- a rig lost it's load of plywood. I don't think there was an EV involved, hard to tell from the photos, but i'd really be curious as to what a self driving computer would have done in this situation with 8x5 sheets of plywood are suddenly flying at you.

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/interstate-95-westbrook/3634259/

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Five years ago when I first got my MINI Cooper SE, I tried out its self-parking feature. It worked but I was spooked and I've never tried it since. I'm not mentally prepared--or willing--to hand the driving over to a self-driving car. Perhaps that's because I'm 75 and have been doing my own driving for 60 years.

Maybe when I get really old and they pry my fingers off the steering wheel, I'll embrace self-driving cars. Fortunately, I'll probably already be wearing Depends by then, so I won't mess up the seats.
 
The key to teaching self driving is to have the student sit in the passenger seat and operate the navigation interface. They soon learn how to control the car to get where you need to go while the experienced "safety" driver knows to let the car do the driving. NEVER have the student also sit in the driver's seat and learn FSD at the same time.

Their initial skepticism (and fear) soon subsides as they begin to understand FSD works by the navigation system inputs ... that cell-phone like. They have no responsibility for steering, braking, acceleration, lanes, or other driver responsibilities. So they soon calm down and get to witness what FSD does. A proper training session takes about 30 minutes using route editing and destination changes.

Bob Wilson
 
I would never have said this 5 years ago, but now one of my fav features of my car (Ioniq 6) is its advanced self driving. Sure makes a trip less tiresome with the car doing the driving, and provides more opportunity to enjoy the scenery going by. Hyundai is supposed to soon provide Level 3 Autonomous driving. That could be the reason for me to buy my next new car.
 
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