Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Videos — Driving Through Cones & More

Last month, several of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta testers shared their thoughts with me as they started testing out the updated FSD firmware. The videos keep coming in, and it seems that with every new video, there are more improvements in the software. One of the testers, Kim Paquette, told me last month that she noticed there was a slight hesitation when she tested going through a roundabout with the car driving itself.

Since then, Kim has shared several videos of her experience testing Tesla’s FSD Beta version. Let’s go through several of them.

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1324443229857656833

This first one shows her experience as her car drives through cones. No, not literally through the cones, but in between them. She noted that it did okay even though it hesitated in a couple of areas and that it would be interesting to see improvement as the neural net learns.

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1323335824860172291

In the tweet above, Kim shared what the parking space visualizations look like. On either side of the car, there are two blue boxes, a green one is directly in front, and red and yellow boxes flank the green one. Kim noted in the two tweets below that her car had been struggling with left turns, but in the video below, she had a good turn.

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1323330560064966657

In the next one, you can see her car slowing for a pedestrian in the crosswalk. As someone who hasn’t owned a car before and often walks or uses public transportation, I am excited about this feature. People often don’t notice pedestrians, and having a car able to see and stop for you is incredibly mind-blowing and revolutionary.

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1323330560064966657

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1323322118482939904

In another tweet, Kim takes on an intersection that the car hadn’t taken successfully before. She noted that it’s a weird intersection and the car was a bit hesitant, but it did pretty well. The intersection is poorly marked and there’s a construction mess there, she pointed out.

https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1323037708281913344

Canada & Norway Next

Elon Musk said on Twitter that Canada and Norway were next after the US for getting and testing the new FSD suite. This was noted as a reply to a tweet by Kjell Ame Rekaa, who asked Elon to implement the new FSD functions for Norway. Kjell noted that the laws there are “world-leading in acceptance for autonomous vehicles” and pointed out that Norway had the highest density of Teslas in the world.

Canada and Norway are next after we get US out of early beta!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2020

In the document Kjell shared, a link to an act on testing of self-driving vehicles, the paragraph stated (translated into English) that “the law applies to testing of self-driving vehicles without a responsible driver and self-driving vehicles with a responsible driver who are not in a traditional driver’s seat. The act also applies to the testing of self-driving vehicles where the vehicle has a responsible driver in a traditional driver’s seat, but where it is necessary for other reasons with the exception of current rules as mentioned in § 3.”

“By self-driving vehicle is meant a vehicle that is equipped with a technical system that automatically drives the vehicle and that has control over the driving. Self-driving vehicles include vehicles where a driver can hand over the driving to the technical system that automatically drives the vehicle and vehicles that are designed to drive without a driver.”

The act further touches upon permission, stating that, “A natural or legal person may, upon application, be granted a permit to test self-driving vehicles. Such permission shall be valid for a limited period of time with the possibility of extension.”