More “See-Saw Effect” with Tesla FSD 12.5.3

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I wrote the opposite day about Tesla “Full Self Driving” (FSD) reportedly getting significantly better with the 12.5 replace. As I defined in that piece, I usually don’t go by what different persons are saying on this as a result of my historical past with doing that was large disappointment and a tremendously completely different expertise with FSD after I used it. Nonetheless, on this case, there appeared to be broad and goal reward for the replace. Additionally, Tesla has determined to delay updates on older Teslas with out the newest FSD {hardware}, and my 2019 Mannequin 3 doesn’t have the newest {hardware}. So, I’m going to be delayed testing the newest variations of FSD myself.

Whereas preliminary reviews on FSD 12.5 appeared constructive, one other person offered a brief overview that appears to deliver us again to that “see-saw effect” concept I put on the market years in the past and Elon Musk recently confirmed. This FSD person and CleanTechnica reader noted:

“5.3 is much worse than 5.2. On 5.3 it’s lost the ability to handle highway entrances and exits. On entrances its super hesitant, gotten a lot of angry horns as it just sits there. On exits, it wants to drive right past them. The nav voice knows that it’s an exit, the car has gotten over to the right hand lane so it was preparing for an exit, but when it gets to the exit it tries to drive past it forcing you to take over. It also mishandled a merge where it was supposed to get onto the highway, it tried to take an exit instead of. 5.2 was handling these situations correctly. Hope 5.4 shows up soon.”

Once more, that is one person’s expertise. This isn’t everybody’s essentially taking place to everybody, and we don’t know if it’s widespread or uncommon. Nonetheless, it’s a transparent signal that we’ve bought one other case of “2 steps forward and 1 step back,” or one thing like that. It’s additionally a case of, “what the heck happened?” Why did the newest replace abruptly trigger this drawback?

Due to how a lot FSD has improved this yr, I’m a bit extra bullish on Tesla’s method once more. However I proceed to be involved concerning the see-saw impact, particularly as a result of how Tesla is bettering FSD — with neural nets and machine studying. Whereas Waymo’s progress is way slower in some regards, it appears the extra particular, directed, centered growth course of helps to keep away from such issues — in addition to the broader {hardware} suite.

And that brings us again to my observe on the prime. I’ve seen another FSD customers in my case getting fairly upset that they’re not receiving the FSD updates as a result of they don’t have the newest FSD {hardware}. With this sort of factor, I’m usually not that bothered, however on this case, the guarantees round this made so a few years in the past make all of it rather less forgivable. Elon Musk didn’t promise a date for robotaxis again in 2016, as some folks declare, however he did say the {hardware} put in automobiles on the time can be all of the {hardware} wanted for robotaxi functionality, whereas additionally exhibiting estimates of gross revenue per mile and gross revenue per yr from a Tesla robotaxi. Nonetheless, by 2019, he began predicting such robotaxi functionality by “next year.” In my humble opinion, anybody shopping for a automotive from then on, and particularly going again to these 2016 statements and presentation, was “duped” by these statements. Now, a few of these consumers are getting fairly upset, and much more so with FSD updates not rolling out to them once they roll out to Tesla house owners with newer FSD {hardware}.

My 2022 Tesla Mannequin S Plaid has FSD and is now price $100k to $200k in response to @elonmusk. Wish to purchase it? https://t.co/ZiOgvT66Sy

— Miss Jilianne (@MissJilianne) August 23, 2024

Dangle a carrot, inform them they’ll eat it “next year” and watch them imagine it. pic.twitter.com/BPZnpJQG19

— Miss Jilianne (@MissJilianne) August 22, 2024

Tesla Cultists get up, the brand new FSD doublethink is that you simply’re speculated to imagine that @ElonMusk by no means stated that Mannequin 3s would make their house owners cash as robotaxis!

Everyone will need to have imagined it. If solely there was a video exhibiting what Elon promised Mannequin 3 consumers: https://t.co/b5GPYrhKmt pic.twitter.com/VVeTTdvms4

— Dan O’Dowd (@RealDanODowd) August 21, 2024

When will the Tesla Full Self-Driving Software program I paid $15,000 for really make my automotive Full Self-Driving?

— Miss Jilianne (@MissJilianne) August 21, 2024

There are a sequence of points above right here, so let me simply summarize with a bullet checklist:

• Tesla FSD 12.5.3 has made notable enhancements in response to some public testers, nevertheless it has additionally made some odd steps backward.
• Tesla house owners with newer automobiles and the latest FSD {hardware} at the moment are getting updates a lot ahead of others (and this was introduced earlier by Elon Musk). That statedeverybody within the US with FSD {hardware} constructed into automobiles since mid-2019 ought to nonetheless be getting these updates in time.
• There’s rising concern that claims about robotaxi {hardware}, coming robotaxi progress, and potential for robotaxi business service and income have been all not simply overly optimistic however wildly off the mark and doubtlessly even very deceitful.

We’ll proceed protecting the story as extra updates, information, and opinions come out, as we now have performed since 2015.