Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature was tested by third-party testing firm AMCI, with the results coming in at an astounding 13 mile intervention interval.
One of the biggest concerns about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) program is the company’s consistent refusal to share any intervention data or any data about the program, even three years after it began.
We have to rely on anecdotal evidence and crowdsourced data, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk lent some credence by making positive comments about it, even though it’s pretty bad.
For example, over 14,000 miles of crowdsourced data for the FSD v12.5.1 version shows a release interval of 31 miles and a critical release interval of 174 miles.
We now undergo further independent testing from AMCI Testing, an independent automotive testing company.
AMCI drove a 2024 Model 3 Performance with Hardware 4 in FSD 12.5.1 and 12.5.3 for over 1,000 miles in a variety of driving environments.
The results were even worse than most of the FSD critics thought: AMCI reported over 75 interventions, an average of one every 13 miles.
While impressive for a unique camera-based system, evaluation of the Tesla FSD through AMCI testing revealed just how often human intervention is required for safe operation. In fact, drivers were required to intervene more than 75 times during the evaluation, averaging once every 13 miles.
The company released a video series compiling some of the most impressive moves and blunders by Tesla’s system.
After testing, AMCI acknowledged that Tesla’s FSD system is superior, but warned that the awe that comes from trying it for the first time could lead to complacency, which is dangerous.
Guy Mangiamele, Director of AMCI Testing, explains:
“FSD 12.5.1 is undeniably impressive, especially for a camera-based system, with a wide range of human-like responses. But it’s inevitable that during the first five minutes of operating FSD, everyone will be astonished by its infallibility, which can lead to dangerous complacency. It is extremely dangerous for a driver to drive with their hands on their laps or off the wheel while driving with FSD activated. As you can see in the video, the most critical moment of FSD miscalculation is a split-second event that even a professional driver operating in a test mindset would have to concentrate to capture.”
Mangiamere adds:
“What’s most perplexing and unpredictable is that we sometimes see the FSD successfully handle a particular scenario multiple times, often on the same road or intersection, only to inexplicably fail the next time. It’s impossible to know if it’s a lack of computational power, a buffering issue when the car is ‘late’ in its calculations, or a tiny detail in its assessment of the surroundings. These failures are the most insidious. But continued failures due to simple programming flaws, such as initiating a lane change for a freeway exit just a tenth of a mile before the exit, can falter the system and call into question the overall quality of the underlying programming.”
AMCI says it plans to release another series of videos of the first 1,000 miles on the FSD next week, along with testing future updates.
Earlier this week, I drove the Tesla FSD v12.5.2 for the first time and experienced similar results to what the company describes here.
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