Comment by alesso_x | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alesso_x | Hacker News Reader

The article gives a pretty misleading impression of where FSD stands today. It treats highway behavior as if nothing has changed, but that’s not accurate.

Before October 2024, the highway stack was still running on Tesla’s older software. A major shift happened with version 12.5.6, which brought the end-to-end neural network to highways for the first time.

Then in December, version 13.2.2 pushed things even further by scaling the model specifically for HW4/AI4. It’s a major step up from earlier versions like 12.3.x from April.

I absolutely feel for anyone who’s been involved in an accident while using FSD. But at the end of the day, the system still requires driver supervision. It’s not autonomous, and the responsibility ultimately falls on the person behind the wheel.

If you’re going to evaluate how FSD performs today, you really need to be looking at version 13 or greater. Anything older just doesn’t reflect what the system is capable of now.

It's weird that we've come to accommodate this abuse of the plain English meaning of "full self driving".

The responsibility does not rest solely with the person behind the wheel. Tesla know or should know how people use this system, and engineer it such that it doesn't kill people when the end user does what they are foreseeably going to do.

If that was true then all cars should have ignition interlock devices, because it's easy for a manufacturer to foresee a user driving drunk.

But they don't, and I'm not sure if there have been many successful cases of suing car manufacturers because their cars let people drive drunk(?)

How do those changes address these specific accidents?

It’s a completely different system. Comparing it to the old one is like comparing apples to oranges. The original highway stack didn’t feel natural at all. It was like every move was hard-coded.

Lane changes used to feel robotic. Speed had to be adjusted manually all the time just to feel comfortable.

The new system feels much more human. It has driving profiles and adapts based on traffic, which makes the experience way smoother.

Have you tried fsd? I use it almost everyday. I’m more arguing that the article is misleading about the current version of fsd. I do not doubt that the accidents happened on the older version.

> The self-driving subject vehicle is a 2020 Tesla Model 3. The Tesla fatally struck a motorcyclist from behind at above 100MPH on a 45MPH speed limit road

FSD cannot be turned on above 85 mph. If you try to accelerate above 85 mph it disengages.

> That’s how you would strike a motorcyclist at such extreme speed, simply press the accelerator and all other inputs are apparently overridden.

If the user is pressing the accelerator pedal, it overrides the autopilot. I’m not sure how FSD could reasonably be blamed in that situation.

The article also talks about Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC). There is a nuance between the different systems. This is not Full Self-Driving (FSD). It is an older system that Tesla provides for free. All it does is try to maintain a set speed, and you still have to steer. If the user is pressing the accelerator pedal, it overrides the system. I am not sure how FSD could reasonably be blamed in that situation.

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