Analyst had to intervene to keep Tesla's Full Self-Driving mode from crashing
William Stein's test drive left him impressed with Full Self-Driving but said it's still not close to autonomous driving
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A financial analyst who heeded Tesla CEO Elon Musk's suggestion that investors need to experiment with the company's so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature to understand the company and said that he narrowly avoided a crash while testing the system.
William Stein, an analyst with Truist Securities, explained in a note to investors that he took a Tesla Model Y for a test drive this month in suburban New York and needed to intervene on several occasions, including to avoid an accident when a car in front of him stopped a turn early.
"The Model Y accelerated through an intersection as the car in front of us had only partly completed a right turn," Stein wrote. "My quick intervention was absolutely required to avoid an otherwise certain accident."
Stein said that while FSD did well in adapting to various unanticipated road conditions he encountered, from potholes and the flow of traffic to closed driving lanes, and that it "felt more natural overall" than in his prior FSD trial in April. However, there were some other issues he encountered on the latest test drive.
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A Tesla analyst's Full Self-Driving test ride forced him to intervene to avoid an accident. (Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images / Getty Images)
He wrote that FSD required him to be less engaged than he anticipated and that it took the system 20-40 seconds to issue a warning when Stein "turned my head completely away from the road" while his son was monitoring traffic to "alert him to danger."
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSLA | TESLA INC. | 357.09 | +11.93 | +3.46% |
Stein also had to take control from FSD when he was instructed by a police officer using hand gestures to pull over to allow a funeral procession to pass through. He also said the Model Y using FSD changed lanes during a stretch of the roadway where that is prohibited.
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Tesla's Full Self-Driving stipulates that it's supposed to be supervised by an attentive driver. (Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
"Finally, in a section of our route, the highway was curvy and narrow, and had a solid white line separating lanes, signaling a prohibition against lane changes," he wrote. "Still, the Model Y switched lanes twice under that condition."
The vehicle Stein drove was running FSD 12.3.6 in a "demo mode" that's only available to dealers during test drives and not Tesla owners.
The 12.3.6 version of FSD was released this spring. Musk announced on Monday that Tesla is pushing a new update to the feature with FSD 12.5.1 set to be released and told owners, "Please connect your Tesla to WiFi to receive the update." He views FSD as a key part of Tesla's investment in artificial intelligence (AI).
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk views Full Self-Driving as Tesla's way of "solving" autonomous driving. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times / Getty Images)
Stein concluded that while FSD was "truly amazing" it also was "not even close to 'solving' autonomy" as Musk has suggested FSD will eventually be able to do. He added that the test drive left him with questions about Tesla's upcoming Robotaxi event.
"Considering the gap between the [Advanced Driver Assistance Systems] performance required to operate a driverless car (robotaxi) and the system's current performance, we remain befuddled at what Tesla might show at the Robotaxi event, which was recently delayed from August to October," Stein said. "We remain hopeful and truly optimistic that improvements to FSD will lead to ever-safer and more useful autonomy features from Tesla over time."
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Tesla notes in the owner's manual for its Model Y that drivers using FSD should, "Always remember that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) does not make Model Y autonomous and requires a fully attentive driver who is ready to take immediate action at all times. While Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is engaged, you must monitor your surroundings and other road users at all times."