Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta option is controversial, to say the least, and this latest video, which puts version 10.69.25 to the test in snowy Detroit, just adds fuel to the fire.
Published on the YouTube channel Detroit Tesla right on Christmas Eve, the video shows how Tesla’s $15,000 FSD Beta navigates a car on snow-covered city streets. And right off the bat, things are not looking great.
Just a few seconds after first engaging the system, the car is going too fast and slightly turning to the right, heading towards the curb and forcing the driver to take control of the steering wheel.
Toni Ezero, who sent us the video of him wrestling his Tesla on Detroit’s snowy roads, said that “I don’t think this drive is going to be a good one. I don’t think they’ve trained the neural nets at all for snow, still.”
Several times during the short, 15-minute drive, the self-driving system completely disengages, prompting the man behind the wheel to immediately take over control. It’s unclear why FSD Beta acted like this, with Toni speculating that it might be because of the uneven patches of snow and ice that covered the tarmac.
In any case, he goes on to say that “this is nerve-racking”, adding that not much has changed since he tested a previous version of the FSD Beta a year earlier, in similar weather conditions.
Now, it’s fair to point out that driving in a winter storm requires drivers to take extra precautions no matter what car they’re driving. Trying to go from point A to point B using a self-driving assistant on snow-covered roads might be a bad idea from the get-go, but as the video states, half the world experiences winter. And with Elon Musk promising robotaxis roaming the streets in the past, something doesn’t seem to add up.
What’s your take on the video embedded above – is it just a silly experiment that was bound to fail from the beginning or is it something helpful? Let us know in the comments below.
