Tesla FSD Safety Stats Misleading

[69Mach390]

My feelings towards Elon do not in any way affect my judgement of the product. I still recommend Model Y to people as a great choice for an EV for example, as long as you buy it only for what is available and functional on delivery day, and understand the way Tesla makes their statements, like my example of Tesla specifying "Max motor power" but omitting the fact that it's nowhere near achievable in the car they sell it in, but technically that motor could in fact generate this much power in some other car with a better battery, or like when Tesla promised Full Self Driving shuttling family and friends for free, and making money when owner doesn't need the car while driving for Tesla Ride Sharing Network - all that for cars sold in 2016, which are now a decade old, are you still a believer Tesla will enable all (or any) of those cars with Level 4 FSD for free?

Unfortunately this is just a throwaway argument that Tesla supporters sometimes make.

You said absolutely nothing about Musk, and their response is somehow that you “must hate Elon.”

Dislike of how a product is used
Dislike of a product feature
Dislike of a product
Dislike of a company
Dislike of a CEO’s decisions or actions
Dislike of a CEO’s opinion
Dislike of a CEO

This entire list can be mutually exclusive. And literally the only thing we are discussing is the top two. You can’t just assume if someone feels a way about the top two that the rest of the list is true.

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[FlyingPoint]

Drive the FSD car for a few thousnd miles, then opine!

 

[69Mach390]

Drive the FSD car for a few thousnd miles, then opine!

Another fallacy.

It’s pretty easy to form opinions from others experiences. Heroin enters the argument…..

 

[whitex]

Drive the FSD car for a few thousnd miles, then opine!

My point is the better it gets, the more dangerous it gets until it hits true Level 4 (in case help from driver is needed, car safely pulls over, wakes the driver sleeping on the back seat for help). How would driving on FSD change that? You think as FSD drivers better and better I would trust it less and less and therefore pay more attention???

 

[FlyingPoint]

My point is the better it gets, the more dangerous it gets until it hits true Level 4 (in case help from driver is needed, car safely pulls over, wakes the driver sleeping on the back seat for help). How would driving on FSD change that? You think as FSD drivers better and better I would trust it less and less and therefore pay more attention???

In one of the last updates, FSD now does the following:
if a driver is incapaciated or not attentive or asleep in the back seat --hazard flashers activate, cars slows and pullsover to the shoulder of the road and stops. I believe it will also make an emergecy call. Tesla has not publized this because it is still level 2 and cannot be relied upon in a medical emergecy. Tesla is known to not fully publize what its updates change.

 

[whitex]

In one of the last updates, FSD now does the following:
if a driver is incapaciated or not attentive or asleep in the back seat --hazard flashers activate, cars slows and pullsover to the shoulder of the road and stops. I believe it will also make an emergecy call. Tesla has not publized this because it is still level 2 and cannot be relied upon in a medical emergecy. Tesla is known to not fully publize what its updates change.

The feature you are describing does not require the car to be Level 3. Other manufacturers ship it on level 2 cars as “Emergency Assist” or “Emergency Stop Assist”, so your argument that they are not publicizing it because it’s still level 2 does not check out.

The fact that, as you say, it cannot be relied on in medical emergency, simple means it’s not reliable, which is precisely what makes level 2 ever more dangerous as it gets better and driver intervention frequency goes down. I know it sounds paradoxical, but it’s really not that complicated - as the level 2 system requires less and less of driver’s attention, the driver will disengage, and therefore not be ready to take over when needed. The detection of driver inattention is not even reliable at detecting full driver incapacitation, so definitely will not be reliable detecting driver dazed or daydreaming, not paying attention even though holding hands on the wheel.

 

[AutoX]

No argument about never having no accidents. I just interpret "3x less likely to get into an accident" in the way all Tesla statements need to be interpreted. So for example, if FSD disengages fraction of a second before accident, it doesn't count as accident on FSD. Also accident in this case probably means any accident, including minor scrapes. So it could be that it's 3x less likely to get into any accident, but more likely to be in a fatal accident, or a major accident. Who knows, maybe that is cheaper for the insurance industry, perhaps minor accidents are costing more in total than major ones?

My whole point is that the better it gets, the less likely the human behind the wheel will be ready to take over. Until of course that human is removed, no longer responsible for what FSD does - then we can say better than average human is the benchmark. Let's see if Tesla start selling such Level 4 or Level 5 and how much will insurance companies charge to insure such cars.

For now, Tesla is not even willing to take responsibility for card driving on FSD at Tesla Service Centers, or Superchargers (cars could valet themselves, not needing humans, right?).

Tesla still counts it as a FSD accident if FSD was disengaged within 5 secs of the collision.

They also define collision as one that had airbag deployment, so usually more than just minor srapes.

As far as Tesla taking responsibilities for FSD at at service centers. Their cars drive off from the assembly plant in Texas, drive off by themselves across public highway, and self park in the delivery parking lot. I'm assuming if it got into a collision along the way, then Tesla would take responsibility.

Tesla counts an incident as an FSD-involved collision if the system was active at any point within the 5 seconds leading up to the impact. In their official safety reporting, these are broken down into major collisions (where airbags deploy) and minor collisions. [1, 2]
https://www.tesla.com/fsd/safety

 

[AutoX]

Really, Level 4 for the entire state of Texas (no more geofencing to just some urban areas)? Why is FSD not Level 4 in Texas then?

This is with their robotaxi fleet in Austin, Houston and Dallas.
Why haven't they released it for all Tesla ? Probably will in time once they get more data as the miles accumulate. As Austin Texas is their first city with their robotaxi fleet, I'm sure they are being extra cautious. Can't predict everything that can go wrong and it would be much easier to correct it before it goes wide release.

 

[AutoX]

The feature you are describing does not require the car to be Level 3. Other manufacturers ship it on level 2 cars as “Emergency Assist” or “Emergency Stop Assist”, so your argument that they are not publicizing it because it’s still level 2 does not check out.

The fact that, as you say, it cannot be relied on in medical emergency, simple means it’s not reliable, which is precisely what makes level 2 ever more dangerous as it gets better and driver intervention frequency goes down. I know it sounds paradoxical, but it’s really not that complicated - as the level 2 system requires less and less of driver’s attention, the driver will disengage, and therefore not be ready to take over when needed. The detection of driver inattention is not even reliable at detecting full driver incapacitation, so definitely will not be reliable detecting driver dazed or daydreaming, not paying attention even though holding hands on the wheel.

Tesla FSD slows down and pulls over if you don't respond to the nag, like during a medical emergency. It will even drive you to the hospital if you ask it to. The current system use eye tracking, so if you're not looking ahead, and staring at your phone or screen for too long, it will nag you and eventually pull over if you don't respond.

 

[AutoX]

My feelings towards Elon do not in any way affect my judgement of the product. I still recommend Model Y to people as a great choice for an EV for example, as long as you buy it only for what is available and functional on delivery day, and understand the way Tesla makes their statements, like my example of Tesla specifying "Max motor power" but omitting the fact that it's nowhere near achievable in the car they sell it in, but technically that motor could in fact generate this much power in some other car with a better battery, or like when Tesla promised Full Self Driving shuttling family and friends for free, and making money when owner doesn't need the car while driving for Tesla Ride Sharing Network - all that for cars sold in 2016, which are now a decade old, are you still a believer Tesla will enable all (or any) of those cars with Level 4 FSD for free?

I agree with you on this point. and this would apply to any cars or products I would buy. I would only buy the car if I'm content with the features that it had at the time that I bought it. Any improvements afterwards I would consider a bonus.

FSD was never free, you had to pay for it. In the past, Tesla had upgraded the computer for free in those cars that bought FSD. Depending on whether they can get the current FSD software to work with the older hardware or not, they may need to upgrade the older cars that bought FSD. Time will tell. But they did a free upgrade in the past.

Elon sold a vision of the future, his timeframe may be overly optimistic, but He/Tesla are working toward it and are making significant progress. At one time he said that a tesla can drive you coast to coast without intervention. He was way late, by years, but this year, that prediction has come to fruition with many people documenting their coast to coast drive on FSD without a single intervention. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

 

[AutoX]

Unfortunately this is just a throwaway argument that Tesla supporters sometimes make.

You said absolutely nothing about Musk, and their response is somehow that you “must hate Elon.”

Dislike of how a product is used
Dislike of a product feature
Dislike of a product
Dislike of a company
Dislike of a CEO’s decisions or actions
Dislike of a CEO’s opinion
Dislike of a CEO

This entire list can be mutually exclusive. And literally the only thing we are discussing is the top two. You can’t just assume if someone feels a way about the top two that the rest of the list is true.

This quote did not mention Musk, but others have and some of those had nothing to do Tesla, but rather his politics. That's why it's mention.

Again, there's a lot that Tesla can improve upon in their cars such as more buttons, better door handles, fancier interior. Etc. But a lot of arguments I hear from people that dislike Tesla are talking points, and has no correlation with reality. Most of these people have no first hand experience with Tesla or FSD.

 

[Zcd1]

It may be worth mentioning that despite all the hype about and criticism of FSD, its overall "take rate" remains well less than 20%...

 

[AutoX]

It may be worth mentioning that despite all the hype about and criticism of FSD, its overall "take rate" remains well less than 20%...

Because it's really expensive. At one point it was 15k. When you can get a Tesla for 35k-45k, paying and additional 15k is a no go. That's a 30-40% increase in price. Honestly I'm surprise that the uptake was 20%. I thought it would be 5% or less.

 

[whitex]

FSD was never free, you had to pay for it. In the past, Tesla had upgraded the computer for free in those cars that bought FSD. Depending on whether they can get the current FSD software to work with the older hardware or not, they may need to upgrade the older cars that bought FSD. Time will tell. But they did a free upgrade in the past.

No disrespect to you, but that is a fanboy argument repeated on the internet, lacking details and specificity. There is no way Tesla will upgrade any customer who paid in 2016 for free to a truly full self driving car (I bought one). They would have to retrofit the car with new set of sensors, new wiring harnesses (not just for new sensors, also for redundancy), and probably way more. It would likely be cheaper to give the customer a new Model S/X, but you know Elon can have a good excuse, they are no longer made. Teslas hope is that people who purchased a new 2016 six digit priced car are not likely to keep it over a decade, and they've been stripping FSD from those cars when they were resold (not only through Tesla, but they also retroactively added terms and conditions stating that if you resell the car through a 3rd party, like a dealer, FSD option is lost), and of course they blocked the sale of FSD for those cars long ago (breaking yet another feature of the car - "FSD ready"). So no, they are not upgrading people for free, some people got a free upgrade of hardware if it was close enough, but not to latest AP4 either which Elon claims will be necessary for FSD unsupervised. Tesla marketing works that way, they will do something for a small number of customers, then people repeat it on the internet generalizing to all users (e.g. 1,000 customer got something for free, internet generalizes it to "customers are getting something for free" implying all customers).

Want to prove me wrong, show me even one confirmed example of a Tesla customer who purchased a 2016 Tesla with FSD who got upgraded for free to AP4 hardware. Better yet, if you want to make some money on your faith in Tesla making it right, I'll give you odds if you are willing to make a bet that Tesla will offer a free unsupervised FSD upgrade to all Teslas purchased with lifetime FSD from the factory or had one added later.

Elon sold a vision of the future, his timeframe may be overly optimistic, but He/Tesla are working toward it and are making significant progress.

I think the key word here is "sold", i.e. took money for it, then never delivered. Sure, there was fine print there saying "nobody knows when it will be available" but it was framed in a way that implied the hardware is ready, Tesla already has the software, just need regulatory approvals. If this is just selling the vision of the future being overly optimistic, well I guess Elizabeth Holmes did the same, she just lost money for important people so went to jail for it, Elon is better at not screwing people with important people's money.

Do you think Tesla would give me new cars for an overly optimistic check, you know, a decade later I'd be telling them I'm making good progress towards having a balance in my checking account which would cover the check?

The argument that Elon is just overly optimistic is also just people arguing on faith, because technically you cannot prove what Elon really believed. However, the reason why I like to use the advertised horsepower (which was another Tesla I personally bought) is because there is no doubt he knew. When P85D came out, Elon touted it as 700hp car, Tesla listed it at 691hp motor power, no problem, Elon rounding up is understandable. Yet there was a physical pyro fuse in the battery that constrained the power to 463hp (yep, you'd need a 50% power boost to reach the advertised power). At first Tesla said "highway passing power update coming over the air" - vague enough to pacify new buyers (a lie, as the pyro fuse cannot be updated via OTA, you have to physically replace it with a bigger one, but then the battery would be killed instead). Then Elon and J.D. published an article how EV hp is somehow different than ICE hp, so 1 hp in and EV is worth at least 1.5hp of ICE, ROFL. Tesla has since deleted that article from their website. Then Tesla eventually lost in court in EU, admitted max power you can get at 100% SoC was 463hp, but said they did nothing wrong because the motors are in fact capable of 691hp, just limited by the battery. But, as Elon pointed out, P85D was no longer being produced by then, the newer P90D was now available, so the P85D admission does not affect new car sales. Funny thing, Tesla was not willing to sell me cars for a check that is for the full amount, just limited to much less by my account balance - same logic, right, they should say "he didn't lie, he did give us a check for the full amount, we owe him a car".

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