https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/24/22743628/elon-musk-tesla-fsd-beta-10-3-rollback-issues-phantom-fcw

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Filed under:

  * Tech
  * Transportation
  * Cars

Tesla pulled its latest 'Full Self Driving' beta after testers
complained about false crash warnings and other bugs

Elon Musk didn't specify what issues the company found

By Richard Lawler@rjcc Oct 24, 2021, 5:53pm EDT

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[acastro_18] Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla's decision to test its "Full Self Driving" advanced driver
assistance software with untrained vehicle owners on public roads has
attracted scrutiny and criticism, and that was before this latest
release.

Version 10.3 began rolling out on Saturday night / Sunday morning
with a long list of release notes. The list mentions changes starting
with introducing driver profiles that can swap between different
characteristics for following distance, rolling stops, or exiting
passing lanes. It's supposed to better detect brake lights, turn
signals, and hazard lights from other vehicles, along with reduced
false slowdowns and improved offsetting for pedestrians.

However, on Sunday afternoon Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla is "Seeing
some issues with 10.3, so rolling back to 10.2 temporarily."

    Seeing some issues with 10.3, so rolling back to 10.2
    temporarily.

    Please note, this is to be expected with beta software. It is
    impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with
    internal QA, hence public beta.

    -- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 24, 2021

(As always, to be clear: this software does not make Tesla's cars
fully autonomous. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has himself even said that he
believes the "feature complete" version of the software his company
calls "Full Self-Driving" will, at best, only be "likely" to drive
someone from their home to work without human intervention and will
still require supervision. That does not describe a fully autonomous
car.)

While several drivers have already shared videos and impressions of
their experience with the release -- whether or not that aligns with
what Tesla wants participants to share on social media -- testers say
that the rollback update removes the FSD beta capabilities from their
cars entirely.

While several posters said the 10.3 update introduces phantom forward
collision warnings (FCW), other issues noted included a disappearing
Autosteer option, traffic aware cruise control (TACC) problems, and
occasional AutoPilot panic. It's unclear how common these problems
are and which ones, if any, caused the rollback, but Musk responded
to a tweet about the Autosteer and TACC issues saying the company is
working on it.

If it's a common problem within the test group, then a phantom FCW
would certainly be serious enough to initiate a rollback. In 2019
there was a Mazda3 recall to address problems with the Smart Braking
System falsely detecting objects in the car's path. If another car
follows closely, vehicles that suddenly slam on the brakes for no
reason -- as several social media posts claim has happened -- could
easily cause an accident. Another problem for testers is that several
claimed the false FCW incidents lowered their Tesla-graded "safety
score" low enough that they might not be able to remain in the beta.

Related

Safety regulator wants info on Tesla's FSD beta, 'safety score'
evaluation

Tesla privately admits Elon Musk has been exaggerating about 'full
self-driving'

For anyone concerned with being an unwilling member of the test group
by simply existing near a Tesla using work-in-progress software, this
could be a sign that the company is addressing problems quickly or an
example of how dangerous it is. On the other hand, for Tesla owners
hoping the test expands to include people with a lower safety score,
hacker @greentheonly tweets, "To those of you with low scores that
wait for the FSD: don't. Imagine if you drove the way the app
requires, that would be horrible, right? But the car drives even
worse! It's seriously totally unusable in any sort of traffic and on
narrow roads, the videos don't do it justice."

    Similar to how I don't use stopping light control the current of
    iteration is something I'd want off outside of limited
    experiments, but unlike TL stopping mode you cannot turn off FSD
    annoyances!
    (hopefully it improves, but knowing Tesla, that's long ways off)

    -- green (@greentheonly) October 12, 2021

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