Tesla’s driver-assist feature struggled to handle left turns in a large San Francisco neighborhood, prompting the company to deploy dozens of test drivers to try to fix the problem earlier this year, a former Tesla employee told The Information.
One of Elon Musk’s major promises – self-driving taxis – hinges on Tesla’s ability to improve its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, a driver assistance feature that can change lanes, enter and exit highway ramps, recognize traffic lights and signs, and self-drive. -park under the supervision of the driver.
FSD differs from the company’s Autopilot feature, which is essentially an advanced cruise control mode that can also steer itself automatically in clearly marked lanes, according to Tesla’s website.
The electric vehicle maker has encountered various technical and legal issues with the FSD system as it strives to meet Musk’s ever-changing deadlines – the CEO announced last month. that it plans to unveil Tesla’s robotaxi in August.
A former employee told The Information that one such technical issue Tesla recently encountered involved driving its vehicles in San Francisco’s Sunset District, an area bordered by Golden Gate Park to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the east. ‘west.
As The Information noted in its report, some roads in Sunset have dedicated transit lanes — although that’s not unique to the neighborhood.
Here is the city’s Municipal Railway (MUNI) tram crossing Judah Street at sunset:
The San Francisco Municipal Railway light rail train approaches a stop in the Sunset District. Lloyd Lee/BI
This element of Sunset streets also comes with turning restrictions. Drivers at certain intersections are prohibited from turning left, making U-turns and turning right on red.
A main road along the northern edge of Sunset, Lincoln Way, is divided by barriers or narrow medians. Drivers have intermittent opportunities on the road to turn left – some protected and some unprotected – while other parts of Lincoln Way prevent drivers from turning left.
It’s unclear whether other aspects of Sunset’s network stumble more on Tesla’s FSD than other San Francisco neighborhoods. A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
A Tesla turns left unprotected onto Lincoln Way, a main road in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Lloyd Lee/BI
The Tesla team, however, found that Sunset drivers often had to intervene with the vehicle’s FSD by taking control of the steering wheel, a former Tesla employee told The Information.
To fix the problem, Tesla deployed dozens of test drivers and asked its engineers to focus on delivering software updates that could improve the FSD experience in the neighborhood, the source said.
The report does not indicate whether these efforts have significantly improved the characteristics of the region.
Tesla still dominates in San Francisco
San Francisco as a whole – with its dense population, one-way and restricted streets, and extensive public transportation artery – can be a difficult city to navigate for novice drivers.
Another street that was once notoriously difficult to work on for Tesla’s FSD was Lombard Street, a steep and windy road in northwest San Francisco. In 2021, a YouTuber, Tesla Raj, recorded himself constantly intervening with the system as the car veered toward the side of the road. The video also showed that the FSD system could, at one point, hallucinate objects on the street, rapidly flashing images of a car or human figure on the screen.
San Francisco’s famous Lombard Street Tayfun Coskun Agency/Anadolu via Getty Images
John Bernal, a former Tesla employee who worked with the Autopilot team, told the Washington Post in 2023 that Tesla engineers coded invisible barriers into FSD specifically for Lombard Street instead of making broader changes to the software.
However, the city is full of Teslas. Data from S&P Global Mobility showed the brand accounted for almost a quarter of all new car registrations in the city in March 2023.
A Business Insider reporter was immediately able to report a Tesla driver stopped at an intersection in the Sunset.
The driver said she enjoyed her first Tesla Model X so much that she bought the second Tesla she drove four months ago. When asked how to use the FSD feature in Sunset, she told BI that she had “no issues” with it.
“I like it,” the driver told BI.
A Tesla parked in San Francisco’s Sunset District, where company employees rigorously tested the car’s Full Self-Driving technology, according to a report. Lloyd Lee/BI
Alongside a cheaper Tesla model, FSD remains a key part of the electric vehicle maker’s valuation as Musk has promised for years to deliver fully autonomous cabins.
The CEO once said in 2022 that implementing self-driving technology was “really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or being worth next to nothing.”
Yet, seven years after the release of FSD in late 2016, Tesla has yet to receive regulatory approval to test autonomous taxis on public roads, and the term Full Self-Driving remains a somewhat misnomer since it requires operator supervision at all times.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) accused the company in 2022 of false advertising by using the term and claiming the technology stands alone in advertisements despite FSD limitations. Tesla argued in its defense that the DMV was violating its right to free speech and that the complaint had no legal force because regulators took too long to make the allegations, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Tesla also still faces several lawsuits accusing the company’s Autopilot, a less advanced driver assistance technology, of being responsible for fatal crashes.
In April, the company settled a lawsuit against the family of Walter Huang, who died in 2018 after his Tesla crashed into a concrete barrier while the vehicle was on autopilot.
businessinsider
