Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Beta system was caught on video impressively detecting and avoiding a deer crossing the road at night.
Watch the video below.
Over the last few months, Tesla has been pushing its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software to a limited group of Tesla vehicle owners in order to test an early version of the company’s autonomous driving system.
The name can be confusing since it’s not “fully” self-driving, as the responsibility falls on the driver to monitor the vehicle at all times and be ready to take control.
But in practice, Tesla’s FSD beta software does detect and navigate its environment autonomously for the most part.
The driver simply has to enter a destination in the navigation system, and the car will attempt to autonomously drive to the destination.
The goal of the beta release is to put the system through more real-world scenarios in order to train the neural nets powering the self-driving software. This is a controversial approach considering Tesla is basically using its customers as testers, but the program is completely optional, and drivers can opt out.
We have been reporting on the experience of early beta users over the last few weeks who reported some impressive performance as well as some scary moments in different real-world driving scenarios.
This new video falls in the former category.
A Youtuber who goes by “Dirty Tesla” posted a video of his Tesla Model 3 on the latest Full Self-Driving Beta software detecting and avoiding a deer on the road:
In the video, we can see on the driving visualization at the bottom that the FSD Beta quickly detects the deer, slows down, and plan a slightly different path to avoid it.
We have previously seen Tesla Autopilot swerve at the last second to avoid a deer, but this is the first time that we have seen the capability in the new version of Tesla’s software powering the FSD Beta.
Tesla is planning to expand the Full Self-Driving Beta update to more owners in the coming weeks.
Electrek’s Take
This is impressive. I would also note that this all happened on a dirt road, which Tesla’s FSD Beta appears to be pretty good at navigating.
That’s why Tesla needs more mileage on the FSD Beta — to put the system through more scenarios that most people don’t encounter every day.
It would have been interesting to see how the system would have reacted at 40, 50, and 60 mph in similar scenarios. It drastically increases the difficulty of the maneuver, but it happened on a dirt road at lower speeds.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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