US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

Lots of people are asking how good the self driving has to be before we tolerate it. I got a one month free trial of FSD and turned it off after two weeks. Quite simply: it's dangerous.

- It failed with a cryptic system error while driving

- It started making a left turn far too early that would have scraped the left side of the car on a sign. I had to manually intervene.

- In my opinion, the default setting accelerates way too aggressively. I'd call myself a fairly aggressive driver and it is too aggressive for my taste.

- It tried to make way too many right turns on red when it wasn't safe to. It would creep into the road, almost into the path of oncoming vehicles.

- It didn't merge left to make room for vehicles merging onto the highway. The vehicles then tried to cut in. The system should have avoided an unsafe situation like this in the first place.

- It would switch lanes to go faster on the highway, but then missed an exit on at least one occasion because it couldn't make it back into the right lane in time. Stupid.

After the system error, I lost all trust in FSD from Tesla. Until I ride in one and feel safe, I can't have any faith that this is a reasonable system. Hell, even autopilot does dumb shit on a regular basis. I'm grateful to be getting a car from another manufacturer this year.

Arguably the problem with Tesla self-driving is that it's stuck in an uncanny valley of performance where it's worse than better performing systems but also worse from a user experience perspective than even less capable systems.

Less capable driver assistance type systems might help the driver out (e.g. adaptive cruise control), but leave no doubt that the human is still driving. Tesla though goes far enough that it takes over driving from the human but it isn't reliable enough that the human can stop paying attention and be ready to take over at a moment's notice. This seems like the worst of all possible worlds since you are both disengaged by having to maintain alertness.

Autopilots in airplanes are much the same way, pilots can't just turn it on and take a nap. But the difference is that nothing an autopilot is going to do will instantly crash the plane, while Tesla screwing up will require split second reactions from the driver to correct for.

I feel like the real answer to your question is that having reasonable confidence in self-driving cars beyond "driver assistance" type features will ultimately require a car that will literally get from A to B reliably even if you're taking a nap. Anything close to that but not quite there is in my mind almost worse than something more basic.