# Difficult Corner Cases for FSD to Handle



## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

Recently I was driving on a 2-lane road using TACC with lane keep. There was no traffic around me and I was travelling at about 45 mph. Up ahead I could see where some type of white material had spilled on the roadway and then been tracked through by a following vehicle. The white line that was left tracked on an arc from the right side of my lane over to the center lane in about 100 feet. Since the track looked remarkably like a lane line, I was prepared for lane keep to have difficulty, and it did. The car swerved suddenly across the center line and into the opposing lane before I took over.

As I reflected on this aberration, I began to wonder how in the world FSD can ever evolve to handle a corner case like this? As an outsider to software programming, it seems very difficult if not impossible to cover all possible corner cases. I suppose that I should have made a bug report, but I didn't think of it until much later.

What corner cases have you encountered? Do you think that it's possible for this car to truly evolve to the point that human oversight is not required?

And, please don't forget to be ready to take control back from your car at any time!


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## IPv6Freely (Aug 8, 2017)

More than a few. NoAP decided it was going to start exiting the highway about 100' before... you know... the exit started. That was fun. Or the way it will decide that it needs to exit and get behind a massive truck doing 50 on the freeway over a mile before the exit rather than getting in front of the truck. The biggest one is the sheer fact that the car seems to have absolutely no clue that the HOV lanes on I-15 in San Diego even exist and keeps trying to get me to exit once I'm on them. I can't imagine actual true FSD is going to be happening any time soon. Which is, in my opinion, why they messed with the original autopilot packages, because they know there was no reason for somebody to actually buy the original FSD package. Just my tinfoil hat opinion though, based on my experiences with my Model 3 (that I very much love!)


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

I had one highway AP issue (well, one that I'm speaking about here - there were many other issues). Traveling ~65 (current limit) and the 2-lane, divided road came to some twisties. After a couple turns that seemed like AP thought it was going too fast, it abruptly aborted AP - beeped with screen warning - while keeping TACC on.

All it needed to do was slow down, and it made the wrong decision. If that ever happens in FSD, it will result in tears.


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## Frully (Aug 30, 2018)

There's a merge lane on a highway I use where they used a different-style-dashed-line to indicate where the merging cars were to zipper into the existing lanes (to prevent them cutting each other off). 2 lanes + 2 lanes = 2 lanes. 
If I'm in the lane that gets crossed by this merging painted line from the extra lanes, the car will randomly choose between going straight, or violently merging into the adjacent lane following the other set of lane lines.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

IPv6Freely said:


> ...the car seems to have absolutely no clue that the HOV lanes on I-15 in San Diego even exist...


Check your navigation settings and make sure you have "Use HOV Lanes" set.


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## potatoee (Aug 26, 2018)

Fundamentally, I view the current AI in Teslas as being not so much "Intelligent" but more "Adolescent" like. Adolescents make lots of mistakes but learn and get better but end up being imperfect humans over time.

At a tactical level, the AP simply knows things like "keeping the car between the lines," the speed limit, the road network based on GIS information and the car's GPS location and where you want to go. This is not really "intelligent" and certainly not "wisdom." The capability of Tesla's AI/NN is solely based on training based on previously observed scenarios and repeating the desired result if it recognizes the situation. Tesla has a huge advantage with it's practices to get road data and test its software as they roll it out.

For now and until this "information architecture" changes, our cars cannot anticipate what is the proper thing to do in new situations it has never seen and its NN may not have sufficient training to recognize corner cases with statistical certainty to give the results we need. I'd argue the same is true for us mortals (that's why we get into "accidents").

Until this changes radically, I will have my hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and enjoying the peace of mind to know that we have two brains focused on getting me safely to where I need to go. No guarantees but two heads are better than one.

Living life is a statistical journey.


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## Derik (Jul 26, 2017)

IPv6Freely said:


> The biggest one is the sheer fact that the car seems to have absolutely no clue that the HOV lanes on I-15 in San Diego even exist and keeps trying to get me to exit once I'm on them.





garsh said:


> Check your navigation settings and make sure you have "Use HOV Lanes" set.


I've got my settings correct and I use the HOV lanes every day. Nav on Autopilot wants to enter the lane when it opens, then it wants to go over to the very left lane (there are 2 HOV lanes) until the lines actually become solid. Then it is OK with it for a while. I want to get off the HOV lanes from an HOV lane exit but the nav always wants me to get off the exit before hand. I've let it go before just to see what it would do, and it misses the HOV lane exit into the normal traffic to even get to the exit the nav wants it to go to. So it'll slow down where the exit is, but I'm still in the HOV lane.
Once it recalcs to use the HOV lane exit, it then wants to get over to the left lane and will miss that exit as well.

One of the major problems I think it has with the HOV lane on the 15 is the fact it actually changes the number of lanes the HOV has. Times of the day it's 1 lane, and other times it is up to 3 lanes. I don't think it has any clue what to do with that corner case.

None of this mentions the fact that it flashes it wants to change lanes to remain on the route, then turns if off.. then turns it back on... then off.. and on.. etc.. even though I'm already in the HOV lanes.

I normally just turn off Nav on autopilot once I get in the HOV lanes.


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## tencate (Jan 11, 2018)

Driving into the setting sun. I can't see, neither can my car---although I think it sees better than I do and only protests when it gets really really bad. Granted this is the cause of lots of accidents with people driving too. We had a head on fatality here a year or so ago when that happened (naturally it depends on the sun's position in the sky throughout the year so thankfully it's not often). But unless the car can look down on the lane lines somehow I don't see a way around that without more sensors. Rare, yes but a corner case that's worth some thought maybe.


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## IPv6Freely (Aug 8, 2017)

garsh said:


> Check your navigation settings and make sure you have "Use HOV Lanes" set.


It is.



Derik said:


> I've got my settings correct and I use the HOV lanes every day. Nav on Autopilot wants to enter the lane when it opens, then it wants to go over to the very left lane (there are 2 HOV lanes) until the lines actually become solid. Then it is OK with it for a while. I want to get off the HOV lanes from an HOV lane exit but the nav always wants me to get off the exit before hand. I've let it go before just to see what it would do, and it misses the HOV lane exit into the normal traffic to even get to the exit the nav wants it to go to. So it'll slow down where the exit is, but I'm still in the HOV lane.
> Once it recalcs to use the HOV lane exit, it then wants to get over to the left lane and will miss that exit as well.
> 
> One of the major problems I think it has with the HOV lane on the 15 is the fact it actually changes the number of lanes the HOV has. Times of the day it's 1 lane, and other times it is up to 3 lanes. I don't think it has any clue what to do with that corner case.
> ...


For me, I work in Rancho Bernardo and it keeps trying to get me to exit the HOV lanes so I can exit the highway on Bernardo Center Drive, rather than... you know... the HOV exit that comes right after it. If I have "Use HOV lanes" enabled, you'd think the car's nav would tell me to get into HOV lanes while on I-15, too.


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## Derik (Jul 26, 2017)

IPv6Freely said:


> It is.
> 
> For me, I work in Rancho Bernardo and it keeps trying to get me to exit the HOV lanes so I can exit the highway on Bernardo Center Drive, rather than... you know... the HOV exit that comes right after it. If I have "Use HOV lanes" enabled, you'd think the car's nav would tell me to get into HOV lanes while on I-15, too.


Well.. I use the exact same exit. Guess it's a good thing to know that it isn't just my car doing it.


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## Unplugged (Apr 5, 2016)

The issue I have with Autopilot involves the 91 Freeway Express Lanes in Orange/ Riverside County. The Express Lanes are separated from the regular traffic lanes by plastic poles spaced about five feet apart. 

The bad stuff happens on Autopilot when the regular lanes slow or stop, and the Express Lanes are at speed. Because the regular traffic lanes are close to the Express Lanes, the Autopilot panics and abruptly engages the brakes (phantom braking) at speeds of 70+ mph. 

The Tesla driver must maintain vigilance and hover a foot over the accelerator if anyone is traveling behind. Once, when no one was near, I allowed the phantom braking to engage, and the car slowed to about 35 mph.

Braking without warning at freeway speed is obviously a danger. This is a dangerous situation should anyone rely on Autopilot to maintain speed.


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