Tesla’s latest 12.3 version of full self-driving is reportedly improved to a point that it almost seems like a Tesla worker is remotely driving the car, according to this YouTube video.
It’s not all positive though, so allow us to explain. Previous versions of Tesla’s full self-driving were often criticized for being overly cautious, especially in situations where the vehicle had to turn in front of oncoming traffic. Oftentimes the Tesla would wait, and wait and wait for what seemed like an eternity.
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Tesla’s full self-driving V12.3 has a whole different feel to it.
Version 12.3 of Tesla’s full self-driving is much less hesitant. It drives more like a human would, which means it makes some riskier choices from time to time but that’s probably better than sitting at a light waiting for several minutes while hoping for a huge opening in traffic.
In such circumstances, there are two options—wait for the car to eventually turn on its own or take over the controls and proceed to turn it yourself. The latter is a disengagement and AI DRIVR (the uploader of this video and countless others on Tesla Autopilot and FSD) considers that to be a full self-driving failure.
With 12.3 though, AI DRIVR found the car to react quicker, more like a human would, and also to move about in a bit more riskier way. He says that human drivers know that there’s a slight risk when turning into oncoming traffic and are willing to take that risk and now it seems FSD 12.3 evaluates the risk and finds the same “go” spot too.
Also worth noting is that FSD 12.3 seems to see pedestrians and other obstructions better than a human can. However, there is one incident in which Automatic Emergency Braking took over when it seemed as though full self-driving had the situation under control.
Here are the highlights of 12.3, as pointed out by AI DRIVR:
However, there were still several critical disengagement, all having to do with closed roads or “Road Closed” signs. Until this gets sorted out, FSD is not ready to emerge from beta status, says AI DRIVR. Additionally, Tesla needs to enable reverse on full self-driving. Without this, FSD is not ready to exit beta either.
In August of 2023, Musk live-streamed a 45-minute drive of a Tesla Model S using the FSD V12 release. During that test, he said the system works like a human brain, using neural nets and eyes (cameras), as well as relying on artificial intelligence. And now, AI DRIVR also says that V12.3 does seem to have that human connection.
A few comments on the YouTube video confirm this human-like V12.3:
Just did my first v12.3 drive and it was my best FSD drive ever. It was superbly human-like with only a single acceleration intervention just for my comfort.
“Same thing I would have done” is the new benchmark . Incredible progress!
