Tesla's Full Self Driving technology is making headlines once again... and not for good reasons. A group hostile to the manufacturer has just conducted a test with a Model Y with FSD enabled. Suffice it to say that the results obtained are very worrying, and call into question the effectiveness of the system.
As Tesla officially prepares to launch its first fleet of autonomous taxis on June 22, its autonomous driving technology is making headlines again. And not for good reasons. Indeed, The Dawn Project, a collective that campaigns for greater protection and better security for software intended for the general public, has just carried out a new test of Full Self Driving (FSD). In the streets of Austin, the members of the organization wanted to test the capabilities of the driving system in a very specific situation: when a school bus stops to drop off children. To be as realistic as possible, the bus is parked on the shoulder, the mechanical arm with the stop sign deployed, while child-sized dummies are placed on the road as if they are crossing. Tesla's FSD cannot detect a school bus and childrencomplete ban on FSD on American roads.
This request has gone unanswered by the NHTSA (editor's note: the US federal agency responsible for road safety), even though fatal accidents involving FSD have increased in recent years. In April 2024, a cyclist died in Washington after being hit by a Model S with FSD activated.
In another recent example, a Tesla Model 3 got stuck on a railroad track this Monday, June 16, in Pennsylvania. According to the driver, the FSD was indeed activated on the electric sedan. According to his testimony, the car chose to go around the railroad barrier, before getting stuck on the tracks. We reported a similar story in our columns last year. Fortunately, the owner managed to get out of the vehicle before hitting a freight train. However, the involvement of FSD is not yet 100% certain. In the past, some reckless drivers have not hesitated to blame the system. Regardless, these two cases show that FSD is not infallible and can cause terrible accidents. Not necessarily reassuring, especially when you consider that Tesla is currently testing FSD in Europe with a view to an upcoming launch.
Source: Engadget
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