A Tesla owner posted a video to social media on Sunday showing how his car in Full Self Driving (FSD) mode crossed a pair of double yellow lines to overtake a cyclist and nearly caused a head-on collision with a cop car in the other lane.
“One of the most horrific drives I had with FSD yet!” @FixorFuckit captioned the video on X. “Tesla #AutoPilot tries passing a cyclist, would’ve been a head-on collision with a police officer. Important to be alert w/FSD. I took over and pulled us back to safety!”
The video shows the driver, known online as @Fixorfuckit, grabbing the wheel after his vehicle changes lanes into oncoming traffic. The cop’s taillights show that he pressed on his brakes as the Tesla driver pulled back into his own lane.
“I thought He was going to pull me over,” the driver wrote. “@elonmusk needs to fix this sh*t before August 2024 #robotaxi / CyberCab announcement. I believe in you Elon!” the driver wrote.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in April that the company was set to launch a robotaxi service on Aug. 8 of this year. But the problems with FSD have some users online doubting just how likely that sort of timeline would be with errors like the ones documented by @Fixorfuckit.
“See, this is what gets me the most. He calls it FSD – full self driving, yet this driver had to take over. Good on him for paying attention, like he should. But this should never be named like it is,” posted u/MakionGarvinus on the r/RealTelsa subreddit, where users discuss Tesla’s shortcomings with a critical eye. “Also, why is the system trying to pass on a double yellow line?”
“I am still amazed that the car tried to pass a bike on a double yellow,” added u/straponkaren. “The lane markers in the center of the road describe how passing is supposed to work and its well encoded in drivers handbooks. The car should know where it can pass a bike based on readily available information. The failure of the behavior of this car is naked and shocking.”
On X though, some posters called out the driver for not trusting the autopilot system.
“It’s irresponsible to state there would have been a head on collision,” posted @aronth5. “Could there have been? Sure. But it’s just as likely that FSD would have avoided the police car.”
“It is absolutely not irresponsible to say what I say you are not the one driving when I saw that cop head on it was about three seconds before I swerved to the right,” replied @FixorFkit. “FSD wasn’t doing sh&t during that time and needless to say any of what I just did because FSD should not be swerving into an oncoming lane that’s on a blind curved road in the first place.”
In April, a Tesla model S driver was charged with vehicular homicide after killing a motorcyclist in Washington while in autopilot mode. The vehicle “lurched forward as it accelerated and collided with the motorcycle in front of him,” reported Fox 13 Seattle. According to court documents, the driver in the car was looking down at his phone while using the autopilot feature, and the motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.
“I’m not about to be @elonmusk test dummy for his FSD auto pilot system (and hope his FSD moves out of the way) and end up like this poor kid,” posted @FixorFkit, citing the April accident.
The near-miss is just the latest bad publicity for Tesla, which has most recently struggled with issues related to its Cybertruck.
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