A Tesla owner has showcased the capabilities of his vehicle in avoiding road collisions while in self-driving mode.
YouTuber ‘Dirty Tesla’ decided to evaluate the safety of Full Self-Driving (FSD) on his Tesla Model Y, which is priced at approximately $44,000.
In his 11-minute video, the YouTuber sets up various tests to assess the performance of Tesla’s FSD mode, specifically hardware version four.
He placed a stuffed rabbit on the road to examine the car’s response to small animals, which resulted in the vehicle running over it.
When an exercise ball was rolled in front of the car, it attempted to swerve at the last moment but ended up knocking it aside.
The critical test was observing how the vehicle would react to a child on the road.
To ensure safety, the YouTuber used a mannequin instead of an actual child, attaching it to a sled while his partner Stephanie slowly pulled it across the street.
In the video, he explained: “The car is fully in control, Stephanie is ducking back there [to avoid being detected by the Tesla’s sensors as she pulls the mannequin across the road] and here comes the kid, and, and it sees it, and it stops for the kid.”
The YouTuber further stated: “It stopped, I’ve not interfered, I’ve not done anything and FSD has decided I’m not going to run over that body.”
They conducted the test two more times, with Stephanie pulling the ‘child’ into the path of the car at later intervals to evaluate its reaction speed.
Dirty Tesla noted: “Stephanie’s going to wait a lot longer this time to pull that kid out as you can see the car is slowing down, and, it stopped we weren’t going very fast not that dramatic but it did the right thing.”
“What do you want? I don’t have a paved road so the car only wants to go a certain speed but success,” he commented as the car moved noticeably slower than in earlier tests.
Viewers took to the comments section on the social media platform to share their thoughts on the demonstration.
One person remarked: “The system cannot tell the difference between a dog and a big round ball? Another fail.”
Another added: “Nice test. The horizontal box and ball were unfortunate. I agree, front facing camera makes sense.”
A third shared: “The problem with this in my country is that Jay walkers are waiting to cross the road. If the vehicle detect and slow down, either the pedestrian think it’s a signal for them to cross or they get impatient waiting for the car to go pass them first.”
Another commented: “Interesting tests! But shows, there is a long way to go, even under perfect conditions.”