FSD Beta 10.4 Improvements with images and video
Tesla is slowly rolling out FSD Beta 10.4 to existing beta testers. Tesla hopes to expand the beta to users who have a Safety Score of 98 or higher in the coming days. Beta 10.4 builds upon FSD Beta 10.3 in several key areas.
The first is the crucial and common maneuver known as an unprotected left turn, where your car may have a green light, but needs to wait for oncoming traffic to pass before taking a left turn. Not only does a maneuver like this leave your car vulnerable, but it can also be complicated to complete.
With 10.4, Tesla improved high speed object detection and now allows for faster acceleration across certain roads. These improvements appear to be helping in making more reliable unprotected left turns.
In James Locke's video below, he shows off an impressive unprotected left turn in this newest beta. Not only does the car wait for oncoming traffic to clear, but the car starts slowly accelerating before the vehicle clears it's path, so that the car is up to speed by the time vehicle passes. It's much more natural and human-like behavior.
@elonmusk #FSDBeta 10.4 handling left turns much better. Both the approach to the turn and the turn itself. Can see how it starts turning to pass behind the oncoming car before it passes. Much more human like. pic.twitter.com/0LusOKEgxF
— James Locke (@arctechinc) November 7, 2021
FSD Beta's visualizations are a big improvement over the visualizations in the public builds, partly due to object permanence.
The software is able to tell the difference between an object moving or disappearing versus it being hidden by another object. If there was a person in front of your car, but then a vehicle slowly drove by, between your car and that person, we'd likely conclude that the person is still there, just hidden behind the car.
That's what Tesla is doing now, not only with visualizations, but what the car sees as its surroundings. Once the car sees an object, it records it's time and position in the world in a semi-permanent state. Even when the car can't see the object any longer, it still knows it's there.
Sure, this could lead to some errors, but it often does in humans as well. In the example above, where the person was obscured by the car, it's possible the person got into another car or left the scene without us seeing because the car was blocking our view.
In this update, we're seeing more complete visualizations thanks to Tesla drastically improving the detection of VRUs (vulnerable road users) such as pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcycles by using a next generation auto labeler.
You can read the complete technical release notes for the FSD Beta 10.4.
New Visualizations
Visualizations also received a small update. The car was already detecting and slowing down for speed bumps, but speed bumps are now shown in the visualizations as well.
Crosswalks also received a minor visualization update. They used to be depicted as two white parallel lines, but they now appear as a filled in dark area on the screen. They're a little more obvious and there are less jagged lines, but they also don't exactly look like crosswalks either. If Tesla added the thick stripes crosswalks usually have, that could prove useful.
There are other smaller improvements in this beta such as improved emergency vehicle detection, improved VRU relevance by using the vehicle's intended path and more.
Improved Warnings
Tesla has greatly improved driver monitoring by not relying solely on steering wheel tension and instead using the interior camera. Tesla apparently started included the interior camera in Model 3s apparently for a robotaxi future, but it appears to have paid off for FSD instead. Relying on steering wheel tension was unreliable and an annoyance for drivers.
With the cabin camera Tesla can closely monitor where the driver is looking and constantly checking whether they're paying attention. An inattentive driver will receive an instant warning to pay attention if they're looking down, staring at their phone or looking to the side if Autopilot is activated.
Early last month Tesla starting enforcing stricter rules when using FSD, where they will kick out beta testers if they're caught not paying attention several times.
In this beta, Tesla appears to have expanded these warnings to being on-screen as well, instead of relying on an email message. These warnings will be crucial to Tesla keeping the FSD Beta program and remaining accident free.
What's Not Included Yet
We know two big features are coming to FSD soon, but they're not yet included in this 10.4 update. The first is using a single stack for city and highway driving. Highway Autopilot is still completely separate and the same as the public build.
We're also anticipating the feature that will give the vehicle the ability to go into reverse. If the vehicle creeps forward for better visibility and decides it's unsafe to proceed, it'll back up to move out of the way of others.
Elon first anticipated this feature to come in FSD Beta 10.1, but we haven't seen it in FSD builds yet.
It's possible we may see both of these features added in the next major FSD release v11, which may come as the next FSD Beta. FSD Beta 10.4 also includes Sentry Mode Live Access for those with a Model 3, Model Y or the new Model S and X.
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