Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk decided to livestream a demonstration of the company’s Full Self-Driving v12 software on Twitter, which he recently changed to just X. Back in July, Musk described the new software as “mind-blowing,” so obviously, it was going to be perfect at driving despite not using radar or lidar, and we’d all be clamoring for our chance to own a car powered by this revolutionary software, right? After all, it uses neural nets now, which is so advanced.
Sadly, no, the demonstration was not mind-blowing. But it wasn’t a total disaster, either. The car didn’t crash, which is always nice. It’s generally considered a good thing not to crash while demonstrating new technology. It appears to be decent at dealing with construction and better at navigating roundabouts than previous versions of FSD. But ultimately, it also made a number of mistakes that make it clear that FSD v12 still isn’t ready for the big leagues just yet.
After navigating a construction zone, at about the 1:45 mark, the car drives into the wrong lane. It soon corrects itself, but Musk is lucky there was no oncoming traffic to make that mistake potentially more dangerous. A little later, slightly less than 20 minutes in, the car tries to run a red light, forcing Musk to intervene. Hopefully, Tesla can fix that tiny little very dangerous thing before FSD v12 is released to the public.
Speaking of Musk’s intervention, it’s also worth mentioning that instead of using a phone mount, dash cam or having a passenger hold the phone, Musk instead chose to record the video himself. Which is also against the law in California. Not that Musk cares about the essentially insignificant cost of a ticket for cell phone use while driving. After all, he’s rich.
Although, clearly, having money didn’t guarantee he would be able to livestream the drive on the platform he also owns at anything approaching a viewable resolution. The video is so grainy, it’s legitimately hard to watch. If he hit 144p at any point, we’d be surprised. Maybe he just decided to be quirky that day and record using an original Motorola Razr?
So while it wasn’t a disaster, you still can’t exactly call it mind-blowing. Ultimately, it was about what you’d expect from a demonstration of Tesla’s new self-driving software. Right down to the part where Musk Googles Mark Zuckerberg’s home address and suggests driving there, saying, “This cannot be considered doxxing if you just Google it.” Whatever you say, Elon.