- Tesla is about to launch its Full-Self-Driving system in Australasia.
- Media was invited to try the system in Brisbane earlier this month.
- Tesla hasn't said when the system will be available here yet.
The future is here and it’s going to blow your mind.
Tesla is about to launch its Full Self Driving (Supervised) in New Zealand and Australia, and CarsGuide was among the first people to trial it on local roads, around Brisbane earlier this month.
I was a little bit uneasy at trialling the self driving tech. I like driving and don’t want the car to do it for me, but it’s a hot button issue with carmakers and tech companies all around the world are pouring billions into developing it. Not to mention it'll make my job redundant.
Chinese carmakers and customers love self driving functions. There are several trial zones in the US, where full self-driving cars are operating as taxis, but nothing like this has passed the short trial phase in this part of the world… until now.
Tesla has been taking more than $10,000 off customers for years with the promise of Full Self Driving capabilities, and it could be finally ready to deliver.
The American electric carmaker's team on the day gave some simple instructions: Select a preset route on the sat nav, activate FSD (Supervised) and let it do its thing.
We were warned that we must be paying attention to the road ahead and be ready to take the steering wheel if needed as we were still required to be in control of the car, as the Supervised part of the name suggests.
Other than that we were let loose in our Tesla Model 3, sweaty palms hanging deadly in our lap and unblinking eyes staring straight ahead as FSD (Supervised) took the wheel.
The car released itself from its parallel parking spot and continued down the road. The next two hours were an eye-opening experience of what the future of driving - or not driving - will be like Down Under.
The hi-tech software piloted us from our Mount Cotton starting point outside of Brisbane through the suburbs, on the motorway and through Brisbane’s CBD and back again with a few check point stops along the way.
The only way to describe the tech is: Impressive.
It handled turning across traffic on busy roads with ease. It navigated big and complicated roundabouts.
It merged on to and off motorways with more precision than many drivers can't muster.
The Model 3 would overtake slow-moving vehicles on the motorway all on its own. It would wait to see if the vehicle would speed up, then it would indicate right and around the slow moving truck it would go.
One noticeable trait of Tesla's FSD (Supervised) was that it was more cautious than I expected.
It always travelled about 10 per cent below the speed limit and it took corners very slowly, probably a bit too slowly judging by the amount of times my rear-view mirror was completely filled with a ute grille and headlights.
This was easily overcome, as you could speed up by simply using the accelerator pedal, which also does not deactivate the FSD (Supervised).
Now, it's not all perfect.
The FSD (Supervised) doesn't look far enough ahead and often got itself in a situation where it had to scoot across multiple lanes in a short amount of time.
It tried to drive over a concrete divider when it found itself in a left turn only lane at a round about before I stepped in and kept it going down the wrong path instead of potentially damaging the car and barging into another lane.
It also got a little bit disorientated when it encountered worn out lane markings and found itself wandering towards a Mitsubishi Triton that let me know about it as I steered it back into my lane.
It also often read the speed limit sign on the motorway exit ramp it passed by and applied the brakes fairly sternly, which isn’t ideal when everyone is travelling 100km/h around you.
All semi-autonomous tech warns you if your hands are off the wheel for more than about half a minute. Not the Tesla, it never sounded the alarm and asked me to put my hands back on the wheel. It did beep at me if I wasn't paying attention to the road ahead, though.
Tesla employees said it isn’t a requirement and the legislation is vague in Australia and simply states the driver must be in control, which is why they stressed we must be paying attention and be ready to take the wheel at any time.
It is still an imperfect tech and is only rated as a Level 2 autonomous system, which means you are driving and the tech is assisting, but it felt like it operated as a Level 3 technology that puts it firmly in the self-driving car column.
There is no other way to say it than Tesla’s FSD (Supervised) was an impressive piece of tech that shows autonomous cars will become a reality, and it’ll be here sooner than you think or want.
- Dom Tripolone, news editor