- 3 months ago
Tesla has finally rolled out Full Self Driving (supervised) to right-hand drive markets. Australia and New Zealand will be the first two markets to get the technology. But, does it actually properly work? We spent a few hours testing it and threw some challenges at it to see how it would cope.
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00:00Watch out, ducks!
00:04Yep, we're blocking traffic.
00:08Okay, so it has realised that...
00:10Whoa! What the hell?
00:13It just tried to turn right across there.
00:15Okay, that's definitely not good.
00:19G'day, I'm Paul.
00:20So we are inside a Tesla Model Y,
00:22and today we're going to do full self-driving supervised
00:25here in Australia.
00:27Tesla is about to roll this out in Australia,
00:29and New Zealand.
00:30We'll be the first right-hand drive markets.
00:32We're doing a drive loop in Brisbane
00:33that's going to take us from a sort of regional area
00:36into the city, and I want to see what it's like.
00:38I'm going to run you through how it works,
00:40the experiences I've had with this technology,
00:42some of the downsides,
00:43and then I'm going to deviate from their curated route here,
00:46which they don't know about yet,
00:47but we're going to go on the hunt for a Bunnings.
00:49So to start it, we went through the whole process
00:52of setting all this up.
00:54It is beta software that they're running
00:55in the cars here at the moment,
00:57but it will roll out shortly to all customers
00:59here in Australia with compatible cars.
01:01So this has all been set up.
01:02We've gone through that whole process.
01:04To start our trip, we need to push and hold this,
01:07and then it says tap brake to confirm.
01:11Okay, tap the key card here.
01:14Release pedal to confirm.
01:17Okay, here we go.
01:18It's starting.
01:19So full self-driving hasn't been in Australia before.
01:23So previously, we've had enhanced autopilot,
01:25and I'm going to run you through what that experience was like
01:28because I had that in my previous Model Y.
01:30And this is interesting because, in theory,
01:32I have to still have full control of the car,
01:35and that means having my hands and feet at the ready here.
01:37So if anything does go wrong,
01:38I'm going to jam the brakes on.
01:40But I want to get an experience here of how this works.
01:42We're already breaking the speed limit.
01:44Sign there says 40, and we're doing 45.
01:48There we go.
01:48It's slowing down now.
01:49It didn't recognize the speed earlier.
01:51So what we're going to do here is a route that runs through to the city in Brisbane.
01:56So it's going to be a mix of roads.
01:58But in theory, I'm going to try and let the car drive as much as I can.
02:02And what we'll also do is, once we get closer to the city,
02:05I'm going to change the route here to take us to Bunnings
02:08to see how it copes with car parks here in Australia
02:11because I'm sure they would have tested this route a thousand times
02:13before allowing media to come here.
02:16So I'm just going to turn the voice off there.
02:21Okay, so here's our first intersection.
02:24It's a major highway here.
02:26Lots of trucks, lots of skid marks as well.
02:29Someone's had fun here.
02:30So we'll see how this copes with this.
02:32So Tesla uses just cameras.
02:35So unlike a lot of other brands that are using LiDAR,
02:37especially a lot of the Chinese brands,
02:39it's picked a good spot there.
02:40A lot of Chinese brands that are using LiDAR,
02:42which is basically a very sophisticated laser.
02:47They use it in unison with radar as well.
02:49Tesla is just using vision and that requires a lot of complexity
02:53in terms of processing all of that vision rapidly.
02:57Tesla says this runs at 36 frames a second
03:00and it utilizes cameras that face forwards,
03:02down the sides, out the back.
03:04So it is using its full suite of cameras to figure out where it's going.
03:07But at no point is it using radars or anything beyond just camera vision.
03:12And that to me, I don't know, personally,
03:13I don't love the fact that there isn't those layers of redundancy,
03:17but this is how they're tackling this task.
03:20And obviously Tesla wants to be different.
03:21You can't just be the same as everyone else.
03:24So far, so good.
03:25Okay.
03:25I want to explain my experience with this type of vehicle before.
03:30So I was in Los Angeles recently and I caught a Waymo.
03:33I was a little apprehensive with it because I didn't know what to expect.
03:37So for those of you that don't know,
03:39Waymo is a company that uses Jaguar I-Paces.
03:42They're all electric cars.
03:43They're running around San Francisco.
03:44They've got them in Arizona, Los Angeles.
03:47They're trying to roll out to as many places as they can.
03:49And they're restricted in terms of where they can go.
03:51So in Los Angeles, for example,
03:53you've got areas where they can and can't travel
03:56and they'll be able to get you around.
03:58They will pull into driveways.
03:59This Waymo that I was in literally pulled into our hotel driveway,
04:03which is quite narrow, and picked us up from there.
04:05It's such cool technology.
04:07So when I hopped in first,
04:08I was really apprehensive because I didn't really trust it,
04:11especially with LA drivers.
04:12By the end of it, I'd caught maybe 10 of these.
04:15I was genuinely blown away at the technology.
04:17I felt very comfortable.
04:18The car was very confident in its decision-making.
04:21What we constantly see with Chinese market cars in Australia,
04:25in particular, that have this sort of level two lane-keeping assistance
04:29is a lot of them don't really work very well at all.
04:31And there's a big difference between cars that have all of these features
04:34and a suite of sensors.
04:36See, I'm just nervous here about these corners and having approaching vehicles.
04:41You can have all the sensors in the world,
04:42but if you don't have the ability to process the information
04:45that the sensors deliver you,
04:47the technology is virtually pointless.
04:49And you see LiDAR on heaps of Chinese market cars,
04:52but do they have the technical capability
04:55of processing all of that footage?
04:56Probably not.
04:57Whereas Tesla here are very dedicated on the path of making this work with vision.
05:03And just to add a bit of difficulty to all of this as well,
05:05it is raining at the moment too.
05:07Let's see what it does.
05:09Watch out, ducks!
05:13Did you get one?
05:17No, just missed them.
05:19It did break a little bit though.
05:21It did break ever so slightly for them.
05:23Um, wow.
05:25Oh, so just then we had ducks crossing the road
05:28and it actually started breaking,
05:31which is great because we didn't have to slaughter any ducks.
05:35We're having chicken for lunch,
05:36but that was close.
05:39But it worked, which is the main thing.
05:41It slowed down for the ducks.
05:43So in terms of the functionality of how all of this stuff works,
05:46I don't have to indicate,
05:48I don't have to do anything outside of,
05:51I guess, just being ready to take over here.
05:54And, um, so far it's making all the right decisions,
05:56using the right indications.
05:58And, you know, we are on pretty well-marked roads here.
06:01So this, this is not an easy task,
06:03but certainly a task that is easier,
06:05thanks to decent line markings.
06:07We'll see as we sort of progress in towards the city
06:09and as we try and do our detour to Bunnings,
06:11um, how well it actually copes with all that.
06:14The interesting thing as well is I've got the auto wipers on,
06:16but it's not really wiping the screen.
06:18And given that the camera is up there,
06:21um, it seems to be working.
06:22Um, so Tesla manages the driver here by saying,
06:27as part of all the terms and conditions you agree to,
06:29that this is supervised full self-driving.
06:31And that means that you must be in charge at all times.
06:35You are the person that is in control of the vehicle.
06:38The car is just assisting you with,
06:39with driving through the streets here.
06:41So I basically have to be ready to go all the time.
06:44There's a camera just up here,
06:45and that's monitoring me to make sure that I'm ready to go.
06:49If I start looking back at Igor in the backseat there who's filming,
06:52or if I start, you know,
06:54being distracted and taking away from having my eyes on the road,
06:58it will actually start giving me warnings
07:00to the point where it will disable the full self-driving software.
07:04And it will then basically strike me out for that drive.
07:06Now, one thing while we wait for these traffic lights
07:08that I think a lot of you are probably asking
07:10is what happens in terms of liability?
07:12Well, the driver is always responsible.
07:16And, you know, it's like when you install software in your computer.
07:18No one reads the 15 pages of agreements.
07:21But to set this up and to get it running,
07:23I had to agree to all this stuff,
07:25which in essence says that I'm in charge of what's going on.
07:28Despite the vehicle, you know, actually driving,
07:31I still have to be here to take control if I need to.
07:33And you would have seen a lot of cases in the US
07:36where people are suing Tesla in the event
07:38where they die behind the wheel of a Tesla
07:40that is running in autopilot.
07:41But there has been a lot of these cases
07:44and I've been keeping an eye on them
07:45to see how it's all going to pan out.
07:46But in a lot of the cases that have actually gone to court
07:49and gone beyond a settlement,
07:51the driver has actually not been,
07:53you know, taking responsibility for the car.
07:57In one particular case, a driver dropped their phone
07:59when they went to retrieve it.
08:00The car was still on autopilot
08:01and went through a series of stop measures
08:04like a giveaway sign and other things
08:06that were meant to stop the vehicle.
08:08And the driver unfortunately died in that case.
08:10Tesla was forced to pay 33% of punitive damages
08:14to the family of that person.
08:18So the court determined that Tesla
08:19was partly responsible for that,
08:21but not fully responsible.
08:22So there is really a grey line here
08:24between, you know, how this works
08:27when it is tested in courts.
08:28But you can see that they are trying to deliver
08:30something that is completely different
08:32to what we are used to as drivers on the road.
08:35We're used to controlling the vehicle
08:36and it doing everything
08:37and occasionally using cruise control.
08:39But here, I haven't yet done anything
08:41since we left the RACQ Mobility Centre.
08:45The car has been doing everything
08:47and to be honest,
08:48it actually has been doing everything pretty well.
08:50So we're about to enter the motorway here.
08:52So this is going to require us
08:53to go through a roundabout
08:54and then turn right onto the freeway.
08:56We're currently in the wrong lane for that to happen.
08:58So we'll see how it sorts itself out.
09:00There's a car next to us coming up here.
09:02You can actually see all of the visualisation
09:04over here as well.
09:05This is what the camera is looking at
09:06and how it is interpreting its surroundings.
09:09So you can see all of those.
09:11Okay, so there you go.
09:11It's changed lanes.
09:13It's interpreting its surroundings
09:15by looking at signs like the roundabout sign,
09:18the traffic lights.
09:19It's looking at other vehicles
09:20and what they're doing.
09:22I'll be curious to see if at any point
09:23we have someone enter our lane,
09:25which is something that often happens,
09:27how it's going to handle that.
09:29But at the moment, it is...
09:30Okay, so this car in front of us
09:32is doing a last-minute lane change.
09:35That's not for us.
09:37It's for them.
09:38Okay, so far, so good.
09:40This is the other interesting thing as well.
09:42We're in a sort of tunnel here
09:43before we get onto the freeway.
09:44One of the things that's always confused me about this
09:46and that makes me kind of sceptical
09:48about the way that Tesla is going
09:49about this full self-driving stuff
09:51is your eyes.
09:52If you exit a tunnel,
09:54your eyes take a moment to adjust
09:55and a camera is effectively a set of eyes.
09:58It has a lens and an aperture,
10:01has a shutter speed.
10:02It is just like the human eye
10:04and it's designed to adjust like the human eye.
10:08So when we go from dark to light,
10:09it takes a moment to do that.
10:10I always wonder how this vehicle
10:12and vehicles like this
10:14that just use camera vision
10:15actually cope with those sudden changes in vision.
10:18There was a lot of criticism
10:19about Tesla's on autopilot
10:21that had crashed into emergency service vehicles
10:23because the theory was that
10:25they had flashing lights
10:26and it was hard to determine what was going on.
10:29So, I mean, all of this stuff remains untested
10:32because we just haven't had any of this in Australia.
10:36So, now let's talk about the cost of this.
10:38If you do buy a Tesla today,
10:40you get autopilot as standard,
10:41but autopilot is really just
10:43effectively traffic-aware cruise control.
10:45It's stuff that you find on virtually every car today.
10:48Autopilot won't do this type of,
10:50or this level of self-driving.
10:52The second you put an indicator on
10:53with standard autopilot,
10:55it comes in all Teslas.
10:56It disables cruise control
10:57and it's fine,
10:59but nothing sort of too crazy.
11:01One step up from that
11:02is called enhanced autopilot.
11:04And back when we had our Model Y
11:06that was this generation of car,
11:08they did a 30-day thing over Christmas
11:10where you could trial enhanced autopilot
11:12and it was genuinely bad,
11:14scarily bad.
11:16It didn't know the correct speed limits.
11:18It made very last-minute decisions
11:20to change lanes.
11:21And I felt extremely uncomfortable using it
11:24because our Tesla at the time,
11:26the software that was on it
11:28would do phantom braking
11:29where you would come up to an overpass
11:31and it would just hit the brakes
11:32because it thought that you were going to hit
11:33a solid wall.
11:34So I basically used it for a day
11:36and then refused to use it after that
11:37because I didn't want my family in the car
11:39while this stuff was running.
11:40Full self-driving
11:41is a completely different system to that.
11:44It uses completely different data.
11:46It is far more advanced
11:48in terms of the way that it processes everything.
11:50And it's far more,
11:51I guess when I say,
11:53it's willing to take more risks
11:54in the sense that
11:56it will behave more like a human
11:57as opposed to a computer.
11:59You find that a lot of cars today
12:00that have this type of technology,
12:02they're very rigid
12:02in terms of the instructions
12:03and how they change lanes.
12:05They won't change lanes for you
12:07in care products,
12:08for example,
12:08with some of their highway driving assistance.
12:11They need heaps of space.
12:13They're very timid
12:14in terms of how they work.
12:15This, on the other hand,
12:15is very confident.
12:16And it's not overly phased
12:18by vehicles being near the line.
12:20It doesn't sort of freak out
12:21when random stuff happens around the car.
12:23And that's what I found
12:24with the Waymo in the States,
12:25that it would stick within its lane
12:26and it really wouldn't mind
12:27if other cars veered near you,
12:29but it would take evasive action
12:31if it needed to.
12:32This feels very much the same.
12:33It feels very advanced
12:34and I feel strangely comfortable here
12:37behind the wheel.
12:37It doesn't feel out of touch
12:39or weird to me at all.
12:41But would I spend $10,000 on this?
12:44So enhanced autopilot
12:45is about $5,000 extra,
12:46full self-driving around $10,000 extra.
12:49And keep in mind
12:50that you still have to have your hands
12:51at or near the wheel.
12:52You can't just let go completely.
12:54We're not at that stage
12:55where it's unsupervised
12:56like you find in a robo-taxi
12:58or in one of those Waymos.
12:59So you're paying $10,000
13:00to effectively do a bit of extra work for you.
13:03It's not like I can use my phone at the moment.
13:05That is still legal in Australia.
13:06I can't take my laptop out and do some work.
13:08So I think that at this stage,
13:11it's still way too expensive for what it is.
13:13But if they offer it as a monthly subscription,
13:15perhaps that will be appealing to some people
13:17to help take the strain out of,
13:20you know, driving like we're doing now
13:23in stop-start traffic.
13:24The other cool thing as well
13:25with this visualization,
13:26I mentioned before
13:27that it gives you an idea
13:27of your surroundings and everything.
13:29You can actually go full-screen visualization
13:30that minimizes the map over there.
13:32And it gives you a clear indication
13:34of what's going on around you.
13:36You can see ahead of us there
13:37it's misidentified that Prado
13:39with a trailer as a truck.
13:41So, you know, I guess that's
13:44for the sake of visualization,
13:46kind of the same thing.
13:47But to me, I always look at that and go,
13:49you know, in my Tesla,
13:50if it shows, you know, a dual cab ute
13:53when there's a truck next to me,
13:54it sometimes flips between a truck and a person
13:56and it doesn't really know what it's doing.
13:58It's like, all right,
13:59is that because the camera can't see properly
14:01or is that just the software being funny?
14:03I don't know.
14:03But it's just one of those things
14:05that I always have question marks in my mind
14:07about how accurate this stuff actually is.
14:09I just want to touch on
14:10what does this actually mean,
14:12this full self-driving stuff?
14:14So full self-driving supervised
14:15is a stepping stone
14:17to full self-driving unsupervised.
14:19And if you have a look at what they're doing
14:20with Waymo and Elon Musk's vision,
14:23which is to turn your car into a robo-taxi,
14:26and the whole concept is that
14:27if you drive your car to the train station
14:29or to the office,
14:30that your car can then drop you off,
14:32disappear, go and earn money during the day
14:34as a sort of Uber,
14:37and then come back and pick you up
14:38at the end of the day.
14:39Look, to me,
14:40I don't want random sitting in my car,
14:42especially if it's full of my crap.
14:43But I can see the appeal to some people.
14:45You know, you have a car,
14:46it can go earn you money during the day,
14:48it's a utility.
14:49But more importantly,
14:51when it gets to the level of unsupervised,
14:53it kind of gives you the ability
14:54to really get work done.
14:56If I have a think about my commute
14:57to The Proving Ground,
14:59it's like a two and a half hour drive,
15:01and I'm doing that twice a week
15:02to film our video content.
15:03Sometimes, if I catch traffic,
15:05it can be a three-hour commute
15:07to The Proving Ground each way.
15:08To me, I'd much rather have that three hours
15:11to sit down and be able to do work,
15:13to review some of the videos
15:14that the guys have put together.
15:16There's time better spent than me
15:18having to sit here behind the wheel.
15:20Obviously, though, I value my safety,
15:22and one of the things
15:23that I am genuinely concerned about
15:25is when this stuff goes wrong
15:27and it doesn't work.
15:27If I don't have my eyes on the road
15:29and I've got my head buried in my laptop
15:31and I miss something that happens in front of me,
15:33whether it's a tyre that comes off a truck
15:35or one time I had a ladder fall on the road
15:37that I didn't get to see
15:38until the car in front of me
15:39sort of zoomed out of the way.
15:42It's situations like that
15:43that I'm concerned about,
15:44and I don't feel confident
15:46or comfortable enough yet
15:47to relinquish control completely.
15:49But I can see instances
15:50where this is useful.
15:51If you look at the Waymo stuff
15:53that they have in the States,
15:54that has completely revolutionised
15:56how you get around places like Los Angeles.
15:58You can book a car.
16:00It will pull up on the side of the road.
16:02You can select your own music.
16:03You can set your own temperature.
16:06It's all logged.
16:07You know, it is a really cool experience,
16:09and it means that you don't need to have drivers
16:12that are limited to a certain amount of time
16:15behind the wheel before they have to go home.
16:16You don't have to worry about a driver being tired,
16:19irritable, which sometimes happens.
16:21So, yeah, I could see the benefits to it.
16:23Obviously, it could completely change the taxi industry.
16:25We've gone from, you know, taxis that rely on having licences,
16:30and it's an income for a taxi driver,
16:32to Ubers, where you can bring your own car,
16:34you don't need a licence,
16:35to now potentially having no drivers at all.
16:37It's a completely different system,
16:39but I just don't know whether we're ready for it yet.
16:41And more importantly,
16:42I don't know whether the cars are ready
16:44for other drivers on the road
16:46that don't know what they're doing.
16:48There are a lot of drivers
16:49that if they're driving inebriated
16:50or they're driving like maniacs,
16:53there is a potential
16:53that the car doesn't know how to handle that situation.
16:56Here, where everyone's in their lane
16:57and it's all very straightforward, it's fine.
16:59So, what's happening now,
17:00we're changing lanes
17:01because the guy in front of us
17:02was doing 80 k's an hour in a 100 zone.
17:04So, the car has determined
17:05that we can be going faster than that guy,
17:08and we're now passing him.
17:10So, that's pretty cool.
17:12You can see here, it's misidentified.
17:14That is a pickup truck
17:15with an enormous trailer,
17:17and now it's changed it
17:18to a four-wheel drive.
17:21So, yeah, that kind of stuff,
17:22I just think, is still a bit strange.
17:24Okay, so I'm going to stop talking.
17:26We're going to get to our destination,
17:27which is another 28 kilometres from here.
17:29Once we get to that destination,
17:30I'm going to remove all the other stuff
17:33that the Tesla people have put in here
17:34and put in a local Bunnings,
17:36which is a hardware store.
17:37If you don't know what a Bunnings is
17:39for our international viewers,
17:40I'm going to see how it goes getting there
17:42and what it does once we get to the car park
17:44and how well it handles that situation,
17:45because I think that'll be a real-world test
17:47of how this works
17:48as opposed to this curated drive route
17:50that they have for us.
17:58Now, we're getting close to the city,
17:59another 7km or so.
18:01I want to see how it copes now
18:02with some of these busier streets
18:04and different road conditions.
18:07So, lane change is all good.
18:10So far, it's had a bit of an easy run.
18:12It's been pretty quiet in terms of traffic.
18:14They've picked a strategic time
18:15to have us out and about here.
18:16It's not sort of overly busy,
18:17but where we're heading now,
18:20it should be a little busier.
18:21We'll actually be driving
18:22very near the Car Expert office,
18:24so we'll see what it's like around there.
18:26I know that it can get pretty crazy around there,
18:28so we'll see what that's like.
18:30I mentioned before
18:31that it had that little whoopsie
18:32with the speed sign recognition.
18:35The rest of the trip has been fine.
18:36It's been sort of picking everything up,
18:37but that is one of the gripes
18:39that I had with Enhanced Autopilot
18:40when we had it back on our Tesla as well,
18:44that it was doing 100 in this speed zone
18:47that's been 80 for like 10 years.
18:49So, I don't know where it got the 100 from,
18:50and it still thinks it's 100 today.
18:53So, situations like that where if you...
18:55What would happen if you got a speeding fine
18:57because it thought you were meant to be doing 100?
18:58Yes, I'm responsible, meant to be supervising,
19:00but yeah, it's a big old speeding fine in Victoria.
19:04Okay, so I have actually just adjusted this trip
19:08ever so slightly to get it to take us
19:10past the car expert office,
19:13just so I can see what it's like around there
19:15because I know that it'll be busy around this time.
19:17It's like a set of turns,
19:19and it's a little bit tricky down here,
19:20so I'll be curious to see how this goes.
19:23Okay, so far so good.
19:25You can't see it, but I've got my...
19:27Okay, so we're now straddling two lanes here.
19:30It's just cut off the driver behind us.
19:34I've got my foot hovering over the brake
19:36just in case to see how it goes,
19:40and we're now crossing another line.
19:45Okay, and it's now also in the wrong lane
19:48because we need to turn right down here.
19:50Okay, it's changing lane, which is good.
19:52We'll see if it actually completes that manoeuvre.
19:54No, it had the perfect opportunity
20:01to get in behind that car,
20:02and now we're in the wrong lane down here.
20:04Yeah, so I'll be curious to see
20:05when this light goes green up here.
20:07So right now, it's got a green to turn left.
20:09We want to turn right,
20:10and what you're going to find now
20:12is that we're in completely the wrong lane.
20:14Okay.
20:19Great.
20:20So now we're blocking traffic.
20:27Yep, we're blocking traffic.
20:28Okay, so it has realised that...
20:30Whoa!
20:31What the hell?
20:34It just tried to turn right across there.
20:36Okay, that's definitely not good.
20:39What happened, it says here.
20:40You tried to turn across an intersection.
20:46That's terrible.
20:47Okay, we'll just see if we can restart
20:49full self-driving there.
20:52If I put that into park.
20:55Press and hold.
20:57Tap brake to confirm.
20:58Release brake pedal.
20:59Okay, so we're trying that again.
21:01Yep.
21:02So there you go.
21:03What we did was deviate from the route
21:04that Tesla gave us,
21:06and obviously Tesla would have tested
21:07their route a thousand times,
21:08and you can see there that
21:10what is a bit of a technical...
21:12It wasn't even a technical intersection.
21:14It knew that it needed to be in the other lane.
21:16It just left it to the last second
21:17and didn't know what to do.
21:19So that's obviously a situation
21:21where if you were a passenger in this car
21:23as a sort of unsupervised taxi,
21:26it would make an absolute calamity of itself there.
21:30So, yeah, not very good.
21:32Just so you know as well,
21:33when I had to intervene there
21:35to basically disengage the system,
21:37I yanked at the wheel,
21:39and initially it provides a fair bit of resistance,
21:41but once you get it past its sort of locking point,
21:44it realises that you're taking control of the vehicle,
21:46and it stops the ability for it to keep going.
21:49So it's just one of those things
21:51where it realises that it's gone a bit pear-shaped
21:55and it needs to fix it.
21:57Okie dokie.
21:57We are just about to drive past the car expert office here.
22:01There's Will.
22:03We'll give him a wave.
22:04Okay, so we just went past the car expert office.
22:14Now what I want to do is put in Bunnings
22:16as an additional stop for us
22:18on the way back to Mount Cotton.
22:20So I'm going to set Bunnings this one here
22:25because it's along the way,
22:26and it's going to take us into the car park.
22:28I want to see how it handles that
22:29because that'll be interesting.
22:30So, okay, push and hold to start.
22:32FSD supervised.
22:33Tap back to confirm.
22:35We're parked behind this car,
22:36so I'll be curious to see what it does here.
22:38Okay, let's put it in reverse,
22:39which is good.
22:41That's going to back us out of there.
22:43There you go.
22:43It's in drive.
22:45A little head check.
22:46All good.
22:48Rip up.
22:48All right.
22:50So let's see what happens.
22:52We had the little incident back there.
22:55We'll see how it handles
22:56some of this additional stuff
22:59we're going to throw at it here,
23:00in particular the car park at Bunnings
23:02because that's going to be an interesting one.
23:04It won't have ever been to that Bunnings,
23:06so we're giving it brand new terrain to visit.
23:09This is another funny one as well.
23:10This street we're about to turn onto is one way,
23:12but with a lot of fast-moving traffic.
23:15So we'll see how it handles this.
23:17Like, I don't even know how it can see
23:19down the road there.
23:21The fact that it can see all the way down there
23:23is pretty impressive.
23:24All right, there we go.
23:27It's picked its marker.
23:30And it's going to turn...
23:31Okay, we're going to go straight ahead here.
23:33All right.
23:34Now, this is going to be an interesting one
23:35where we've just made a left turn here
23:38to a giveaway sign.
23:39And it's a bit of a tricky one
23:41because we're merging onto an existing road.
23:44That traffic just has its own lane.
23:45We don't.
23:46It's actually quite difficult
23:47to see around this barrier here.
23:51Like I say, it has not slowed down at all just then.
23:54There were no cars coming,
23:55so I don't know whether it knew
23:56that there were no cars coming,
23:57but it just went straight through that giveaway sign,
24:02which you would do if you were a driver
24:03and you looked,
24:04but it was tricky to see around there.
24:07And perhaps it had camera coverage,
24:08but I'm not entirely sure.
24:10Just up ahead here,
24:11we've got a bit of an obstacle,
24:12which is a road work zone.
24:14So we're going to have cars merging in with us,
24:17and then we're going to have some cones
24:19and stuff up ahead as well.
24:20So, okay, so far so good.
24:24It's let the cars in.
24:26There's the cones.
24:28It's seen the road worker who's on his phone.
24:31What a surprise.
24:35It's nailed that pothole.
24:37All right.
24:39A little narrow here next to the bus in the lane,
24:41but it is doing a good job of manoeuvring through there.
24:47All righty.
24:47Then we're going to snake down here.
24:49I'll be curious to know how this deals with school zones,
24:51whether it interprets the 40 sign
24:54as just an always 40 zone,
24:56or whether it knows that these are the hours
24:59that school zones apply,
25:01or even school zones don't apply on school holidays.
25:04So how does it know whether it's a school holiday or not?
25:07This is stuff that I've still got questions about.
25:10One of the curious things as well,
25:12just with the way that Tesla does stuff,
25:15famously,
25:16that guy was reversing and stuck his car out.
25:20Famously, Tesla fired their PR team globally
25:24because they just wanted commentary to come from Musk.
25:27But in Australia,
25:28they've actually had like a skunk work PR operation
25:31for quite some time.
25:33And it's interesting today
25:35with this stuff that they're showing us,
25:37us being the first right-hand drive market
25:39to have this technology,
25:41no one wanted to answer any questions.
25:42So I can't ask anything.
25:45I can't tell you much
25:47because no one will actually say anything on the record.
25:49They didn't do a Q&A.
25:51So if you were with a legacy car company
25:54showing you this technology,
25:55you'd be able to talk to engineers,
25:57quote people,
25:57and really just go through the motions
25:59of explaining how stuff works.
26:00But here I'm just relying on guesswork
26:03and stuff that I've seen on the internet.
26:05So it's a little bit disappointing
26:06that they just don't let those people speak
26:08and give us a clear indication
26:10of how this tech works
26:11because there's some smart people
26:13behind all of this stuff.
26:14Like I think everyone underestimates
26:16just how much it has gone into
26:18allowing this car to drive right now
26:20on its own, supervised.
26:24But it's huge.
26:25The computing power,
26:26the lines of code to make this happen
26:27is insane.
26:29So I'd love to just be able
26:30to talk to people about that
26:31and get a bit of a vibe check
26:33on how it all works
26:34and to get a better understanding
26:35of the engineering behind
26:36all of this technology.
26:38But anyway, it's Tesla for you.
26:40We've got a bit of freeway
26:40driving ahead of us here.
26:41We're about to merge onto the freeway now.
26:43We've crossed an intersection.
26:44This is a Form 1 lane.
26:46We've got an ambulance next to us.
26:48Hopefully it will let the ambulance in.
26:49There we go.
26:50And then we're going to merge onto the freeway
26:51with faster moving traffic.
26:53So let's see how it handles that situation.
26:58All right.
26:59Here we go here.
27:02Lane ends merge right.
27:04Okay.
27:05It's got its indicator on.
27:07So far, so good.
27:08Excellent.
27:08All right.
27:09Next stop, Bunnings.
27:10So I'm going to take a break from driving
27:11because there's a lot of assumed knowledge here
27:14about how this technology works.
27:15And I thought,
27:16let me just run you through how it works,
27:18how they train it
27:19and how it comes up with the ability
27:20to do what it does.
27:21So basically Tesla, like I said,
27:23doesn't use any radar, LIDAR.
27:25It is just camera vision.
27:26So you've got a camera up the top there.
27:27You've got cameras on the side,
27:28on the B pillar, on the back.
27:30It's able to stitch all of that together
27:32to create an image of the world around it.
27:35Then what it's able to do
27:36is take the image of the world around it
27:37and interpret that.
27:38So it knows that a truck is a truck
27:40and a car is a car
27:41and a pedestrian is a pedestrian.
27:43Then they can build rules around that.
27:45So obviously you don't want to hit pedestrians,
27:46but it's okay to drive over speed humps.
27:48So they collect a lot of that data.
27:50How do they collect it?
27:51Well, a lot of people think
27:52that they use customers to do this
27:54and that's not how it works.
27:56They actually have a set of drivers
27:58that drive all over the place.
27:59And it's not to map the roads.
28:01It's not to say,
28:02okay, we've driven down this road.
28:04The car now knows what to do there.
28:05It is to say,
28:06okay, I'm driving on a freeway.
28:07I'm going to change lanes.
28:09And I know that it's safe to change lanes
28:10because there is that much space there.
28:12So it learns from those good drivers
28:15to understand how the car should behave
28:17in similar situations.
28:18So it will take the world around it.
28:21It will know how to behave.
28:22And as a result of that,
28:23it can be pretty confident
28:24with the way that it drives.
28:25And that is where it will do things
28:26like cut some corners
28:28if it is a quicker way to go
28:29and there's no oncoming cars.
28:31So there is a lot of smarts behind this tech
28:33and it is all driven by computers inside.
28:36And the biggest advantage here is that
28:37as they train the cars with more data,
28:40such as a hook turn in Melbourne,
28:42which is one of the things they demonstrated
28:43it was able to do,
28:44they trained that in Australia
28:46to know what to do with a hook turn.
28:48As they put all of that data together,
28:50it's able to come into the computer here
28:52and it will know how to assess everything in real time.
28:55It doesn't have to communicate externally to do that.
28:58Now, where they will actually use customer data
29:00is when you report a fault.
29:01So if you take over at any point,
29:03it allows you to report a fault
29:04and that will give them something to review
29:06so that they can fix it as part of an update.
29:08So pretty impressive technology.
29:10And this is the big difference between Tesla
29:12and other car companies
29:13that are using a litany of radars.
29:15Yes, you can have countless radars
29:16and sensors on the car.
29:17It is interpreting that data
29:19and understanding what to do with it,
29:21which is where a lot of those brands struggle
29:22to actually put it all together
29:24and make the car feel like it is driving
29:26like a human does.
29:27Now, when is all this coming?
29:28Well, the rollout is going to start
29:30in Australia and New Zealand
29:31and it'll basically start with customers
29:33that already have FSD software
29:35and it'll start with Hardware 4 customers,
29:37Model 3 and Model Y.
29:39Then it will be available to purchase as an option.
29:41They're going to introduce a subscription model.
29:43And finally, you'll be able to do
29:45a 30-day trial upon delivery as well.
29:47Anyway, back to the driving.
29:49Okay, moment of truth.
29:50It's detected that pedestrian crossing.
29:53Bunnings is 600 metres away.
29:55Okay, it's going to turn into the actual car park
29:57and loop back around to the front of Bunnings.
30:00So let's see what it does here.
30:04We'll see when it decides to change lanes
30:06because we're currently in the wrong lane for that
30:07and it's shortly after this intersection.
30:10And as you can see,
30:10there's a whole bunch of stopped cars there.
30:12So it's going to have to butt its way into there
30:15and we'll see how it takes care of that.
30:19So like I said before,
30:20this Bunnings,
30:22it will never have been to this Bunnings before.
30:24So it is going to have to interpret
30:26an Australian car park that's possibly busy.
30:29It's a weekday.
30:29There'll be a lot of tradies around,
30:30people coming in and out of car parks.
30:32I'm really nervous.
30:33So I'm just going to be on high alert here
30:36just to see what it does.
30:37We've got a cyclist up ahead there as well.
30:39So it's going to have to change lanes
30:41pretty soon actually.
30:43So let's see how it achieves that.
30:46Very soon.
30:47The entrance is 100 metres away.
30:50Okay, so we've just moved in here.
30:52Okay, and now it's going to have to go
30:54into this little entrance here.
30:56Got a bloke over here doing some leaf blowing.
30:59We'll see how it handles him.
31:01Oh, another guy on his phone,
31:03just not watching.
31:06It's actually done a really good job there.
31:08It's slowed down for both of them.
31:09Okay, this is a really tricky car park actually.
31:13I've never been to this Bunnings by the way.
31:15So watch that sign.
31:17All right, it's detected that sign.
31:20See how it copes with this.
31:22So it's going to go downhill here.
31:24It's going to have to go around this corner as well.
31:26It has just stopped itself there.
31:35I don't know why.
31:38Okay, it's given up.
31:39I'm just going to put this into park briefly.
31:42I think I just rested on the brake there and it cancelled.
31:54So I've just resumed the destination here.
31:57We'll just see how it now copes with this car park
31:59because it's going to have to navigate through the car park here
32:02to get out of the Bunnings.
32:05Okay, so far so good.
32:08Left room for that guy.
32:10So we've got some more pedestrians coming up ahead
32:12and it's going to have to navigate this turn as well
32:15at the front of the Bunnings.
32:16Yeah, before I felt my foot just ever so slightly
32:19on the brake pedal there
32:21just because I was wanting to make sure
32:23we didn't collect anyone.
32:26Okay, so this is one way.
32:28Okay, so far so good.
32:30Okay, it's going to have to give way to this car here.
32:33No, and it's just sailed straight through that.
32:36It should have stopped there for that car
32:38but it just went straight through that.
32:40We're going to stop now for this bloke.
32:42Or lady, sorry.
32:45Okay, we're going to wait for them to get past us.
32:47I can see the steering wheel turning a little in anticipation.
32:49No cars coming that way or that way.
32:52Okay, see how it manages this.
32:55That ute is sticking out a fair bit.
32:58We'll see if it gives this guy enough room here.
33:02Yeah, it does.
33:04Okay.
33:05So in theory, if you were actually doing this
33:07you wouldn't be allowing the car to self-drive
33:09if you were here.
33:10You'd just be parking on your own
33:11but I'm sort of looking ahead to what this will do
33:13in the future.
33:15One of the challenges they've got as well
33:16with us being a right-hand drive market
33:18we're obviously on the other side of the car
33:21but everything is in reverse
33:22so we're in the States
33:23I would be on this side of the road
33:26which is kind of what it's doing now.
33:27We have to be on the opposite side for Australia
33:29so that obviously takes a fair bit of work to do that.
33:31So look, that's a pass for the Bunnings car park test
33:36because it did everything it was meant to do there.
33:38It didn't give way to that lady
33:39and it was a little bit sketchy around some of those areas
33:42but for the most part
33:43it actually didn't do too badly.
33:45So we've got a U-turn coming up here.
33:47Actually, here's a school zone sign.
33:48Let's see what it does there.
33:49So it's a 60 and it's a school zone for a 40.
33:52It's just ignored that
33:53so it tells me that it knows
33:54it's either missed it completely
33:57or that it knows that it's not school time.
33:59We'll see how it does a U-turn here as well.
34:03One of the other complications in Australia
34:05is that in New South Wales
34:06and that's the state where Sydney is
34:08for anyone watching this internationally
34:09you're not allowed to do any U-turns
34:13and intersections unless they're signposted.
34:14In Victoria, it's the opposite.
34:16You can do U-turns wherever you want
34:17unless it says no U-turn.
34:19I'm not 100% sure what the law is in Queensland.
34:21Here it says U-turn is permitted.
34:23Maybe they have the same rules as New South Wales.
34:25It is absolutely crazy that in Australia
34:27you have different road rules in different states
34:29but it is unfortunately just the way that it is.
34:32So we'll see how it performs here
34:33and how it negotiates this U-turn.
34:35We've got plenty of room as well
34:36so that shouldn't be a drama in terms of turning circle
34:39but we'll see if it does what a lot of Australians do
34:43in their tiny little cars
34:44where they go to do a U-turn but they think they're driving a B-double
34:47so they sort of just swipe it all the way around
34:49and spin it around.
34:50Hopefully this will be a bit more accurate
34:51in terms of the way that it turns the car around.
34:54The other thing as well is when you are doing a U-turn
34:56you have to give way to traffic that is coming out of that road
34:58that is turning onto this road.
34:59So there's no cars there at the moment
35:02but I presume if there was cars there
35:04it would know that it has to actually give way to those.
35:08Here we go.
35:08I've got a green arrow.
35:10Let's see how it negotiates this now.
35:12Okay.
35:13So that's following.
35:14That's funny.
35:14That's the driver we failed to give way to earlier.
35:18All right.
35:19There we go.
35:20Nice.
35:21Did that U-turn?
35:21All right.
35:21So basically our next stop is going to be back
35:24where we started at the start of the day.
35:26So I'm just going to let the car drive.
35:29When we get closer to there
35:30I might do a bit of a wrap-up
35:32and explain what my thoughts are on all of this technology
35:35based on the experiences I've had so far.
35:41Whoa.
35:42We have just chopped that motorbike.
35:45Hopefully he's not part of an outlawed motorcycle gang
35:48because he might come and shoot us in a minute.
35:51Um, yeah, we really should have stopped for that motorcycle
35:57but it didn't.
35:59And I hope he's not too annoyed.
36:02All right.
36:02We'll see.
36:02We'll see if he is annoyed
36:03because he will probably pin it past us in a second.
36:06Let's see what happens.
36:09All right.
36:10Here we go.
36:16All right.
36:17He didn't notice.
36:20We lived to...
36:21And off he goes.
36:24Wow.
36:24He is absolutely flying.
36:26All right.
36:27Okay.
36:27So we're nine minutes away from returning the car
36:29back to where we started
36:31and I thought I'd just wrap up with how this has gone
36:33and my impressions.
36:35I've got to be honest.
36:36I was quite apprehensive to start with
36:38and no more apprehensive than I was when I rode in the Waymo.
36:42Once I rode in the Waymo,
36:43I was quite happy with how it all worked
36:45and to a degree,
36:47I'm happy with how this works
36:49but we did have a couple of those issues
36:51where like in the city near the office,
36:53it just completely tried to turn right
36:56from a left-hand turning lane.
36:58There was one instance where I don't think it really checked
37:01to see if there were cars coming.
37:02So I think there's still a bit of refinement that can be done.
37:05The good news to that is that
37:07the refinement is always being done to these systems
37:10and each software update includes refinements
37:12that they've made during the development process.
37:14So from that point of view, it's good.
37:16Do I feel safe behind the wheel?
37:19Well, I do when I'm sitting here
37:20and I know that I can take control
37:22but let's put yourself in the scenario
37:24where I'm sitting there
37:25and there's no one sitting here
37:26or I'm on my laptop
37:28and we encountered that scenario in the city
37:31where it turned right instead of turning left
37:33and it went across traffic and a truck hit us.
37:36Like, yes, it would probably break before the truck hit us
37:38but this is all stuff that I don't want to take any chances on
37:41and as a result of that,
37:42I wouldn't feel confident letting this do its thing unsupervised
37:46and they're not doing that at the moment.
37:48This is very much stipulated
37:49as being supervised full self-driving.
37:52There's going to be a whole lot of law changes required
37:55before they can actually do unsupervised full self-driving
37:58but, you know, I am excited, genuinely excited for those times
38:02because it means that at home
38:03I can have an old school V8 muscle car
38:06that I take out on weekends
38:07but if I'm doing a boring mundane commute
38:09that I'm doing every single day
38:11in conditions that are fairly predictable
38:13it means that I can relax
38:16and I genuinely actually feel pretty relaxed right now.
38:18This hasn't been sort of taxing.
38:21I haven't had to worry about stuff as much.
38:23It's just been doing its own thing.
38:25So, yeah, that's my take on it.
38:28I'm curious to see what you guys think.
38:29Do you think that they've got this right?
38:31Would you feel comfortable being behind the wheel here
38:34or sitting over there and letting the car drive?
38:36More importantly,
38:37would you be comfortable spending $10,000 on this?
38:40Because previously you weren't able to transfer full self-driving
38:43like as an owner,
38:45it's stuck with the car
38:46and they did change that recently
38:47that you can move that stuff as you go
38:50and that would be important to me
38:52if I'm spending $10,000 on it.
38:53I want it to come with me as I purchase another car
38:56given that it is software.
38:57All of these cars have the hardware to achieve this type of thing.
39:00So, I think they need to have a think about that as well.
39:04But, yeah, $10,000 is a big hit of money.
39:06Perhaps people will do it as a monthly subscription.
39:08I mean, we're doing everything else as a monthly subscription at the moment.
39:11So, why would you not do a sort of a full self-driving thing as well?
39:14So, yeah, keen for your feedback.
39:16Let me know what you think.
39:17I tried to be as open-minded as I could about this
39:20and have tried to be as upfront as I can about this
39:22showing you the positives and the negatives.
39:25But I am keen for your feedback.
39:27Let me know in the comments section below.
39:29If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it
39:31and you share it with your mates.
39:32But until next time, take it easy.
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