• On X, two drivers posted videos of FSD Lite v14.1 not stopping for objects in the road, namely fallen trees and wooden logs.
• FSD Lite is designed to run on Tesla's Hardware 3, which has significantly less computing power compared to Hardware 4 used in later cars. 
• FSD Lite was introduced this June. 

As Tesla tries to scale up its fleet of self-driving cars and roll out the steering wheel-free Cybercab, Full Self-Driving (Supervised) continues to stumble in serious ways. 

One video posted on X on August 21 shows a user named Baldersonmichae using FSD on the road at night. Ahead of him, there’s a fallen tree in the middle of the road, but the car doesn’t seem to notice the large mess of branches and leaves and does not slow down. The driver intervenes and manually stops the car to avoid a collision. 

This apparently wasn’t a one-off, either. The driver says he tried the same exact spot three more times, all with the same result. Further down in the comments, another Tesla owner posted a video that purports to show his FSD-equipped car hitting a big log at 32 mph without stopping.

Both drivers say they were running what’s known as FSD v14.1 Lite. This new version of the software is specifically designed to run on cars that use Tesla’s Hardware 3 system. Hardware 3 was introduced in 2019 and doesn’t offer the same performance as the Hardware 4 setup of computers and cameras that landed in cars post-2023. The cameras are lower-resolution 1.2 megapixel ones (compared to the 5 megapixel ones on the updated version). Also, notably, the system has significantly less RAM, only 8 GB worth, compared to the 16 GB per chip in Hardware 4. 

Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk laid out limitations of Hardware 3, saying on an earnings call that the system won't be able to handle true self-driving capability whenever that launches to consumer vehicles. 

Tesla pitched FSD Lite as a way to bring the capability of Hardware 4 vehicles to Teslas with lower-performance hardware. But there have been snags. It’s not hard to search online and see complaints about FSD Lite. Complaints range from overheating FSD hardware to vehicles that aren’t tracking correctly in the lane.

Now, it’s a great thing that the driver who had the run-in with the downed tree was paying attention to the road and stopped in time. There’s a reason why it’s called Full Self-Driving (Supervised), folks. Pay attention to the road.

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