It works much better than it did the last time I tried it but it's far, far, far away from a $12000 product. I also have slight qualms about Tesla performing this sort of experimentation out on the open roads. If this was a highway only product I'd have slightly less concern; however I tried it in local neighborhoods here in NJ and it made some significant errors. I disengaged several times because it flat out made errors that had people outright honking at me including a pretty significant error one an hour ago. That was mostly the other drivers fault but that's NJ. If you can't program the car to understand that we have shitty drivers, then we have to fall back on ourselves to do that unfortunately.
That incident was a short 1-mile trip for me to drop a check off. I thought it'd be a good chance to try it local since it was literally 3 stop signs. The stop sign behavior is as noted doesn't make too much sense. Someone leaned on the horn at one of them. As it was clear to a human that no one was around yet it took a good 15 seconds to clear the left turn. When I got to the destination it completely froze up and couldn't make a decision about the last turn. I took over but a car driving way too fast (>15 over the speed limit) came around the turn and was forced to cross the double yellow to avoid me. I thought it was going to make the turn slower than I would have taken it personally but it just opted to stop dead in the road.
It also made some significant errors even on the highway (and I reported them). The most concerning one involved the car being unable to choose a lane properly on a two-lane exit off a highway to the right. The road network there is definitely convoluted. It was previously a circle (up until 25-years ago) and they replaced it with a series of ramps, overlapping speed up and slow down lanes, etc. I've seen people get it wrong many times over the years.
However, it made a navigation error and I was able to replicate it in different traffic conditions. (Not intentionally - I just thought maybe it got confused by traffic the first time). This appears to me to be a edge case. The apparent logic of the car is it wants to get in the right lane about a mile out from a highway exit. It did so but if you pay attention to the layout (linked below if anyone is so inclined to follow along), an off-ramp to Milltown Road is added which leaves, there is a break, then an on-ramp lane adds to the right from the other direction from Milltown road (there is an overpass involved here). That on-ramp lane is intended to transition traffic onto Route 1 South and requires a merging driver to cross at least 1 lane to get into the main flow of the right lane of Route 1 South. That on ramp lane quickly becomes a off-ramp lane less than a half mile down that feeds Route 130 South and Route 171 (aka Georges Rd.) North. This is a tricky crossover point and it seems to be outside the model that the car can handle.
Ultimately when navigating this road with traffic and later with no other traffic, the car didn't know what to do and instead drove up the center line between the 2 lanes to Route 130 South bouncing from partial lane to partial lane. The first time, I took over quickly after I realized that the car wasn't changing lanes; instead it was splitting the lane and wasn't going to choose a lane. Unfortunately this is fairly risky because the ramp is marked for 50 MPH and enters into a sweeping curve to the left. An approaching vehicle could lose visuals quickly in the turn. Not acceptable.
Link to a satellite image below for reference.
At this intersection off Route 1 onto Route 130.
It also did a few other shaky lane changes on the highway. At one exit, it changed lanes at less than a car length to make the exit ramp. That one led to a general prohibition from experimenting any more while my wife is in the car. And she is a roller derby person - not exactly risk averse.
In the end, I don't even know if I'd use it on general highway trips. I found myself managing it too much. For example, the lane change behavior is just too aggressive. It does have a setting to reduce the behavior but it constantly wants to shift lanes. Especially if you run into traffic that is a tiny bit slower. If I have it set to 75 and traffic is going at 74 I don't need it to move into the left lane to overtake at 1 MPH. That's foolishness.
In the end, I liken it to having the decision-making abilities of a 17-year old with the risk tolerance of an 80-year old. It's just a bad combo for my neck of the woods.
