- Tesla’s FSD reportedly struggles to detect active railway crossings correctly.
- Vehicles may fail to recognize flashing lights and lowering crossing gates.
- Experts suggest Tesla may not have used enough data to train its FSD system.
Despite being promoted as Full-Self Driving (Supervised), Tesla has a Level 2 semi-autonomous driving system that requires people to be engaged and ready to respond if needed. There’s a good reason for that as the technology has limitations and is far from perfect.
That’s clear once again as NBC News is reporting Full-Self Driving appears to have problems recognizing railroad crossings. The network even caught this on video as a Model Y was approaching an active crossing and had to be manually stopped.
More: Driver Blames FSD After Tesla Drives Onto Tracks And Gets Hit By A Train
However, it appears the railroad crossing had just activated as the arms weren’t even halfway down. This could help to explain why the vehicle didn’t automatically come to a stop by itself.
Regardless, NBC News spoke to multiple other Tesla drivers who reported problems at railroad crossings. They also found numerous complaints on forums as well as videos showing vehicles encountering issues at crossings.
The network reached out to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which said “We are aware of the incidents and have been in communication with the manufacturer.” They added the “agency continuously analyzes consumer complaints to determine whether a potential vehicle safety defect trend exists.”
It’s not entirely clear why Tesla’s Full-Self Driving system appears to be having problems at railroad crossings, but some experts speculated the company didn’t use enough examples to properly train their software to recognize the various setups across the country.
However, even if that was the case, you’d expect the system to at least be able to recognize flashing railway lights. However, in one video, the system appears to give priority to a green traffic light in the distance. As a result, the car attempts to drive through a crossing as the gate is going down.
The issues appear to be hit or miss, but accidents have already been reported. NBC mentioned one case in June, when a Tesla reportedly turned left onto train tracks and was hit by a train minutes later.
Tesla and Elon Musk don’t appear to have commented on the report, but the outspoken billionaire did post a message on his social network noting “FSD Supervised is now available in Australia and New Zealand.” However, users might want to be a little cautious at train crossings.
Note: Lead image is from an incident that occurred earlier this summer (Photo Spitlers Garage & Towing’s / Facebook)
