With a respite from the torrential rains in Victoria, BC that rendered Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta system unable to operate, Canadian and beta tester James Locke went on three drives on southern Vancouver Island on Tuesday.
The first was a trip from the Victoria Superchargers to a Starbucks about 8km (5 miles) away in Langford. A large portion of the drive was on the Trans-Canada Hwy, which means the car was using the regular Autopilot stack, but the drive still contained some interesting scenarios on city streets.
The second drive was much longer, from Colwood to Sooke, more than 25km (15 miles) involving some twisty single-lane roads and sections of construction.
The final drive was a return trip from Sooke to Colwood, with a small detour to visit the neighbourhood Locke used to live in before moving to Santa Clarita, California.
All of the drives contain some disengagements, which is to be expected for a beta version of the software. What is clear though that it works well enough on Canadian roads already that makes it difficult to understand why it hasn’t been released north of the border yet.
The most recent update on a Canadian release came last week, where Elon Musk said it could arrive before the end of the year. We have heard similar timelines over a year ago, but after seeing the performance of FSD Beta in Canada first hand, it probably isn’t too far away.
https://twitter.com/DriveTeslaca/status/1461023803106942979
