My Tesla Model Y Juniper FSD Test Drive Fails Spectacularly

Forbes

7 days ago

The images show the Tesla Model Y equipped with its Level 2 autonomous driving capabilities. The ... More photos highlight the vehicle's logo, the navigation screen displaying real-time traffic and autonomous driving interface, and the interior with hands-off steering functionality, underlining Tesla's advanced driver assistance systems in Bari, Italy, on December 10, 2024. (Photo by Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A brand-new 2026 Tesla Model Y with the latest available version of Full-Self Driving failed three times during my test drive on Thursday.
After a very successful (read: uneventful) 48-hour FSD v 13.2.9 test drive of a Tesla Model Y Juniper earlier this month, I had a disastrous one-hour test drive on Thursday. The difference: the drive on Thursday (June 19) was in much-busier West Los Angeles. The previous 48-hour drive was in slower-paced suburban northwest Los Angeles. In every case, I enter the destination address and then engage FSD, using it essentially as a robotaxi. But I closely monitor the drive, ready to take back control of the car immediately if necessary.
TL;DR: In brief, here's what happened in three separate incidents on Thursday: (1) the Model Y began to veer into opposing traffic. I had to intervene and take the steering wheel to get it back on course. The video below doesn't do the incident justice. It was the last thing I expected FSD v13.2.9 on a Tesla Model Y Juniper to do. (2) It took a right turn from the far-left lane. (3) It tried to go down a narrow 'no entry' private-access entrance that was blocked by a large gate.
Previous Tesla FSD tests were great, uneventful
I have been a proponent of Tesla FSD v13 because of the positive test drives I have had to date on various 2026 Model Ys with version 13 of FSD. (Before this test drive, a total of five.) Before Thursday's drive, the last was a 48-hour test drive. That test was uneventful (very favorable) and the Model Y with FSD performed essentially as a Robotaxi: I would punch in the destination and the Model Y would take me there safely, usually sans intervention. There were only a few interventions over the 48-hour period with most being very minor, such as the car going too slow or taking a route I didn't like.
West Los Angeles
That all changed on Thursday. Admittedly, West Los Angeles (Century City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood) has some confusing intersections south of Santa Monica Blvd but I assumed FSD was capable of dealing with the occasional odd intersection. The first incident (video) was the worst mistake FSD made. It happened on Crescent Heights Blvd / McCarthy Vista. After the Model Y began to veer into opposing traffic, we ended up briefly at the end of a meridian strip. Then I steered the car back into the proper lane. In the second incident, it took a right turn from a left-hand lane that was marked as a through-lane (for traffic going straight). That was perplexing more than anything. In the third incident, when we had almost reached the end of our drive, it decided to turn down a narrow, rarely-used (as far as I could tell) service entrance with a pad-locked gate. I stopped the car immediately once it took the turn.
'Very Surprising' – says expert
Ironically, this happened only a few hours after I did a Zoom interview with Jason Corso, a professor of robotics at University of Michigan and a co-founder of computer vision data platform Voxel51. In that interview (before the incidents) I had expressed a favorable opinion of Tesla FSD because of the positive test drives I had previously had. But I followed up on Friday with Corso post-incidents.
The mistakes "are very surprising. Robust perception is hard," Coros said. "These types of incidences underscore the critical need to accurately study and assess safety across different scenarios and corner-cases, by studying model performance on them,' he said.
In the Zoom interview, Corso compared FSD to Google's Waymo. 'You know, that's why Waymo has rich maps, they have lidar sensors, they have radar. They use cameras for a full sweep. Their basic point is we have to be able to have a rich sense of the state of what's happening in order to make decisions on that," he said.
I also use Waymo often in West Los Angeles. Waymo occasionally makes mistakes with routes (i.e., taking a circuitous route) and can be a little too bold sometimes but it has never made a dangerous mistake in my experience.
I will keep testing
I test Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) constantly. Many from General Motors, which graciously has allowed me to test a number of their electric vehicles with the latest versions of Super Cruise. (This week I'm testing a Cadillac Vistiq, a new Cadillac EV model recently released.) But I will go back and test the Model Y again and plan to do another 48-hour test drive of the Model Y soon.
I talked with a Tesla store representative after the incident and made it clear to him what happened. I emailed Tesla corporate but have yet to get a response.