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Tesla Owner Says FSD Is Great Except for the Part Where It Can’t Drive in the Sun

FuturismDotCom | 2025-12-18 16:34 | 540 views

Comments (106)
FuturismDotCom 2025-12-18 16:34

On Monday, Tesla-investor-turned-outspoken-critic Ross Gerber posted an image taken inside his Tesla showing it driving straight toward the Sun, with an alert on the car’s infotainment screen yelling at him to “Take Over Immediately.” The reason given: “Front camera blocked or blinded.” “Got the new tesla FSD [14.2.1.25](http://14.2.1.25) and within two minutes of driving in the Sun. This,” Gerber wrote. “These cars can’t drive into Sun…”

NotHenryCejudo 2025-12-18 16:37

Another day, another Gerber doom video. Stock up 5% rn

Ok_Win_2906 2025-12-18 16:43

At this point Gerber just seems bitter that he sold his Tesla stock too early and lost a bunch of money

Engunnear 2025-12-18 16:45

Or in the snow.  Or in the fog.  Or in anything more than moderate rain.

SunshineSeattle 2025-12-18 16:48

bUt hUmAnS oNlY uSe vISiOn!1!1

JiveChicken00 2025-12-18 16:51

So it’s perfect as long as you are a vampire.

analyticaljoe 2025-12-18 16:51

FSD or any autonomous system is defined by what it does not do "good enough", not what it does do "good enough". This is the problem that all the Tesla fanboys have. As an FSD owner who paid for it in early 2017, I assure you: FSD has relentlessly improved from "not safe enough to drive while you read" to "not safe enough to drive while you read." There is every possibility it is asymptotically approaching "not good enough."

Zedilt 2025-12-18 16:53

Sunny day? Another tricky edge case.

bobi2393 2025-12-18 16:54

It seems like a well known limitation. You see the same thing in Tesla’s Robotaxis. It matters for maybe ten minutes a day (0.7% of the time) when you’re facing within maybe 1.5° of the sun (0.8% of possible headings), so I think it’s just a numbers game. Like if they don’t actively avoid driving certain times, or certain directions at certain times, then there’s a small chance of Robotaxis suddenly hard breaking due to the sun, and there’s a small chance that someone will rear-end them due to the braking, and a small chance someone will die from that rear-ending. But on the whole, they’ve consider those acceptable deaths, hopefully offset by overall lower rates of fatalities per mile driven. And legally, they can argue that it’s the other driver’s fault, so the deaths might not cost them much financially.

ComicsEtAl 2025-12-18 16:56

That’s the complaint? Please. That’s only a problem for something like a third to half of the year…

AcctAlreadyTaken 2025-12-18 16:56

Or as long as your work place isn't easy of your home in the morning. Then your f**d going to work and home.....for summer at least. 😬

Vegetable_Guest_8584 2025-12-18 16:56

Driving into the sun never actually happens, 100% ready for robotaxi. Tesla is perfect for places where the sun don't shine.

ircsmith 2025-12-18 16:57

But they do great in the rain. /s

QVRedit 2025-12-18 16:59

In those conditions, a human would wear Polaroid lenses, to reduce optical glare.

Ok-Wasabi2873 2025-12-18 17:00

He only got this issue now!!!? It’s been going on with FSD and Autopilot since they disabled radar.

Durzel 2025-12-18 17:02

Stock at ATH. Absurd, really.

TryIsntGoodEnough 2025-12-18 17:03

Or at night...

Moof_the_cyclist 2025-12-18 17:03

If I tried to sell you any other stock at a PE ratio of 338 and told you sales are going down YoY and that the CEO was part time, recently gave not one, but two “salutes” to a large crowd on camera, and was pushing 10 years late on delivering a key product that many customers paid in advance for you’d laugh in my face. Tesla is a meme stock that at some point will succumb to gravity. Maybe soon, maybe in a few years. Books will be written about the willful negligence of institutional investors who kept spending endowment and pension money despite rampant signs that this thing was destined for a Hindenberg level return to earth.

TryIsntGoodEnough 2025-12-18 17:04

And lidar laughs and continues to see everything just fine ...  Also I think you mean polarized not Polaroid

nycbroncos 2025-12-18 17:04

Or where there is no snow or inclement weather.... This must be why Elmo wanted to build those dumb tunnels

Momik 2025-12-18 17:05

We tell passengers to aim *away* from Sun—they should know that.

admin_default 2025-12-18 17:06

I mean, it’s not wrong - humans have fairly lousy optical sensors (the human eye only sees about 1 degree of our field of view in high-res focus) augmented by a super-duper-computer-level perception system. Elon’s problem is he’s bad at math and basic reasoning. LiDAR is cheap and energy efficient. Supercomputers are expensive and consume massive energy. So the solution for cars is obviously to use superhuman-level sensors with subhuman-level computing.

Momik 2025-12-18 17:07

Fucking yikes

plumpedupawesome 2025-12-18 17:09

Shitty cars made with shitty materials gunna do shitty things. Version 14 "fsd" still out there running red lights and driving onto oncoming traffic.

ShotBandicoot7 2025-12-18 17:11

Lol cynical. If it wasn‘t for TSLA, I would consider you a psycho. But what you write sounds actually legit.

Ok_Win_2906 2025-12-18 17:14

None of what you said disproves what I wrote . Gerber has lost a lot of money by getting rid of his Tesla stock too early . Meme stock or whatever stock , money is money

Facktat 2025-12-18 17:15

Wait, didn't also had problems at night?

Facktat 2025-12-18 17:15

Do not forget at night.

[deleted] 2025-12-18 17:16

My Tesla can NEVER handle simple cruise control. A speck of dust on the camera is enough for it to fail.

BringBackUsenet 2025-12-18 17:17

Why does this look like a headline from The Onion?

Emotional-Heron2643 2025-12-18 17:18

...who doesn't drive at night either

Real-Technician831 2025-12-18 17:26

Yes, Robotaxis don’t drive into the sun, they drive to uranus.

ExcitingMeet2443 2025-12-18 17:26

And the fog /ss

ExcitingMeet2443 2025-12-18 17:34

>This,” Gerber wrote. “These cars can’t drive into Sun…” Maybe Ross can sell T shirts that read "I'm going to drive my next Tesla into the Sun"?

Domain_Box337 2025-12-18 17:58

It can drive in the snow. It can drive in heavy rain, forget moderate rain. It can drive in the fog to the extent I can. I have a Model S and been using FSD for the past 8 month with no interventions.

Diogenes256 2025-12-18 18:12

Ok then. You’re dead, but relax because you’re just an edge case.

sunbear7 2025-12-18 18:19

Humans can squirt and/or put down the sun visor. FSD can do neither.

Zedilt 2025-12-18 18:27

Only drive west in the morning, and east in the evening.

TheBrianWeissman 2025-12-18 18:32

Safety driver-less Robotaxis already in Austin!

Dolo12345 2025-12-18 18:33

It works fine in the sun direct sun. I use v14 at these sun angles daily going home. Bros camera glass area was probably dirty (which happens twice a year ish, needs cleaning).

hammerofspammer 2025-12-18 18:39

Not sure how squirting would help, but I’m not ruling it out

sunbear7 2025-12-18 18:42

lol

za72 2025-12-18 18:42

Lidar is a fools errand... because it would kill my profit margins

za72 2025-12-18 18:44

ACME FSD will take us to Mars

hippotango 2025-12-18 18:56

Why can't Tesla just sell a $5,000 option for sunglasses for the camera?

JC1949 2025-12-18 19:08

We have two Tesla Y's, a '21 and a '23. Love them both. But the reality is that autopilot and FSD are both seriously flawed and an only be used safely on divided highways.

apachevoyeur 2025-12-18 19:17

bring a towel!

apachevoyeur 2025-12-18 19:19

and not scared of leaves at all

apachevoyeur 2025-12-18 19:22

it's a new tech using a chemical process to transfer images to paper where a camera (not pointing at sun) can capture the image. just a bit of latency, but no more than pulling down a sun visor and applying mascara

twilightswimmer 2025-12-18 19:28

Or around school buses.

TryIsntGoodEnough 2025-12-18 19:40

Honestly that would probably be safer than whatever the hell Tesla is doing

WildFlowLing 2025-12-18 19:48

Remember when Elon “debunked” the FsD glare issues by claiming they use “photon counting” that wasnt affected by glare LMFAO

Ouch259 2025-12-18 19:52

Or add $200 Lidar

weaz-am-i 2025-12-18 19:55

Using high quality sensors can allow you to use a raspberry pi. Not that i would use one of those in a production environment where human life is at risk. Om just giving you an idea of the computing power required with good data. With vision only you literally need a multi gpu server in the car trying to interpret what it is seeing and then simulate an entire 3d world based on that data. A raspberry pi level computer with high end sensors is told there is an obstruction in front of the car A tesla with vision only has to guess if there is an obstruction in front of the car.

Seaker42 2025-12-18 20:00

My Model Y drives just fine for me in the bright FL sun, and in rain and in pretty thick fog and at night when the idiots driving towards me have their bright lights on so bright I can't see anything.

weaz-am-i 2025-12-18 20:01

But his cars also cant work whefe there's no GPS! Which is why those cars in the tunnels need drivers. Imagine having offline sensors like LiDAR, Radar, ultrasonic, proximity that can map out the environment you are in like a fucking robot vacuum that we have had for decades. L

BaggyLarjjj 2025-12-18 20:17

Those are edge cases. A gently lit indoor track it’s almost flawless assuming the ambient sound is just right.

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:18

You joke about the pi but plenty of L2 systems out there with less compute.

BaggyLarjjj 2025-12-18 20:18

How often do people really drive during the day though.

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:19

Or they could just add the lidar and not do that.

That-Makes-Sense 2025-12-18 20:20

Or if there are shadows on the road. But at least they'll drive slightly better in perfect conditions than a drunk teenager texting while driving.

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:20

So moderate psoriasis?

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:22

Jesus Christ Elons going to buy Kodak isn’t he?

Brave_Nerve_6871 2025-12-18 20:22

Great for overcast weather without rain, taking over the taxi markets right now!

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:24

Yeah but that’s cheaper. Everyone knows cheap is bad every other statement.

meltbox 2025-12-18 20:26

So does everyone else Elon. My god damn flip phone counted photons, probably worse than a potato though.

rbrogger 2025-12-18 20:45

If only there was a technology that did not rely on optical vision for measuring distance. Maybe it will be invented in the year 3025.

wyldstallionesquire 2025-12-18 21:25

I’ll consider FSD _might_ not be a death trap scam when the auto wipers on my model Y start properly identifying when it is and isn’t raining.

Daryltang 2025-12-18 21:30

I think drizzles cause most issues with cameras outside cars Also. Leaves are a big issue. The way the move when there is wind Best to remove all these before you turn on FSD

SuperF91EX 2025-12-18 21:41

Leon picking camera only is peak fucking idiocy.

SuperF91EX 2025-12-18 21:44

I had continuous warnings about disabled cameras driving on I5 from Olympia to Tacoma. 2020 Model Y. Your S must be special.

bobi2393 2025-12-18 21:56

They said radars and lidars made their cars less safe. Sounds like an excuse to be cheap, but if your engineers don’t know what they’re doing, or don’t have the time or budget to integrate it properly, that’s possible.

RefrigeratorTasty912 2025-12-18 21:57

each sensor itself would need its own processor/AI to determine obstructions and inform the car appropriately, moving the processing requirements from the central processor to the satellite locations of each senors (power and cooling becomes a bigger issue)... you also have an even bigger issue of each sensor's AI deciding what it sees has precedence over another senor's interpretation of reality... (even if they are of the same type). "Here's what I see" (point cloud) is very different than "I see a person within this point cloud that is walking into my driving path with a probability of X that I might hit them, and I should do Y action to prevent it" (object classification, rational thinking) PS, I didn't write this to defend Tesla's approach at all... they need an Imaging radar at minimum to safely get above L2 in all weather applications. and HW4 does not offer enough processing power to make sense of a dense point cloud generated by an Imaging Radar with doppler 4D rich data of all points moving/stationary.

RefrigeratorTasty912 2025-12-18 22:00

And exiting tunnels where the shift in light has the same potential... Or I dunno... an angry person with a very bright LED flashlight that doesn't like Tesla, and knows that it can blind the camera with a $10 item...

Hixie 2025-12-18 22:12

I've been in situations where I couldn't drive safely either.

Beartrkkr 2025-12-18 22:16

It's great, except when it's not.

Beartrkkr 2025-12-18 22:19

Installing Lidar would be admitting he was wrong. He had doubled or tripled down on cameras only being the best solution.

Ok-Bill3318 2025-12-18 22:26

It’s fine so long as you don’t expect it to deal with aberrant conditions such as sunlight or dirt. Or fog Or smoke Or optical illusions.

VitaminPb 2025-12-18 23:25

Dude, during the day is when your car turns into a Robotaxi and makes you millions!

hoorock89 2025-12-18 23:32

Bright sunny afternoon in Chicago last Monday 12/8. Sitting at a red light when I got rear ended by a 2026 Tesla Model Y in (you guessed it) Full Self Drive mode. Conditions were perfect otherwise, but the bright sun combined with the reflection from the snowfall from a few days earlier apparently scrambled the FSD.

TheInternetsLOL 2025-12-18 23:47

Causing accidents and plowing pedestrians in no time.

Secure_Guest_6171 2025-12-19 00:14

One would think the Vegas loop would have have exclusively roboTeslas from the start

Meister-Schnitter 2025-12-19 00:30

But it’s great for driving into motorcycles at night!

relaxyourshoulders 2025-12-19 00:45

Dude the world is an onion headline right now

foo-bar-25 2025-12-19 01:17

And the part where it tries to murder people.

Even-Leave4099 2025-12-19 02:55

With today’s cost I don’t even think it will.  I’m no AI expert but I think felon is going all in on vision because his training data is all vision based.  He will lose a lot of his advantage (the one he had) if he back tracks and adds lidar info.  Please any AI expert can chime in and clarify my basic understanding.

TheBrianWeissman 2025-12-19 05:59

I wasn’t mentioning the Austin situation out of respect, but out of a mixture of disgust and irony.

techbunnyboy 2025-12-19 06:57

Except when humans sit inside the car

[deleted] 2025-12-19 08:35

Fuzzy_Inevitable9748 • 9h ago In Doctor who they have quantum angels, they are statues that can only move when no one looks at them, but they move damn fast so you can’t even blink. This post has me picturing a world where teslas are hunting us down quantum angel style. << That 100%

One-Welcome-1514 2025-12-19 11:58

Sprouting potatoes prove: they are fucking good detecting certain wavelengths.

rbetterkids 2025-12-19 12:39

Imagine being a back passenger to the robotaxi when the car is crossing a bridge that crosses the ocean like the San Francisco bridge or driving through high mountains that have no guard rail with a 5,000 feet drop.

Expensive-Friend3975 2025-12-19 16:29

Thats not really fair though. Our foveas achieve something like 3\~6x the effective pixels-per-degree of a car mounted camera. So really we have the ability to resolve much finer detail. That combined with our supercomputer brain that can point it exactly where detail is needed most is where it all comes together.

iiTool 2025-12-19 17:21

They validate models using lidar as seen by the kit installed on ADAS vehicles often spotted and posted online.

iiTool 2025-12-19 17:32

Camera sensor technology is developing and it was recently announced that Sony are producing a new sensor for Tesla that may utilise infra red which can see through fog and have low lux 'starlight' capabilities. Still does not solve rain, snow and other physical obstacles that can only really be overcome by radar. The resolution of synthetic aperture radar is getting as good as high resolution camera sensors and may actually become a single technology replacement for cameras. You could say cameras are the fools errand

mojodaddy3000 2025-12-19 18:58

Hey i thought Musks dorky robots can do everything so why not just have them drive cars? You won’t have to make self driving cars then.

usa_reddit 2025-12-20 01:49

Or a snowstorm.

[deleted] 2025-12-20 07:27

Or at night? Or in the rain? So it’s great except for the part where it sucks night and day?

reddit_equals_censor 2025-12-20 09:37

to be fair the sane conclusion would have been: public transit + bicycle infrastructure. well and once we ignore that the solution would be: all the possible sensors + the best compute, because that is what you do if the goal would be to make it as safe as possible and not just "safe enough". the idea to not use lidar wouldn't even remotely come up, if elon ever cared about human lives. if tesla wouldn't have run on scamming people, the cars would have gotten sold with a place for the hardware ready to insert it and a place for cheap enough lidar and other sensors ready to put in, once all of those are cheap enough to be sold to people. but then he couldn't have done all the lying of "hey the hardware is there, next year the software will be delivered for sure, full self driving is coming..."

[deleted] 2025-12-20 13:39

My model Y windshield wipers were similarly great. Except they often times would wipe furiously in the bright sunshine for no reason. And in the rain, they were suddenly exhausted and didn’t want to wipe at all. But man, when it wasn’t super sunny or super rainy, those wipers were awesome.

admin_default 2025-12-20 16:24

Yes, best possible sensor suite + best possible compute is the rational approach - and that’s what Waymo did. Now that it works, Waymo is in cost optimization mode as they gradually scale. Cost optimization should only happen AFTER the product is working at scale. That’s how you build cutting edge tech. Trying to cost optimize BEFORE it works is literal suicide (both for the company and the humans involved in testing). If NASA had tried to cost optimize in the 1960s before getting the first space shuttle to the moon - it would have taken a decade longer and a LOT of astronauts would have died in the process. But Elon sees his customers as expendables.

reddit_equals_censor 2025-12-20 17:31

>before getting the first space shuttle to the moon now that's a theory i haven't even heard :) \_\_\_\_ shuttles never went outside of earth's orbit and there is no dispute about that either so funny typo by you or sth creating a completely new idea of what might have happened in regards to moon landings ;) also i believe, that the claimed manned moon landings were a terrible example, because regardless of what you believe happened, one thing all agree is, that there was no real cost optimizations at all. it was an endless money funnel running things with tons of companies all around the country and that even being desired in some regards, because jobs and shit. and lots of nasa contracts back then and today still were actually decided against cost optimizations. you went over the cost? well you get paid for the extra, so you literally get paid to not reach the price you claimed for example. "cost-plus" contracts is the term used for this insanity. now the spaceshuttle was supposed to be a cheap and decently quickly reusable vehicle. IT DIDN'T TURN OUT TO BE THOUGH. \_\_\_ so i think you could have chosen a far far better comparison. and you are absolutely correct of course, that you first figure things out and THEN think about cost optimizations. does it work? is it safe? can we make it even safer? alright it is ok then let's cost optimize.

admin_default 2025-12-20 17:46

A “space shuttle” accurately describes spacecraft that shuttled humans into space during the first moon landing. Orbital shuttles like STS-1 being called “Space Shuttles” by NASA for marketing purposes is a misnomer.

[deleted] 2025-12-22 10:49

I also think Musk having to admit he is wrong about camera only also negates Tesla's scalability and every customer turning their Tesla into a money printing machine.  I don't think that many Tesla owners would want to have random strangers in their cars without supervision anyways.  There is also the aesthetics of lidar and radar that he probably doesnt like.

iyamwhatiyam8000 2025-12-24 05:22

It is no match for a thick cloud of high speed insect spatter.

Engunnear 2025-12-24 12:05

Cleary, all the evangelists for FSD have never driven across the Great Plains on a summer evening.

thisclassyman 2025-12-26 02:59

LiDaR iS oBsOLeTe

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