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Tesla Fan Profusely Praises FSD For Veering His Car off the Side of the Highway

FuturismDotCom | 2026-01-09 21:48 | 446 views

Comments (73)
FuturismDotCom 2026-01-09 21:49

The owner of a Tesla equipped with so-called Full Self-Driving wrote on social media that “Tesla FSD saved my life last night on Interstate 95 in South Carolina” when it suddenly swerved off the highway as traffic stopped ahead. One problem: The video the driver attached showed that neither he nor FSD took any action when the SUV in front of the Tesla began to brake, only for the software to jump into action at the last second and direct the car into a grass median that, luckily, wasn't particularly rough or deep.

Speeder172 2026-01-09 21:56

Yup, that's the funniest part, everything happened "slowly" but the software reacted way too late and decided to veer on the left ahahha

Ill_Somewhere_3693 2026-01-09 21:57

This is seriously some Jim Jones: David Koresh level Cult at this point, I’m sure someone’s already mixing in the kool aide

Vivid_Transition4807 2026-01-09 22:00

That's mental that they posted the video.

Ok_Resolution8814 2026-01-09 22:03

Only 5 Billion more training miles to go

Worldly_Economist711 2026-01-09 22:07

LOL he said Saved His Life from what, a minor fender bender? Hahahaha

Admirable_Nothing 2026-01-09 22:10

I have simple adaptive cruise control and it can handle this stop and go traffic perfectly. On long road trips I set it on 75 and just steer. If a car ahead slows even slowing quickly my car will slow as quickly. If the car takes off quickly the ACC will accelerate quickly. Here it appears the Tesla sensors didn't see the traffic in front slowing. Maybe it was doing a reboot at the same time. Is a reboot even a thing on a Tesla?

appmapper 2026-01-09 22:11

100%, no interventions. It's perfect. Wild how all the non-FSD vehicles were able to navigate this edge case. Those FSD-less rubes must have just been lucky this time. Every visible vehicle's brake lights just came on, slow down? No way. Mad Max mode baby! We swerve'n!

sweetplantveal 2026-01-09 22:13

There was plenty of stopping distance, funny enough, despite the late reaction. I will say it handled the swerve pretty well once it was committed. No excess sideways travel on the soft surface, overcorrection, etc. Credit where due.

CallMeSkii 2026-01-09 22:15

That looks like the most basic of traffic slowdowns. If only a human would have had the ability to gently tap the brakes.

[deleted] 2026-01-09 22:17

My car’s adaptive cruise will brake way more aggressively than I would to maintain its 2.5 second following distance I have set, it would have zero issues with this scenario

nojunkdrawers 2026-01-09 22:19

He's not exactly wrong; the car *did* save his life by swerving, but only because the car failed to respond to traffic much earlier. Better that than slamming directly into the car ahead, I guess. That said, if I were he, I would not ever turn on Full-Stupid Driving again after that.

hypespud 2026-01-09 22:20

My Honda's cruise control would have just avoided this entirely through gentle braking 🤣

slowpoke2018 2026-01-09 22:21

How anyone can trust that POS software on public roads - let along brag about its incompetence - shows how many of Elmo's fans are cultists

ComicsEtAl 2026-01-09 22:22

I’d bet this explains his recent dinner at Mal-da-Lardo… “Of course, like many Elon Musk products, it commands cultish loyalty even as it’s being investigated by a federal regulator over frequent reports of it driving straight into the path of oncoming trains at railroad crossings. Life-saving tech indeed.”

hooblyshoobly 2026-01-09 22:23

Not only slow moving but he had so long as a human driver to slow down there. Jesus Christ lmao.

wesweb 2026-01-09 22:23

> *my Tesla almost killed me! Please Elon may I have another*?

zedk47 2026-01-09 22:26

Saved his life from a bruise on the bumper? Or from a lawsuit from the front car's driver because FSD braked soooo late?

Real-Technician831 2026-01-09 22:26

Flavor aid, the Jones bunch was too cheap for Kool aide, so they used a knockoff. Kinda fitting.

Specman9 2026-01-09 22:27

It's a cult. I say that as a Tesla owner.

locka99 2026-01-09 22:28

Survivor bias

Duckonaut27 2026-01-09 22:31

Aren’t these people supposed to be left leaning…and they buy a fascist manufactured automobile? Fuck em.

CloseToMyActualName 2026-01-09 22:31

The next one is even worse. [FSD plows right through a deer standing in the middle of the road](https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-self-driving-deer). Though in that case at least he didn't call it a win.

GiveMeSomeShu-gar 2026-01-09 22:33

Scary stuff - a self driving car should be safe enough to not have to veer off the road for stopped traffic

NoIncrease299 2026-01-09 22:54

Amazing and so much safer than just ... using the brakes.

AntonChigurh8933 2026-01-09 23:09

For reals? Haha, I'm dead.

dtyamada 2026-01-09 23:10

If only there were some sort of technology that could detect objects on the road ahead of you to help deal with "edge cases". Oh well, vision only it is

blu3ysdad 2026-01-09 23:21

No they are dead lol

Engunnear 2026-01-09 23:38

Man… there’s never a culvert when you need one.

Engunnear 2026-01-09 23:40

It didn’t need to stop. It didn’t even really do slow down more than it had already done.

FitnessLover1998 2026-01-09 23:41

He calls that saving his life lol.

masssy 2026-01-09 23:47

If this was a life threatening event I can assure you I almost died 100 times and saved myself every time. Incredible, I know. This is something every driver with a license should handle. If not, emergency radar should trigger brake. Last option if unable to slow a modern car should go to the side of the road like this if safe, Option 3 triggered after the danger was over... Incredibly bad.

masssy 2026-01-09 23:49

He saved his leg from not pressing the brake pedal even a little bit hard.

lelkan115 2026-01-10 00:18

My Model S FSD is fantastic!!! I use it 99% of the time! I’d never go back to driving without it.

sweetplantveal 2026-01-10 00:27

Yeah obviously it was completely unnecessary. Unlike the tesla, we all have a good idea of how far that truck was and how quickly it was slowing down. I just meant a lot of humans don't do emergency lane changes like that.

Cynical_Nick 2026-01-10 00:31

I drove 17 Hrs from Louisiana to Minnesota last week and maybe drove 2 minutes just when leaving superchargers. It's been near flawless. The issues I've had are not driving related but usability Issues are usually patched quickly with new software.

ewan82 2026-01-10 00:40

As oppsed to all those other cars that stayed on the road and presumably everyone died?

techbunnyboy 2026-01-10 01:57

This is the reason folks like fElon are still walking around with confidence

Particular-Load-3547 2026-01-10 02:49

Okay, that's it. You're all getting UVs. You're getting two. Or would, if I could

hashswag00 2026-01-10 02:52

Faux Self Driving

mishap1 2026-01-10 03:10

It's a cult with a stock grift thrown on top. You buy the stock, buy the car, see the stock go up, relentlessly parrot the virtues of Tesla, and hope you convince other people how magical it is because you got in earlier. Work with some people who absolutely try to position their conversations looking for the opportunity to share the Gospel of Elon.

Specman9 2026-01-10 03:27

I will absolutely preach the gospel of EVs....no emissions, high torque, DIRT CHEAP TO FUEL, low maintenance, fewer repairs, quiet, no lurching transmission, can fuel up at home, can install solar PV to harvest your own fuel. But I will NOT suggest Tesla...the vehicles are stale, much more competition now, door handle issues, everyone now has NACS now, not much V2G support....and the CEO is a Nazi-adjacent White Nationalist creep.

morty-vicar 2026-01-10 03:55

Makes a change from veering to the right.

torokunai 2026-01-10 04:32

My FSD beta is expiring tonight and I'm OK losing it. It follows too close, per this video! Lane changes are often retarded. I'd pay the $8000 if Tesla would take responsibility for any crashes with it active, but short of that it's just software in active development still. A/P is good enough for slab miles; I like being in total control of the lane selection. For in-town, A/P isn't quite as good as FSD, but driving in-town is not a multi-hour activity like long trips.

torokunai 2026-01-10 04:35

I leave enough distance so I don't ever have to slam on the brakes. None of these clowns were tho

Economy-System1922 2026-01-10 05:09

What if they were stopped at a cross walk and the FSD made them veer around, killing a pedestrian.

Youngnathan2011 2026-01-10 07:15

“Saved my life” by swerving off the road unnecessarily after already slowing down enough to avoid hitting the car in front.

Pixel91 2026-01-10 08:01

You could sit in a Lexus LS 430, which was the first car with full ACC in 2004 and it would just gently stop for this.

I-Pacer 2026-01-10 10:10

Amazing how every other vehicle in the video managed to cope with traffic and stay on the road.

preedsmith42 2026-01-10 10:36

Any human driver would have slowly used the brakes and nothing would have been noticed. That's just clickbait stuff IMO.

Lorax91 2026-01-10 11:54

Fully Supervised Driving

Emmy-Lou-Sugarbean 2026-01-10 14:18

Interesting case. The deer was standing along the direction of travel. Of course tesla would miss it as it is a piece of shit company which does bare minimum.

analyticaljoe 2026-01-10 16:01

This is pretty old IIRC. It's a great example of a driver not monitoring FSD when they should. It was super clear that the dude was moving to pass. The thing to do at that point is to start slowing down rather than veer off the road at the last second.

Lacrewpandora 2026-01-10 16:14

I'm beginning to think these Branch Elonians aren't really good drivers in the first place.

lexievv 2026-01-10 16:57

Sounds like a tesla fan yeah lol.

lexievv 2026-01-10 17:00

Lol, this car was obviously far away from the one in front that just lightly breaking would've been enough.

tuctrohs 2026-01-10 17:49

These people? I must be missing some context that would help me know what you mean.

Duckonaut27 2026-01-10 18:21

The title of the thread. I wrote a whole paragraph to explain what I meant. I went ahead and deleted it. If you can’t understand what that means, then that sort of sucks.

BringBackUsenet 2026-01-10 22:02

There probably wouldn't have been any need for evasive actions at all if this guy had been paying attention instead of relying on shitty software..

BringBackUsenet 2026-01-10 22:04

Heaven's Gate would be better, they can all go to Mars together in the latest running shoes.

SoulShatter 2026-01-10 22:28

Pretty sure it's because they ditched radar. Radar is pretty good at figuring relative speed. Cameras only really estimate the distance

brintoul 2026-01-11 01:28

Just 5 billion more petabytes of data needed.

Busy-Explanation4339 2026-01-11 02:17

>Here it appears the Tesla sensors didn't see the traffic in front slowing. They don't have the proper sensors for the job to begin with and that's the whole problem. If it was equipped with LiDAR or even just radar this would not have happened.

Admirable_Nothing 2026-01-11 02:59

What sensor does the std adaptive cruise control use to keep its distance?

oldbluer 2026-01-11 14:28

Lol FSD follows way too close

Pepparkakan 2026-01-11 19:56

Nevermind human, a Volvo from 2007 would have handled that better regardless of whether the driver reacts.

HorrorsPersistSoDoI 2026-01-11 21:29

None of this would've happened if he kept a FUCKING DISTANCE

qui_tacet-consentire 2026-01-12 02:09

And even on the grass, he never got close to being as far as the car ahead. Braking on the road would've been just fine. We all know that most of these fanboys are not ready to take control of their car, this is just ridiculous.

[deleted] 2026-01-12 22:09

The reality of FSD [https://bsky.app/profile/elonthecon.bsky.social/post/3mcanuc6zp22v](https://bsky.app/profile/elonthecon.bsky.social/post/3mcanuc6zp22v) "some of you may die..."

sinikl_1 2026-01-13 14:36

imagine that's wet grass with the sort of grade most medians have. now you're on an amusement park ride into oncoming traffic going 80 mph.

banditcleaner2 2026-01-15 22:00

watching the video he posted makes it look so much worse lmao

banditcleaner2 2026-01-15 22:02

Its absolutely a cult. If you were like me back before elon went crazy and frequented some of the tesla subs, you probably know that they'd ban you for even the most milquetoast critcism. I'm still banned to this day haha. I also saw the infamous tesla mod nakamoto something or another (I forget his exact username) glazing tf out of elon and trying to explain why he should get his $50B+ pay package. "You wouldn't work for free would you???" was the summary of his argument

banditcleaner2 2026-01-15 22:03

its funny because the included free feature of traffic control works fine for my tesla, unironically it looks like FSD just fares worse then the normal features do which is not a good look for a software that they're trying to make you subscribe to for $100 per month.

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