FSD Mystery
I wanted to share a quirky FSD behavior I’ve been seeing with my Model X. Hoping some Tesla engineers, FSD experts, or other owners might have insight.
I live in a condo complex. My 4 unit building is on a hill. I’m in the end unit with a fairly large shared parking lot (no painted lines) and have garages. Every morning when I pull out of my garage, I enter my destination, engage FSD, and let it handle the rest.
The car always drives straight down the parking lot until it reaches the point where it has to veer left to exit toward the street. Once it gets to the street, there are two options that both lead to the same direction on the main road:
• Turn left immediately onto the street, or
• Turn right, loop around a small cul-de-sac, and merge in the same direction.
It chooses the direct left turn ~70% of the time and the right + cul-de-sac route ~30% of the time. The starting position in the garage, time of day, weather, and everything else is identical every single time.
This has been consistent since I got the car — no correlation with software updates that I can tell. It’s not a big deal at all (both routes work fine), but it’s fascinating that the same inputs produce different path choices so consistently.
Any ideas why this happens? Is it some kind of randomization in the routing/planning algorithm? Slight differences in sensor data or localization that aren’t obvious to me? Or just the way the cost function weighs the two paths?
Would love to hear thoughts! Thanks.