Gary Zhou 
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving suite are expected to tackle complex road conditions with ease in the future. This involves factors such as people walking around, motorcyclists driving around vehicles, and other possible edge cases in inner-city driving. When Autopilot is confident in its ability to manage these scenarios, it could launch ambitious projects like Elon Musk’s Robotaxi Network.
Tesla’s FSD Beta appears to be optimized for maximum safety, at least based on videos of the system in action. Members of the FSD Beta’s first batch of testers have posted videos of the advanced driver-assist system carefully navigating even the most daunting inner-city streets in cities like San Francisco. However, even these treacherous roads pale in comparison to traffic congestion in other parts of the globe.
Traffic in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, for example, is notoriously difficult, to the point that even skilled human drivers may feel nervous when driving through city streets. Other nations, such as India and the Philippines, have similar road rules that are not strictly adhered to. As seen in a recently shared video from a Tesla Model X user, Autopilot still has a long way to go in places like these.
A Tesla Model X driver in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, recently posted a video of Autopilot in action while driving through heavy traffic. The short clip depicted crowded roads with a large number of cars, as well as motorcycles moving in and out of the stopped vehicles. The Model X’s visualizations depicted the chaotic scene, which included numerous alerts as the motorcycles approached the all-electric SUV by inches.
Autopilot put in a valiant effort, going forward for a short distance and reaching a speed of 6 km/h (3.7 mph) in order to get closer to the vehicle ahead. However, as the number of vehicles on the road increased and more motorcycles lined up between the Model X and the car ahead of it, Autopilot finally demanded a manual override from the driver. This, if anything, demonstrated Tesla’s commitment to safety, as the driver-assist system seemed to determine that it was not yet capable of navigating such a busy lane.
As Tesla spreads to countries like India, where roads are often notoriously congested, the crowded streets of Vietnam would be a popular occurrence for Teslas. Tesla will definitely have to speed up the launch of its FSD Beta, which is smarter and more capable than Autopilot, to properly navigate such streets.
Watch Autopilot attempt to operate in a busy Vietnam street in the video below.
