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Tesla Full Self-Driving changes your perception of travel — long or short
Tesla Full Self-Driving will ruin controlling your vehicle manually.
Tesla does not tell you what Full Self-Driving will do to your perception of travel. Whether your next trip is a two-minute ride up the street to the grocery store or a 1,500-mile trip across multiple states, you’ll never look at driving the same way.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to have a new Tesla Model Y for the weekend. Equipped with the company’s Hardware 4 computer, the latest software version, and all of the new Model Y’s improvements from the legacy iteration, I knew much of my weekend would be spent testing FSD, as I have never had an extended experience with it.
By the time the weekend was over and it was time to pick up my non-Tesla car, I realized I was not ready to let go. Having the car drive me around from location to location all weekend was something I truly enjoyed, but it was more than just a convenience thing. I felt impressed, relaxed, and even, in some instances, safer.
🚨 The final leg of our trip here: FSD did a great job of navigating through this parking lot and getting us onto a highway with a very short on-ramp (a very typical part of living and driving in Pennsylvania).
Also, Autopark did a great job! I would like to see it improve by… pic.twitter.com/OBefKZKDCo
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 5, 2025
What Tesla Full Self-Driving Did Well
Now, before I truly begin, I do want to say that I don’t think I’ll ever feel safer than when I’m in ultimate control of the vehicle. However, a lot of things that give me stress during a drive were handled with relative ease by the car — and I was happy I didn’t have to deal with it.
One instance was merging onto a busy highway with a very short merge lane. Full Self-Driving took a no-holds-barred approach, taking the space it was given and grabbing a spot in the right lane quickly.
It was not willing to be passive, but it was also not willing to sacrifice safety. It will not wait for others to pull the trigger and go at intersections or four-way stops. If there are a few seconds of stagnation from the car and another driver in that instance, it will go, of course, proceeding safely.
It even did a handful of things I didn’t expect it to do. It would stay in the right lane if multiple on-ramps were approaching. I took it on a stretch of highway where three on-ramps are all within a mile of one another.
It passed a tractor-trailer just before we made it to the first of those three on-ramps. It stayed in that left lane after overtaking the 18-wheeler, as Driver Visualization showed more cars approaching to merge. It was one of those moments that, even though I have written about this topic for several years, was unbelievably impressive.
It not only drives people safely, but it is also considerate of other drivers, which is very impressive.
I was incredibly surprised to see my Fiancè have so much ease when it was operating.
🚨 Tesla Full Self-Driving takes my Fiancé and I to Target
Flawless drive! We’ll document the rest of our errands today! pic.twitter.com/TAx3mWmVgh
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 4, 2025
I figured, just because she is not as familiar with what Tesla does to make FSD better and how it works, that she would be very on edge during our rides. This was the opposite. She felt comfortable enough to look away from the road while in the passenger seat. Scrolling her phone or looking out at the blooming flowers was what she did in the car. It was no different from when I’m driving, and I think that was what was most impressive to me.
Driving after FSD
I found that picking up my car and driving manually back home truly brought me back to real life. Everyone with a Tesla and Full Self-Driving says that when you go back to another car, you feel like you’re stuck in the past.
I really did feel that way. Not only because of the aesthetic of the interior, but just because I was doing something that I just realized could be done for me with the right vehicle.
🚨 100% the truth!
Once you go FSD, you never go back! https://t.co/uq7qkgAbtA pic.twitter.com/lUN3rT2Kkl
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 8, 2025
While I love the car I own now, I’m still deciding whether I love it enough to keep it. To be completely honest, I have hopped around with the idea of trading in my car for the new Model Y. Whether I will or not truly depends on the next few weeks and how I feel, but I know that I will be considering it for the next few months easily.
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.
Lifestyle
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
Tesla’s Halloween teaser hides a covered vehicle and an Optimus hand rising from the ground.
Tesla has started teasing a Halloween software update for its vehicles, with a short clip on X that reads, “Halloween is coming.” The clip opens on a glowing pumpkin before pulling back to the car’s center touchscreen, where the usual parked visualization has been replaced by a graveyard scene, and the vehicle draped with a white sheet so it reads as a cartoon ghost.
Halloween is coming pic.twitter.com/lM3ASUeOqX
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 1, 2026
The second detail is a robotic hand clawing its way out of the dirt like a zombie, which looks to be the hand of Tesla’s latest Optimus V3 humanoid robot. While Tesla still has not formally shown Optimus Gen 3 walking around in service, renders pulled from Tesla’s Android app last month gave the clearest look yet, including far more refined hands that Tesla has said carry 22 degrees of freedom. The hand has been the hardest part of the program. Musk has called it the majority of the robot’s engineering difficulty, and Tesla’s patents describe a design driven by tendons with the actuators moved into the forearm.
Tesla Optimus V3 hand and arm details revealed in new patents
Optimus also has a Halloween track record. Last October the robot handed out candy in Times Square, and a costumed “zombie” Optimus shuffled around the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Halloween night.
On the software side, Tesla’s 2025 Holiday Update expanded Santa Mode with a Santa sleigh, snowmen, snow effects, and a festive lock chime, so it wouldn’t be too far fetched if we saw something similar but themed for a Halloween Mode.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is set to receive improvements to address its two biggest issues, according to a company engineer.
Director of Engineering at Tesla AI, Phil Duan, revealed in a post on X that improvements to both pothole avoidance and navigation “are coming,’ something we have heard many times in the past. However, there are a few things that seem to hint that things might be different this time around.
Improvements on both are coming.
— Phil Duan (@pduan) October 1, 2026
Pothole avoidance, navigation, speed control, and left lane camping are some of the most prevalent and frequently mentioned shortcomings of the Full Self-Driving suite. These are a few of the biggest issues that have kept Tesla Full Self-Driving as a Supervised suite, meaning drivers must remain attentive during operation.
Pothole Avoidance
Pothole avoidance was first mentioned as an “Upcoming Improvement” with the Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.3 update back in early April of this year. It was listed alongside “Expand reasoning to all behaviors beyond destination handling.”
It’s been six months since we first saw pothole avoidance explicitly mentioned, and it has not moved beyond that and joined the main release notes yet.
Tesla has not shed any light on why pothole avoidance has been such an issue for it to solve, but it also has issues identifying large bumps much of the time, so its modeling of sudden changes in road conditions is likely pretty weak at this particular point. I’ve had more issues with large bumps than potholes, personally, but both are issues that need to be resolved.
This is that big bounce that I mentioned in the quoted post.
It’s just a tad too drastic to take at the speed FSD wants to go over it. You can see me quickly swipe down into Sloth, but I intervened. https://t.co/K20PK9ysBg pic.twitter.com/81Oc82ZJcZ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 2, 2026
It makes sense that things might be pretty close to being released to the public, as we are going on such an extensive period of time between it being mentioned and it actually being deployed.
Navigation
Navigation is likely the most painful part of using Full Self-Driving, as it routinely takes strange routes, has trouble with local rules (like Except Right Turn Stop Signs in Pennsylvania), and sometimes does not realize that maneuvers it is suggesting are against the law. Turning out of my neighborhood, you cannot turn left, yet my Model Y still suggests it roughly 70 percent of the time when I’m leaving.
However, Tesla might be close to a breakthrough on this. With the Summer Update, Tesla added “Preferred Routes” alongside “Automatic Navigation.”
Preferred Routes prioritized roads that the driver had actually taken before, instead of always defaulting to what the vehicle believes is the most efficient path. This has already solved many of my issues. Formerly, I would turn off the Online Routing setting, and that would eliminate most of my complaints with routing, but then you lose out later on the Live Traffic Visualization.
Tesla’s Navigation has improved tremendously thanks to the Preferred Routes release with the Summer Update, but it still could use some polishing, as it still suggests strange routes from time to time, and it also has a lot of issues getting out of a parking lot. I find that those truly confuse FSD sometimes.
Tesla just made its headlights even better through a software update
Tesla teases “Halloween Mode” update with Optimus rising from a graveyard
