Guy whose Tesla just obliterated an animal: "FSD works awesome!"

Animal Annihilator

Tesla's Full Self-Driving system is far from flawless — and it's certainly not autonomous, because it needs to be constantly monitored by a human driver. That being said, you might expect it to do more than literally nothing when encountering an animal in the road.

As spotted by Jalopnik, a video shared on X-formerly-Twitter shows dashcam footage of a Tesla Model 3 moments before absolutely obliterating a deer at full speed that wandered into traffic, with the vehicle making no attempt to slow down.

The uploader, who goes by Paul S, says his car was using Full Self-Driving mode at the time. What's even more baffling, according to him, is that the driving assistance software didn't stop after the collision. Instead, it kept steaming ahead as if nothing happened.

"Huge surprise after getting a dozen of false stops every day!" Paul wrote.

Damage Control

The deer strike left his car with a big dent in the hood, scratches on his windshield, and possibly more serious damage to the frame.

"Experiencing worst side of Tesla service now," Paul wrote. "Can't even get an estimate for insurance. Nearest appointments only in January."

In true Tesla-devotee fashion, though, Paul clarified that he still thinks "FSD works awesome!"

"This is just an edge case," he argued, adding that he's "insanely grateful" to the automaker.

But it's really not an "edge case." Deer strikes are common, with an estimated 2.1 million vehicle collisions with the animal occurring each year in the US. The poor creatures don't know any better, but they pose a legitimate, everyday threat to the safety of motorists, especially at night.

See the Light

In short, widely-available driving software — especially if it's branded as "Full Self-Driving" — should be equipped to reliably deal with incidents like these.

There's probably nothing that a human driver could have done to avoid the collision, but they could have at least applied the brakes to soften the impact — something that FSD completely failed to do.

At Elon Musk's insistence, Tesla's driving assistance software only uses cameras to perceive its surroundings, which as evidenced here comes with obvious drawbacks in low visibility conditions.

That's why its competitors use LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, to supplement their cameras by using laser pulses to create a 3D map of the environs. Musk famously considers LiDAR a "crutch" and refuses to use it, which critics would argue is why his driving software is stuck at a lower classification of autonomy than the likes of Waymo's. His bullheadedness, arguably, is endangering his customers — and poor, wayward little deer.

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