Tesla FSD parking: what it still cannot do, and what got better.

What it does in a strange lot

I told it to drive me to Total Wine and I let it park me, and where it parked me was way out in the middle of the lot with no other cars anywhere around. Not one. Meanwhile there were open spots up by the door, which is where I would have gone, and where anybody would have gone. Maybe my Tesla has a scale in it and thinks I need some exercise. The drive itself was great, I should say that. It drove the whole way there and did it well, and then it picked that spot.

This is not my lot, or my town, or one bad guess on one bad day. The Winn-Dixie down on the Florida coast, same story. Open spots up by the door, and it went to the back forty. Same thing at the Verizon store back home a month earlier. I have now watched it do the same thing in two states, which tells me it is how the car thinks about parking and not some local thing it just has not learned yet.

To be fair about it, it parks clean and it lines up straight. Sometimes it backs in, sometimes it pulls in, and I cannot always predict which one I am getting.

The one that matters most: marked handicapped spaces

Set aside that FSD is not the best chooser of parking spots to begin with. This one is different, because the cost lands on somebody else. I pulled into a lot that was relatively full, and the car proceeded to select a clearly marked handicapped spot. An accessible space, no question about what it was. I stopped it and moved the car to a different spot myself. It happens a lot.

I am the driver, so that ticket would have been mine, and that space belongs to somebody who needs it. Catching that kind of thing is my job. When the screen asked why I took over, I told it that was a parking issue.

What strikes me as odd is that I am fairly confident FSD can see signs. Stop signs, for sure, and I believe it reads other kinds too, like the ones that restrict a turn between certain hours. So I do not understand why it has not figured out how to identify a handicapped parking spot. This is one I have not seen get any better at all since I have owned the car.

The dead-end

The Verizon store is the one that convinced me to keep my hand near the wheel in lots. I pulled up and the car decided to turn into a little lot behind the building that had no outlet. If I had let it go I think it would have circled, or worse, parked me in the wrong lot entirely. So I interrupted it and pulled around to the front myself.

That is also why I will probably never have much of a streak. Tesla added a counter that tracks how far you go without taking over. I thought I would try to let one ride. I could not do it. I love FSD, but I do not love wasting time, and letting the car wander around a parking lot just to protect a number is not worth it to me. My time matters more than the stat does.

Where it is good: places it knows

When the car knows a place, it is great. At my house it picks the driveway and pulls in. For a new spot last June it offered me street or driveway and nailed the driveway. A lot it has never seen is still a guess. A place it has been is not.

What changed on 14.3.6

Before 14.3.6 the car had some trouble going home and not actually going to my driveway. It would get me to the house and then not quite know what the last part meant. On 14.3.6 it started knowing where my actual driveway was, and pulling up in front of the garage fairly consistently. That was the first build where the driveway problem seemed to start getting better, and it has held.

What it still will not do is pull in. I would take that trade in a heartbeat. If Tesla told me the fix was to lay a strip of marking tape on the garage floor to give it something to aim at, I would go find the tape. What I want out of parking is more options, and that is the one I would spend them on.

How to teach it

This is the most useful thing I have learned about parking, and it did not show up until 14.3.7. The learning feature is definitely learning, if you interact with it correctly.

When you step on the brake because you wanted a different parking spot than the one FSD picked, the car asks you what happened. Tell it that was a parking issue. When you step on the brake because the navigation was not ideal, tell it that was a navigation issue. If you ignore those pop-ups on the screen, it does not seem to learn. Answer them accurately and you do get some learning. On my roads that started most significantly with 14.3.7.

So the habit I would build is simple. Take it over the second it heads for the wrong lot, do not feel bad about it, and then answer the question honestly when the screen asks.

What I do in the meantime

• Let it drive the lot, watch the spot. The approach is fine. The choice is the problem.
• Take over early in a lot you do not know. Especially if it heads somewhere with no outlet.
• Park it yourself when you are in a hurry. I do, and I do not think twice.
• Let it do the driveway. On the current builds it has that one, at least up to the garage door.

I keep hoping every build is going to be the one that fixes it. None of them has been it yet. But between 14.3.4 and 14.3.9 the driveway went from a coin flip to reliable, and the car started listening when I tell it why I took over. That is progress I can actually see from my seat, and this page will change when the lots catch up.