When your car’s “Full Self-Driving” software attempts to turn you into a submarine, something has gone spectacularly wrong. Daniel Milligan discovered this firsthand when his Tesla, running FSD version 14.2.2.4, cheerfully steered toward a lake in footage that racked up 1.2 million views on X. The video captures everything wrong with Tesla’s decade-long promise of autonomous driving: impressive technology married to dangerous overconfidence.
Pattern Recognition Gone Wrong
This lake incident isn’t an anomaly—it’s Tuesday. FSD’s recent greatest hits include:
- Flipping a vehicle after veering off-road in May 2025
- Causing a head-on collision in China during a botched lane change in December 2025
- Steering Tesla influencers straight into road debris during a coast-to-coast publicity stunt
Each crash involved different software versions, different scenarios, same fundamental problem: edge cases that would make a driving instructor weep. Version 14.2.2.4 supposedly features neural network vision encoder upgrades for higher resolution, yet here we are watching a Tesla mistake a lake for a lane.
Regulators Circle the Wagons
Federal investigators aren’t amused. NHTSA launched probes into 2.88 million Tesla vehicles last October, focusing on 58 FSD incidents that resulted in 14 crashes and 23 injuries. The agency is particularly concerned about red-light running and opposing-lane driving—behaviors that sound less like “artificial intelligence” and more like “artificial stupidity.”
Over 50 deaths have been linked to Tesla’s driver assistance systems, a body count that makes the lake video feel less funny and more ominous.
Subscription Service Reality Check
Tesla quietly shifted FSD to a $99 monthly subscription in February, suggesting what critics have said for years: this isn’t “full self-driving” by any reasonable definition. It’s a beta test you pay to participate in.
The subscription model reflects Tesla’s acknowledgment that FSD remains a service requiring constant updates rather than the finished autonomous product promised since 2016. Even Elon’s most optimistic timelines have been pushed back more times than a flight out of LaGuardia.
Your Tesla’s FSD might be the best Level 2 driver assistance system available, but “best” doesn’t mean “ready to replace your attention.” Until these neural networks learn that lakes aren’t highways, keep your hands on the wheel and your expectations in check.
