White Box Autonomy

FSD drives through substantial standing water at night in stormy conditions

Date
Date unknown
Developer / operator
Tesla
System
FSD (Supervised)
Event type
Unexpected or inappropriate behaviour
Outcome
Failure / challenging
Automation status
Driving automation engaged — confirmed
Curator-reviewed

Summary

At night in stormy conditions, with FSD (Supervised) engaged, the vehicle continued into a large area of standing water on the roadway and produced a substantial splash while passing through it.

Written by White Box Autonomy from the sources listed below.

What is observable from the evidence

  • The event occurred at night during stormy or heavy-rain conditions.
  • A substantial area of standing water was visible on the roadway.
  • With FSD (Supervised) engaged, the vehicle continued into the standing water.
  • The vehicle produced a substantial splash while passing through it.
  • No collision occurred in the recorded event.

Automation status

Driving automation engaged — confirmed

Whether the driving-automation feature was engaged is a separate question from whether it caused the event.

System / software version

Not identified in the available sources.

Causal attribution

Undetermined

The available evidence does not establish a cause. Involvement of a driving-automation system is not the same as its being a cause.

What remains unknown

  • The depth of the standing water.
  • Whether the system detected the water as a distinct roadway hazard.
  • Whether the vehicle modified its speed before entering the water.
  • Whether the roadway remained safely passable.
  • Whether visibility, reflections, rainfall or sensor performance influenced the behaviour.
  • What the system would have done if the water had been deeper or impassable.

Interpretation

Curator interpretation — this goes beyond what the evidence directly shows

The event shows the driving-automation system proceeding through substantial standing water under degraded nighttime weather conditions. The available video establishes the observable vehicle behaviour, but not whether the system recognised the water as a hazard or how it assessed its depth and passability.

Sources & evidence

The sources below are the evidence. The summary and any interpretation on this page are written by White Box Autonomy and are not themselves evidence.

  1. YouTube video · White Box Autonomy

    First-person clip recorded by White Box Autonomy showing the vehicle driving through a large area of standing water at night.

About this record

Review status: Curator-reviewed. What the review statuses mean.

Record last reviewed or updated: 30 August 2026.

To report an error or raise a concern about this record, contact zuduo.zheng@uq.edu.au.