Strike was already on the brakes.. and Dan-O hadn't even left my hands.
Where this came from
In Episode 4.2 I threw Dan-O, our blow-up skeleton, into the road in front of Strike, my 2026 Model 3 Performance, with FSD (Supervised) driving at about 32 mph. Marianna was in the driver's seat supervising the whole time, and only the skeletons ever went in the road.
Back then I said I didn't think we could measure it down to the hundredth of a second, so we focused on what it looked like in real time. Then a viewer, Tony, asked a great question: could we at least put some bounds on it? Faster than this, no slower than that?
He also gave us the number to beat. A good, alert driver takes about one to one and a half seconds just to start braking. My father-in-law is a retired state trooper, and he told me the exact same thing.
So we went back to the footage. Most of our cameras filmed at high frame rates, and one of them, a 120 fps camera over my shoulder, sees me, the road and the car's screen all in one shot. That let us step through every run frame by frame and mark three moments: when the screen first reacts, when the brakes come on, and when Dan-O actually leaves my hands.
These are our own estimates off the video, not a lab test. I used my middle aged eyes to read the frames, so don't beat me up if you'd call one a frame or two different.
First, the slalom
Before any throwing, we laid Dan-O and Ribecca in the road about 60 feet apart. At about 300 feet out, Strike put its blinker on, and you can watch the blue path on the screen bend right around Dan-O, then around Ribecca, and back into its own lane. It never touched the brakes.
The throws, timed
I was aiming for 60, 45, 30 and 15 feet. My own reactions weren't nearly that good, so we just measured what actually happened.
On Run 1 the screen reacted at about a tenth of a second, and the brakes came on at around a quarter second. Dan-O didn't leave my hands until about eight tenths. So Strike had been braking for over half a second before he was even in the air. It slowed to about 2 mph, not a full stop, but still short of Dan-O.
Run 4 was the same story. The path changed about a tenth of a second after I started moving, and a quarter second in, Strike was on the brakes hard, with Dan-O still in my hands. It even picked out Ribecca hiding behind a tree. This time it stopped completely, and Dan-O was safe.
Marianna laughs on almost every run, because it reacts so hard it feels like a roller coaster.
Run 6: the ABS run
Run 6 is the one where you can hear the tires and the ABS. The screen reacted in about a quarter of a second and the brakes came on just under a third. Dan-O got out at a little over eight tenths, and Strike had been braking for over half a second by then. The car's own dashcam data shows it went from 32 mph to zero in about two seconds.
The hit
On the last throw I wanted Dan-O as late as possible while still being in front of the car. By then our curb camera had overheated and the drones were pointed the wrong way, so we used the car's own cameras.
Strike was braking and steering away before Dan-O left my hands. It dropped about 10 mph and swerved, but it still clipped the top of Dan-O's head at around 22 mph. Watch the slow replay and you'll see I was really chunking him. Honestly, it was still way faster than I could have reacted.
So, Tony, here's the answer
- On average, the screen reacted in about 0.24 seconds
- The brakes came in at about 0.34 seconds on average
- The fastest brake was about 0.24 seconds, the slowest about half a second
- An alert human: 1 to 1.5 seconds
And on every single throw, it was already braking before Dan-O left my hands.
Again, these are our estimates off the video, but the pattern's hard to argue with. That's reaction time, not the whole safety story, and FSD (Supervised) still needs you watching the road and ready to take over.
Thanks for the comment, Tony. It pushed us to do this, and now that it's in front of me, this is really useful info. Another family member already asked about a deer coming in fast from the side, so we're considering that one. If there's something you want us to put numbers on, let us know in the comments on the video.
New to the series? Start with Episode 1, What Is Tesla FSD, Really?