Finally got to put FSD v14.3.5 through a proper test.

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Route was Blue Mountains to Bullocks Flat (Skitube), about a 5.5 hour drive covering motorways, country roads, roadworks, Cooma, and the Snowy Mountains at night.

Overall, it's a noticeable improvement over v14.3.3.

Getting onto the M4 from Lapstone is still a problem. I always have to take over because it gets confused by the merge. I'm not sure whether it's a mapping issue or something else, but it's been consistent since I got the car.

Once on the motorway, though, it was excellent.

Lane changes were well timed, it generally chose the correct lanes, and speed control was much improved. In Chill and Standard it behaved well, while Hurry mode sat around 5 km/h over the posted limit, which is exactly what I'd expect.

One thing that still needs work is following distance. Hurry mode still tailgates far too aggressively for my liking. Standard mode is better, but there were still times where it followed uncomfortably close. I'm genuinely curious whether Tesla has tuned it to comply with NSW road rules and safe following distance expectations. If it hasn't, that's something Tesla really needs to address because it's one of the few behaviours that still regularly makes me take over.

There were only a couple of real interventions on the highway.

The strangest one was overtaking two B-doubles. It moved into the right lane, at about 115 km/h, then suddenly decided to merge back into the gap between the two trucks instead of completing the overtake. I took over because I had no idea what it was thinking.

Roadworks also confused it. It looked like it wanted to follow temporary orange and black directional arrows as if they were a detour, even though the road ahead was open. To be fair, the signage was messy, so I can understand why it struggled.

The biggest disappointment was the new Cooma Superchargers.

It completely missed the main entrance. I looped around and approached from the rear laneway using FSD again. Instead of continuing another 50 to 60 metres to the Superchargers, it suddenly tried to reverse park into a motel car park where there were already cars parked. I had to take over again and drive to the chargers manually.

Then came the drive to Bullocks Flat at around 9:00 pm.

Anyone who's driven through the Snowy Mountains at night knows wildlife is everywhere.

There were kangaroos standing beside the road that were difficult even for me to see. FSD didn't appear to recognise them.

The biggest moment came when a 4WD in front of me suddenly braked hard and swerved. I looked ahead and there was an enormous dead wombat in the middle of the lane. FSD was going to hit it. I grabbed the wheel and avoided it. In fairness, a large dark object lying flat on a dark road at night is probably about as difficult a vision problem as you can throw at any self-driving system.

Finally, it also missed the Bullocks Flat Skitube turnoff despite navigation being set, and tried to enter a completely unrelated driveway. Another manual intervention.

Overall though, this version is definitely a step forward.

I'd say about 95% of the drive was hands-off. The improvements to lane choice and general motorway driving are obvious. The remaining weaknesses seem to be complex roadworks, destination arrivals, wildlife in regional Australia, especially after dark, and following distances that still feel too close in anything other than Chill mode.

For an Australian release, I'd call v14.3.5 a solid improvement. It's not perfect yet, but it's getting noticeably better with each update.

One question for those who know the road rules better than I do: has anyone actually measured the following distance in Standard and Hurry mode against NSW's legal requirement to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front? It still feels too close to me, particularly in Hurry mode. If it's operating within the law, fair enough. If it isn't, I think that's something Tesla should be treating as a high priority fix supervised or not.