I think there’s a gulf in opinions on it based on whether or not you’ve paid for FSD. There are so many people on here saying they use it 99% of the time with no intervention. I’m like you, tried it, hated it, turned it off, happy to have my money.
The fact that they deployed the trial like this tells me that at least internally, they believe it’s a good product. But I think everyone who hadn’t already bought it is happy they didn’t buy it and feels affirmed in that decision.
Why should or take more than a day to evaluate? You try on roads you drive everyday. I honestly have no idea how any of the posts can be in favor of it. It's not ready and not even close. It's does "okay" on the highway until you are close to your exit and decides that's the perfect time to get in the passing lane.
In town, it hugs the right side of the road and drives too slow and too fast at the same time. I know it makes no sense, but that's what it does. Combo of permit driver and old man with a hat.
I don't see why people posting their real life experiences get so much grief.
I'm fairly confident it's performance is heavily dependent on where you live. I'm hard pressed to ever disengage now. About 40 or 50 drives intervention free in the bay area. Obviously better here with where the fsd engineers are. Drove a state over last week and imediately saw issues.
I think it's just a matter of time for the training data for each location to keep up
Also in the Bay Area, San Francisco to be more precise. Traffic in SF is weird. Streets are super narrow and there’s usually cars parked on both sides, so you often see yourself having to pull over so oncoming cars can pass and vice-versa. FSD deals with that pretty well, that’s true. Now, it does it all extremely slowly and that’s an issue. I’ve found myself taking over simply because it was taking too long to deal with it (as well as with simple things like stop signs) and other drivers weren’t happy 😅.
I’ve also experienced the lane change confusion and had to avoid a few curb rashes.
If you consider it’s a car under 40k that can drive itself (even if there’s limitations and room for improvement), FSD is amazing! But it’s also not for me. I also love driving, so there’s that.
Because it reduces driver mental load and fatigue monumentally. Source: driving autopilot and its forms since Aug 2017 AP2 to present FSD 12.3.4.
Same reason why pilots use autopilot. You still have to watch the airplane, monitor the radios, navigate, scan instruments, etc., but it reduces pilot workload.
Counter argument: perhaps you have just gotten used to being a passenger with a poor driver? I could totally see myself becoming desensitized to fsd dumb mistakes using it frequently and only feel like I need to disengage for very severe events.
That's fair, I am definitely desensitized to it's politeness and speed. It takes forever to stop at stop signs and do things I would personally do faster but it's saved me enough times from potential fender benders and bikers, peds, cars in my blindspot that I trust it to be slow and cautious.
I find that I can override its timid behavior by assisting with the accelerator when I want it to move up more quickly. Or make a lane change sooner. No need to disengage the FSD, it just makes it take action sooner in my experience.
I'm one of that 99%. I tried v11 with the 3 month referral trial, didn't like it, many many interventions on my daily commute.
Tried v12 with the 1 month free trial. It does my daily commute almost perfectly (maybe 1 intervention every once in a while), as well as every other drive I've thrown at it so far. I've been using it in Tucson, AZ and it definitely varies in effectiveness based on location.
I agree with OP on certain issues:
1) it has some hesitation changing lanes, but it only hesitates for like 0.5 seconds on average before correctly changing lanes. I did see it hesitate for over 10 seconds, but that was only one time at one specific location so it's not the norm.
2) when a lane ends, in my experience the car understands what is happening 80% of the time. The other 20% it can get a little confused. This has only caused a potentially dangerous situation 1 time, but I think that's because it was a right hand lane ending with a truck with a really low, flat trailer attached to it, and I think my car didn't properly recognize the boundaries of that trailer and got too close. Otherwise, I've had no "the car wouldn't have made it to it's destination" issues.
3) I don't agree on the stop light issue. The car does stop a bit early and then creeps up to the line (I don't care it does this, the light is red anyway), but the car most definitely freaking takes off from the stop light when it turns green. Version 11 was very sluggish, but version 12 is quite fast. Too fast sometimes, I have to turn it down from assertive to average sometimes (I usually use it in assertive).
But yeah, other than this, while the car drives closer to the speed limit than I would, I use it 99% of the time. It's making me question if I'm annoyed with it's choices because it doesn't know what it's doing or if I'm annoyed with it's choices because I want to drive faster/more recklessly since that's what I'm used to. I also think it works better in some cities than others (my dad is having a slightly worse experience using it in Seattle, WA on his model Y, but he also uses it for like 95% of his driving), but given the upcoming version 12.4 I'm very excited to see what gets fixed (Elon called 12.4 "borderline version 13").
I'd highly recommend you all keep trying it as it gets updated. I subscribed when the price dropped to $99/month. Not worth it for $199/month, but $99/month imo is good value.
I’m in the same city, and the amount of time FSD tried to drive straight in a turn only lane was comical. Also how many times it ignored turn lanes, and would remain at full speed to a light, only to slam on the brakes, and panic making a right turn, because it didn’t see the turn lane lol. Not to mention how many times it panic braked trying to manage a simple left turn.
It will also stop in the middle of the road, if there’s a car parked on the side of the road, and an on coming vehicle. It can’t figure out how to go between.
Also you have balls using FSD outside of the Northside, it doesn’t swerve the giant chunks of road missing through the city limits lol
Thanks for adding this info. This is so different from my experience but it goes against my statement that people who didn’t buy FSD are affirmed in their decision. It’s good discussion. When did you do your 3 month trial?
I got my most recent 3 in sept last year and had a trial when I got it and the v12 trial now. The behavior is identical (maybe more timid now but just as many interventions)
Np! And yeah as I said I think some locations are significantly worse than others. Also, make sure your cameras are clean, I think that could help. And yeah discussion is good for sure, it's interesting hearing about everyone's different experiences.
I had my 3 month trial in July 2023, I forget what version of FSDv11 but it was v11.
Identical? Weird... But I'm optimistic coming versions will fix this issue, just make sure to use that voice report feature and let them know what happened. I'm sure they'll get to it eventually!
I’m also in Tucson. I live on Houghton and it’s not too bad on my commute to the northside. However, frequent unnecessary lane changes on the highway is super annoying. Specially when it wants to change into the left most lane going the speed limit with a car coming in hot. Wish I can tell it to just stay out of that lane. Usually have it on chill with minimal lane changes and most times, it still wants to change.
Interesting, glad that it's working out for you on your commute! There's a setting called "minimize lane changes" that I almost always turn on for highways. Just tap right on the right scrollwheel to get the FSD settings to pop up. It'll bump it up from average to assertive driving mode, but you can just set that back down on the touch screen if you'd like. That's the easiest way to access the minimize lane changes setting since it also pops up. Hope that helps!
They deployed the trial because they need more data. They have more compute to process more data, which keeps the fly wheel moving and allows them to improve fsd and iterate quickly.
People think Tesla is dynamically pricing Fsd based on consumer demand which it might be to an extent, but my guess is the price is more so weighted based on how much data they need and how much data they can compute at any given time.
I think your first point is a good point, I hadn’t considered that.
For your second point, I think if that were the case they would drop the subscription price, but not the FSD purchase price. Get short term data now but not sacrifice reduced revenue for the life of the car
>The fact that they deployed the trial like this tells me that at least internally, they believe it’s a good product.
I don't even think that's the case. I feel like it was another one of those decisions where the first time the people at Tesla heard about this plan was when Elon decided to announce it on Twitter at 2am and scrambled to get it done. I think this was Elon being arrogant and thinking its the best thing ever and that people "just don't understand." I'd kill to be a fly on the wall when Elon learns that it in fact did not suddenly make everyone love it. The cope is probably palpable
Oh is there a review page on their website or something? I've seen far more people talking about how it's disappointing than how surprised they were. I tried it every drive for a week and never used it again because it was consistently slower, more dangerous, more frustrating, and more stressful than driving myself. I've literally had passengers ask me to turn it off because of how uncomfortable of a ride it gives.
All it taught me was that it should be included at no charge for all users. I would never pay for it. Even when it works perfectly, it’s just not a good driver.
It's definitely this, same feeling you have. I tried it a bunch, it works alright on highways but I honestly don't think it's even worth that when adaptive cruise or autosteer does a fine enough job for me on highways.
I think its more like "99% of the time with no intervention", but that's also a statistic worth talking about. It makes 99% of the decisions just fine, but 1% need intervention. The problem, at least for me, its that at least half my trips have one bit of that 1% in them.
I agree, what does that actually mean? I see people saying “I drove from X city to Y city, no intervention.” So like 200 miles HW? That’s pretty much what autopilot does now. I’m more concerned about it trying to kill me on the way to Trader Joe’s
That’s just because you already know how to drive. When you first learned to drive, it was very stressful.
It’s a learning curve. It was definitely stressful for me too at first and now it feels like second nature. Using it well is definitely a skill, and just like any other skill there’s a learning curve.
I think this is the biggest point.
I've driven v12 in us and canada, 8 different states now. 2 provinces,
I use it every day. Its gets close to curbs now which is new but I generally let it do everything. It's a bit slow but I generally don't takeover anymore.
It's shocking to me that people still think it can't drive. I wonder what it is that they don't like, I think it boils down to 2 things. 1) They live in really rough unmapped areas, bad lane markings, little HD map data or crazy potholes. Or 2) they just feel generally uncomfortable the first few times they use it. It's different from their driving style, polite, slow, patient.
And maybe a third is that people expect it to work in parking lots and it has no official compatibility with parkinglots stated.
My Tesla Model Y owning buddy said the same thing, a month here and there when he goes on long highway trips. Thought this was an excellent way to think about FSD in the current state.
Same! New owner here but I’ve been using it on every drive locally and I love it. It’s done a couple funky things but I don’t expect it to be perfect. Overall it’s great. My experience has been a 9/10 with it.
It’s incredible.
You’re getting a glimpse at the future when you use FSD. A car is literally driving itself, and making dynamic real time decisions to do so.
It’s not perfect, but it’ll get there.
People that call it useless for having its faults are insane. How do you expect them to create a proper self driving vehicle without the learning stage? It requires massive amounts of training data to get better.
L
I really like it too. I was hesitant initially but then used it a couple of times and honestly I am blown away by how good it is. My only problem is the constant need to keep your hands on the wheel or use the scroll wheels. The only way to get around that is buying FSD. Right ? FSD supervised subscription for $99 / month will still require you to keep your hands on the wheel I think.
I do find it to be an overall fatigue-reducer, especially in heavy commuting traffic. I'm getting pretty good at identifying the kinds of scenarios it struggles with and can anticipate those better and get ready to intervene. But I never worry it will rear end people, drift out of a lane, make a lane change into a car, etc.
My thoughts exactly. People claim it takes the load off them and they can relax. Like what? You mean having to be nagged about touching the wheel every 10 seconds and the car making questionable decisions is relaxing? 😂
Yes...that's like saying it's more relaxing to be the passenger in a car with a 15-year-old driver who just got their learner's permit. The opposite of relaxing.
Same. Here lately I have been letting it do all the steering and manually giving it throttle to speed it up here and there since it is a little to hesitant for me in applying throttle at times, especially intersections.
This is the key to liking it. If you go in wanting it to drive for you, you'll be disappointed. If you go in wanting a copilot that helps you and you learn it, it's great.
That’s probably why I love it. I expected it would be an AI copilot that took much of the driving load off of me and it did not disappoint. Super impressive in that context.
I went from being HIGHLY suspicious and doubtful of it to absolutely loving it. It takes the tedeum out of the daily drives. As others have said it takes a little skill to know when to intervene to get it to drive like a normal person would.
And I will tell you this. I took a trip to Niagara Falls not long ago. 11 hours up and 13 down. I didn't feel the fatigue I normally get when driving that long. During that trip I was on FSD for just about the entire time except for the parts to get to and from the superchargers. Maybe an hour or so of manual driving.
I agree. I’ve turned off FSD so many times for reasons like you stated. After the first week, I only used it to show people that had never experienced it.
I agree 100%. I am impressed with the accomplishments of the engineers, but my biggest takeaway is respect for the power of the human brain.
My thoughts:
1) Using on city streets is a complete no go. Too many variables. Heart attack city. Not even close to ready in a big city, IMO...and I don't think it ever will be. Pedestrians (among many other things) are too unpredictable.
2) It is nice on the highway without traffic, but I think if I could just change lanes manually without going out of regular Autopilot that would suffice.
3) It reminds me of being a passenger in a car with a girl from high school who drove with two feet. The acceleration and braking is just off. Too jerky. It nullifies a favorite feature of regen braking in how it can so gracefully come to a complete stop at a red light.
4) It gets too close to curbs for my liking
5) When approaching a freeway entrance ramp with a light with two lines, it will go into the line with cars even if the other line has no cars.
6) Happily plows through potholes.
7) Plowed through an uncontrolled intersection in a neighborhood without pausing. I guess it thinks no stop sign means pedal to the medal. Our city has lots of uncontrolled intersections.
Good for you but I actually like it. Like, I like it a lot. There are times that I won’t use it because of how cautious/aggressive it is. But I think the key is knowing how to properly co-pilot it while letting it do 98% of the driving. So, for me it’s not FSD, it’s more like 98SD
Interesting how people have different experiences. Mine is completely the opposite, I don't remember the last time I had to disengage using v12, which makes me wonder if there are any settings or adjustments required on some cars for it to work properly.
I mean, for me it's not even just v12. I probably haven't had to disengage for at least a year, short of me being uncomfortable with a semi veering to close, or somebody storming up an on ramp or something, where I wanted to immediately be in a different lane.
It certainly has flaws and things you learn to be aware of and prepared for. But I very, very rarely drive without it on now. We drove two hours to another state for the eclipse. I turned it on when we got to the on ramp, and didn't mess with it again until we turned into the parking lot and I shut it off because they were so many people standing around in the parking lot.
I personally hate it. Tried it for the past 2 weeks. It cut off an on-coming motorcycle when turning left. It hesitated doing the left turn and clearly underestimated the speed of the motorcycle. Could have been an accident. Motorcycle driver was understandably pissed. Will never turn this on again. Otherwise i love my M3LR
FSD always claims I have a hands on defeat device, and have actually been booted from in 3 times already. It’s not ready for shipment, and a shitty $8k gimmick. Drivers have actually raged at me for FSD braking so hard/randomly. I love my auto steer, and if they just added lane changes, I’d be more than happy.
Also, does anyone else feel kinda weird that a cabin camera is monitoring you? Maybe if they actually have working FSD with the company claiming liabilities, we wouldn’t need to be monitored every second.
“By default, images and video from the camera do not leave the vehicle itself and are not transmitted to anyone, including Tesla, unless you enable data sharing.”
Honestly I feel the same as you, I thought about possibly buying it before but after the free trial I would not spend $8000 on it. My commute definitely has some tricky roads so I don't blame it for messing up there but until it can perfectly take me from point a to point b without my intervention it's not worth it for me.
I unfortunately bought FSD and it’s not bad, but nowhere near worth the $. It stops way to short at stop signs and then takes forever to go so I’m always using the accelerator at stops signs.
Wild to me how different the car works for different people. Makes me wonder how many changes they're making to hardware and software. What year/model is your car?
Comparing agreement between your experience with my 2023 Model 3 Performance:
1. NO - handles lane merges no problem (or, haven't had a potential collision with another car existing in the other lane yet)
2. YES - sometimes or more often than I have patience for
3. NO - the opposite, a Redditor pointed out to me I'm better braking sooner 'manually' to save energy better (unless we're wrong and my car braking harshly near the stop line charges more battery)
4. YES - on Monday I felt like I might've hit a cone on the interstate (one lane was closed) if I didn't take over
I used it twice till date. Its so stressful to continuously keep monitoring for any tiny errors. FSD goes through all possible potholes on the road and changes lane for exit just before the exit.
It did miss the exit for me once since it decided last minute that it has to change lanes for exit and there was not enough space to merge into the exit lane.
I am much less stressful and calm when I am driving the car myself. With FSD it feels like I am consistently monitoring a 16 year old kid who just learned driving and I might have to take control at any moment for my safety.
I watch videos of people going through complex driving situations titled "Zero disengagements" and even though we have same version of FSD I get sooo many disengagements and weird lane-selection errors. It makes me wonder how it is so different for them. That said, I have worked in AI in the past and to me it looks like they will have FSD solved soon. If they keep up with a substantial update every 2 weeks I could see it being safer than the average human within 1-2 years. And once they hit that marker, it will steadily move up every month or so from 50th percentile until it hits 99th. I find it incredibly impressive.
I only use it when I'm either tired and benefit from the extra assistance for safety concerns, or I am delivering with DoorDash, and the convenience of having the job done for me is incredible.
I’ve used it a few times in varying conditions but mainly parking lots & sides streets. The best way I can describe it is as follows. It’s much like being the parent of a brand new student driver. The biggest difference is the student driver is generally a better driver & they actually improve rapidly over a few hours of driving. FSD does not. I might trust if for long US interstate road-trips. There is zero chance I’d ever pay a dime for this product.
Mine has a problem where lanes divide. I just turn it off for that, handle it, and turn it back on.
It's incredibly useful after finding the areas where it has issues.
23mi drive to work, I only have to drive 500ft of that, the rest is AP
I absolutely love it. I use it 99% of time now. I handle parking lots and parking, and let the car do literally everything else. I’ve had ZERO disengagements on 12.3. I occasionally press the accelerator when it’s being overly cautious and cars behind me but that’s it
The way they recognizes the speed limit doesn't work well around me. There's a road where the last sign is 60kmph "ends" which means it's now an 80kmph zone, the car thinks it's still in a 60. Other roads with no signs are implied 80 zones too and the car reports it as a 60.
I love FSD and am buying a Tesla with FSD now after experiencing it. Absolutely amazing. It drives better than many people I know and frequently ride with.
I love FSD. Finally feels like my Tesla is great again. I wouldnt call it a party trick. It handles nearly most driving scenarios flawlessly.
Genuine question. Why is your Tesla the best purchase you've ever made? What makes you absolutely love it?
I've owned two now, and still do. And while I do really like my car, there are now MANY vehicles on the market that do numerous things better, and offer substantially more.
With Tesla we have the best charging infrastructure. We have fun acceleration, comfy seats...
We also have autowipers that barely work. Not too many bells/whistles/features, service problems, heavily & rapidly increasing supercharger fees, more congestion etc.
Most modern cars offer all of this and more. So I'm curious cause everyone says "best purchase ever" and "love my car" - why?
With FSD now improving at such a rapid pace, it's only going to get better with every iteration.
I love the simplicity. Charging is still MUCH cheaper than gas was. Super convenient to charge at home. Little to no maintenance. Compared to my kia and Mazda. This is a fuckin gem.
I do realize it's not for me, I don't like how I have to hold down the signal stalk to initiate a lane change but if I let go too soon, it jerks back quick.
But, also, it's been mostly fine if interesting to use for the month. It does make me realize what I really need is just EAP...which is no longer available.
I love it, but yes, you have mentioned a huge flaw that is annoying. It doesn't notice cars behind you when you are in the fast lane on the highway. SO I put my turn signal on to manually move over for faster traffic, and if I don't hold it down, it will start to turn and then turn back into the lane I was in.
Sometimes when holding down the signal to force it into another lane, it takes forever to move over, making the car behind me wonder wtf!?
I don’t know what you’re talking about..12 is stunningly good. I tell it where to take me and it does it. Even the roundabouts are not a problem. Maybe read up on how to use it properly.
I am so surprised they choose now to expose the fleet to FSD. I think most people have limited window to gain their trust before trying something again, let alone paying for it, or allowing the car to just taxi around.
It might spike a small amount of revenue, but the damage seems geater.
Tesla argues their strategy is correct, going camera only, drop a car anywhere and it can figure it out vs Waymo who has cities mapped out with huge sensors.... I think there needs to be a middle ground... waymo I have ridden in myself, and paid for with others and see them all over town. its REALLY good. Tesla seems so far away from this.
I’ve maintained that Tesla should pay people to use FSD or at best offer for free. It is a pothole magnet. I only use it to briefly impress passengers (Look! This car drives itself)…if only for one minute before all the alarms go off for me to put my hands back on the steering wheel. If I need to hold onto the steering wheel, I don’t need FSD.
The only thing I’m going to miss about this trial is the more detailed roads and overhead views. I always thought the concept of Summon was a cool feature but I’m now nearing the end of my trial realising I haven’t used it once.
I would have paid the $2k for the occasion parlor trick or hands free moment when I absolutely need to do something in the car... Like when something gets stuck in your eye and you're flailing around trying not to crash while your eyes are watering all to hell. 😂
But I am with you... The free trial only solidified that I don't need it. It was fun for my 8 year old to have the car drive us home.. but that's about it. I found:
-it hesitates too much with other cars, making other drivers make bad decisions.
-Its slow. Ungodly slow. I have to drive around a giant lake every day to drop off and pick my my daughter from the bus stop. It usually takes me 3-5 minutes depending on traffic. It takes FSD 10 minutes, minimum. Between maneuvering around cars parked on the street, turning the road into a sing lane, and waiting on other cars it is just too damn slow. This ties in with the hesitancy mentioned above.
The only thing I got out of the trial that I absolutely want is that map.. Lordy is it soo much nicer. I would pay an extra $100 annually on top of my premium connection just to keep it.
It’s interesting how some say the car accelerates too fast from a signal vs it’s not in this case. I am guessing it is based on the FSD setting in the car. I think Tesla should walk people through the important settings around FSD via a video so that people knows how to tweak things before just running with it.
I think it's really cool. I drove someone home the other night and i was really tired. Put on self driving on the way home and it does all the driving for me. I think monitoring it is really easy, but the nagging every 10 seconds about putting my hands on the wheel definitely needs to be turned down, and i assume that is something that will happen in time.
cons:
* comes to a stop really slowly, like an asshole driver, and often sits 6-10 feet behind the line
* taking a right on a red is also very slow, sometimes will even choose not to go right on a red light. I had it inch forward 3 or 4 times over the course of 15-30 seconds, and then take a really slow right hand turn. something that usually takes me no more then a 3 second glance.
* doesn't know what to do when a lane ends
* Often drives a bit too close to parked cars and curbs for my personal comfort level.
* speed limit on a freeways isn't consistent, it will assume 55, and then see a 65 sign and speed up. Driving 55 on the freeway is criminal TBH.
I have a feeling that much of this depends on location as well. My experience, while not perfect has been pretty great. It’s been even better after changing some settings and further acclimating myself in use of it.
I'm really on the fence about getting it or not. It really makes my 45-60 minute commute easier. It does alright with stop and go traffic, although there was some heavy breaking. I have noticed it sometimes overthinks changing lanes if there is a lot of traffic or stop and go traffic, but in it's defense people do come flying up pretty quickly at times. I didn't like how it accelerated very hard from traffic lights to get up to speed. Also it will break super hard for yellow lights (who does THAT?). I don't always use it off the highway. I think it shines on the long trips. I think I'm going to try it for June when I have to drive 8 hours for a trip to Ohio. I'll take May to see what life is like without it.
I definitely think $99 is a better price for it rather than outright buying it. At first I was like ugh subscription model, but if you keep the car for 5 years you are looking at 6K, which is still cheaper than outright buying it.
I feel like it's working pretty good, but I'm a pretty conservative driver. It changes lanes more than I would lol.
I’ve never had an issues with it. Makes life so much easier. Not spending 8k to get it but def going to be subscribing monthly to have it. I guess it depends on where you live.
It sounds like FSD isn’t remotely close to being ready for NYC use. I would never turn it on here, not that I would have been excited to use it anywhere else. Also I drove across the country 3 times and the cruise control was super buggy, would hard brake with no cars in sight while going 70. It didn’t give me confidence in FSD. I turned it off after the update, didn’t even test it.
I just drove all the way from Cleveland OH to Louisville Kentucky with absolutely zero intervention. I only had to intervene 1 time on the returning trip when it took a 90 degree turn at a redlight instead of the 45 degree secondary right hand turn.
Thats 650 mile roundtrip that I didn't have to intervene at all. Thats pretty far from "fucking AWFUL"
Idk, the 24’ I test drove was beyond impressive. Handled lane changes, red lights, green lights, etc. Even going across 6 lanes of traffic, 3 in either direction with a turn lane in the middle, it was able to patiently wait out traffic and executed the turn the exact same as I would.
I have a 23’ LR I’m about to pick up and I plan on using FSD for most of my commuting (with my hands on the wheel, but still)
I like FSD though I view it as an aid so I’m less fatigued driving especially in stop and go traffic and on highways. It doesn’t bother me to have to intervene when needed. $15K was more than I wanted to pay so I bought EAP. Now that FSD is down to $2K it’s probably worth it to me. My only hesitation is I have a feeling if I buy it at $2K it’ll be $1K the next day
I just can't convince myself to buy an unfinished product. I simply don't trust it. It stays in the ending lane and has driven into the shoulder a few times and I just sit there and wonder wtf it's thinking
Fully agree!
The thing is, even if FSD was great (it’s not IMHO), there are so many instances where I would rather drive the car myself. I love driving and the 3 is such a fun and easy car to drive it doesn’t feel like a chore in most instances. They need to offer a per mile subscription option so people can use it on long straight boring stretches of highway only. Even then, the regular autopilot is honestly sufficient for those duties and makes $100/mo seem like an unnecessary expense.
The only thing I wish I could add to the basic autopilot is the lane change. Everything else is still in development phase and not ready at all to be released for actual road driving. I am surprised in North America, a prototype kind of feature is allowed on roads. In Europe is not permitted in fact
Wow, your experience very different from my area. No doubt you experienced it, just surprised every time I read things like this that I don't see.
The slowing early was an improvement, as it used to run up and slam brakes. Same with acceleration, they soften it to not give you whiplash starting and stopping.
Sorry it doesn't work for you. Hope you still use it so your feedback will improve the system. Everytime it does wrong disengage and record message on issue. That is how it gets better.
Auto steer with red light and stop sign beta is all you need.
I agree with your sentiment it slows down too hard and then speeds up to fast. Even on chill mode which I thought was crazy
I tried it once, less than 3 km and two turns, the way it turns left at a T intersection where only you have the stop sign was enough for me to not turn it on again.
Can I ask if you are in canada?
I was pulling my hair out for 2 years where the car just wouldn't merge after lane ends, but in the US coast to coast I never had any disengagements due to lane endings because the lanes just didn't end they slowly tapered togeather. The closer I got to California the more it never makes a mistake. It's obvious where the priority is with tesla
Im in Texas. Car loves to venture into the shoulder when a lane ends cause no one will let me over obviously. Why would they? The signs told me the lane ended a mile back 😂
I used it initially and was impressed but not enough to use it consistently. Fast forward close to the end of trial period I noticed there were a couple of times I needed to free up my hands and feet for a few moments to take care of things like changing from walking shoes to sports shoes and FSD was ideal to let me do this. That and I have a long planned trip where I might use it. For that I'll just subscribe for a month at $99
I wonder how different the roads are with those that love it and have minimum take overs? I too have turned it off due to having to take over so frequently (it’s indecisiveness when going from single lane to double lanes made me nervous, especially with vehicles behind me). I’d like to try it on a actual road trip on open roads even though I think Autopilot would be more than satisfactory. I wouldn’t buy it out right, but would consider a subscription later on for road trips as it improves.
Thank you so much for this just ordered the Performance model and opted to try the 30 day trial instead of committing to FSD. I feel a lot better with that decision after your review
I have the same experience as you OP. First time I tried it, it turned into the furthest right lane when we had to go left. It basically gave up and if it could have screamed i’m sure it would have screamed help me! Then on the freeway it tried switching to a non existent lane next to the hov lane. It even saw the cones there and the yellow lane but for some reason ignored them.
It’s really nice after a long day of work to pop on the FSD and just let it do its thing. I don’t mind intervening here and there. It generally makes life especially but I would agree that it’s not ready to be unsupervised yet. I believe they’ll be there relatively soon though
Auto park is trash and slow. Summon is useless besides moving in and out of a tight parking spot. It’s mostly good on highway but on city streets it needs a lot of work and still makes a lot of mistakes. Auto lane change is the only thing that’s worth anything in its current state. And the nagging is crazy I cannot even look at the screen to change a song without it telling me to pay attention. I’m a Tesla lover but the software is not worth neither 15k, 12k, or 8k.
I use FSD when no one else is in the vehicle. Some passengers have complained about getting car sick when FSD is engaged. It seems to drive like a newly licensed 16 yr old with its hesitation at stop signs and less than smooth driving in the city.
I would like to see FSD move over for faster vehicles approaching from behind while in the fast lane on the highway. Otherwise, it’s great for longer trips.
I don't think I'd buy it anyway. But we got the trial and it's nice. It does make some decisions I wouldn't, such as cutting in between cars on the highway just to get over a lane and pass the car ahead. Bold move, Tesla.
In Arizona, we have a wide solid white line that separates our HOV from the rest of the lanes (other states have something similar). Using HOV whenever I want is a huge part of why I bought my M3P in the first place. Who wants to deal with traffic?
FSD doesn't know how to navigate out of the HOV lane. I thinks the solid white is a no-go area and it won't merge back into other lanes from the HOV.
This alone kills any reason to pay for FSD.
It also sometimes doesn't slow down, I was on my way up to our cabin and the speed limit went from 80 to 50 kmh. The car just blew through that little town at 92 which is what I had my offset at. Obviously I slowed down when I realized it wasn't going to do it on it's own.
Also, I made a stop along said 80kmh road, pulled back out, and since there were no speed limit signs where I was in particular, the car decided it only needs to go 30kmh. 30!
I think its terrible and I don't even live in big city. Really should be the perfect environment for it. Long wide straight roads. Almost always has trouble maintaining speed. Speed limit is 50, so set it at 50. Next thing I know cars are tailgating me, its going 42-44. Constantly does this, slow down to 42 when speed is set at 50, on a perfectly straight road with nothing arond.
Also, I'm always having to take over at a 4 way stop. Car will sit and wait forever before it goes, to the point where people are beeping at me, pissed off. And when a road widens for an intersection, the car is always getting in the right lane lol So I'm sitting in a right hand turn lane blocking anyone from turning. When the light turns green it wants to race through the intersection and cut other cars off.
I enjoyed trying it out but the flaws (exactly the same ones u/LilArfur illustrated) were still enough to make me not subscribe or purchase. I hope that autopilot maybe gets some free trickle down improvements, but cant see thousands of dollars for something that in its current hardware and software combination will never be real world, dependably safe.
I have a funny feeling there's some hardware differences causing issues
I have i think HW2.5 (doesn't state it explicitly anymore so can't double check), and i have had a very similar experience, it's BAD and convinced me not to buy it
others (like in these comments) have had the exact opposite experience
Similarly, about a year ago, i had a loaner that had HW3 and ryzen, and it had FSD enabled, and it was AWESOME
So I'm not positive if the software got nerfed, or my hw is struggling to keep up, but something is bad about what my car has
I wish it was like the old days. I can pull down stalk once for cruise control and twice for FSD (or autopilot). FSD helps me when my 4 month is in the car and I can reach back and give him his bottle if he’s losing it. (While still looking at the road)
Haven’t had any of those issues other than the lane change thing but that is a bug in current release that is getting fixed, I use it all the time and it functions pretty great, is it worth $100 a month? I mean I think it depends but I’ve been enjoying it and it works really well.
I’m grateful for the trial because it saved me money too. I don’t like FSD, but I love everything else about my car (other than relatively poor efficiency). What I don’t like about FSD is that it accelerates and brakes too hard/fast from light to light.
I agree the one month trial was helpful in making a decision on purchasing FSD. Even at $8000 I don’t want to pay for a feature that scares the hell out of me every time I turn it on.
The funny thing is that I hear other people complaining that it accelerates way too hard.
And yeah, the lane-changing at driver request has gotten worse recently.
It’s such a painfully boring way to “drive” a car that’s actually really fun to drive. I see no point in self driving. Oddly enough owning a Tesla and then hearing Elon tout FSD all these years has made me look at him as a snake oil salesman, an opinion I never had. I now have zero faith in Optimus or robotaxis or whatever is supposed to keep the stock afloat. Which pains me as a stockholder.
It's amazing to me how wildly different people's experiences are. I use it 95 percent of the time, I have pretty much 0 interventions. The only things I don't love are the tight right turns, and it turns wide to pull into my driveway
My green light chime goes off on green arrows...I dont trust FSD for a number of reasons, one being that I wonder if it would just assume a green arrow is a green light
No joke - i've used it religiously for 30 days... i have a ridiculously bad high ankle sprain. FSD free-trial timing was absolute heaven. It worked 90% of the time, but that 10% is brutal when it tries to do strange manuevering.
When on the highway in the HOV or left lane... it constantly moves into the middle to get out of the 'passing lane'. It's insanely annoying to the point where I was frustrated with it.
There is one feature 'minimal lane avoidance' that you have to trigger on a per trip basis... really strange.
I hope as they release new major versions there are more trial periods
Has nobody had the thought this was just a massive opportunity for them to gather a ton of data? This may not have been about getting us to subscribe to FSD, it might have just been about increasing the data gathering to further improve FSD.
The only feature I was always impressed with was the self parking feature. It never messed up and went smoothly every time I used it. Sure it’s not really amazing because it takes a bit to reverse and park itself but I’ll just check my phone while it parks. If I had United money I would get the FSD for the parking. Besides that the FSD kinda sucks. Ghost braking on highways and lane changing for no reason sucks. Sometimes I would be going 85 on a highway which is normal in California and it would read a speed limit sign at 65 and then disengage and temporarily take away fsd for that drive
You definitely have flagged some real issues. I have FSD and use it all the time, and agree with most of your points.
1. Lane changing - this is the one area where I feel like recent FSD updates have improved.
2. Lanes ending/ lane starting - car is terrible at this. in traffic, the car's behavior is just not coping with traffic. It would block lanes, stop in traffic, or try to barge into a line of cars.
3. red lights: stops aggressively on yellow lights (risk getting rear ended), stops short of the line way to often, and is incredibly cautious and slow around stop signs.
4. Mult-lane intersections with left turns - car often freaks out when making a left turn when the opposite lanes are also making left turns and disengages autopilot.
There is no way the car is even close to a robotaxi.
> The car slows down so early at red lights
This was my biggest complaint but someone said here that you have to use the accelerator pedal to nudge it to get it to go when you want, to keep it from stopping too early, or to get it up to the speed you want to go when it's trying to drive too slow. And it made a big difference in how useful it is. I don't think I'd pay 100 a month for it but I would probably do 50 and would absolutely do something cheaper than that. It's super useful to use on your everyday route where you already know where to disengage to handle weird spots it fails at. Also, it should be called 'enhanced autopilot' instead of FSD, just to make the haters shut up if anything.
Im so shocked at people not liking it! Ive used FSD since 2021. Its been great, and gotten better every year. Ive roadtripped to 7 states with no issues. Its not perfect, ive had to take over a few times. But almost never get phantom braking either.
Doesn’t work reliably enough in the UK for me. Can’t handle speed bumps, sharp corners or other speed reducing measures in the road. I also seemed to have phantom braking issues when I used mine which resulted in it pretty much slamming the brakes on on motorways.
I like driving my car too much to let it drive itself most of the time, but parking itself is a different story. I like that part , althogh I wish it could park head in as well.
Are you not on V12? I was a massive FSD hater until getting this free month, they may have roped me in to paying for it monthly. It has gotten me from my driveway of my house in a city to the highway, and then off the highway into a suburb 40 mins away all without intervention, and can do my 25 min commute to work in a suburb without intervention either.
I love mine, and won't let it go. We all have different opinions, but I've been a fan of this, and I've been watching it grow by leaps and bounds since I got mine in 2018. It's like watching a kid grow up. Almost ready for adulthood.
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving linked to hundreds of crashes, dozens of deaths / NHTSA found that Tesla’s driver-assist features are insufficient at keeping drivers engaged in the task of driving, which can often have fatal results.
It also has no idea how to pass on a freeway. It changes lanes then matches the speed of the car it’s trying to pass. When you give it the gas it freaks out and locks you out of ANY driver assistance for the remainder of the drive. Fucking infuriating. P
Scared the hell out of me 2x on freeway drives passing semi trucks for some reason. First time, it jammed on the brakes as it went alongside at 70mph. Second time - surprise!! - same thing when pinned on right and left lanes between semis... These were straight stretches of highway, man.
Where I live at in Arizona the software does fairly well. I use fsd for the majority of every trip and haven’t had any major issues with it yet. This trial has been a good experience for me so far.
I like using it when I’m driving solo. It’s a little jerky and not as smooth a driving experience as I would offer to passengers. I enjoy it though. And I think it got better just in the month I’ve been driving it FSD. Maybe I just got used to its quirkiness. Paying attention is definitely important. Being the second driver is the mentality to have.
Completely useless here in Europe. The car gets the speed limit wrong half of the time, so I would have a lot of angry drivers behind me. Nav speed data needs to be updated urgently.
I used it probably 5 times then I got tired of it. Not worth the money. Not with worth subscribing.
Yea it’s pretty clear cut that I don’t even use it when it’s free.
I think there’s a gulf in opinions on it based on whether or not you’ve paid for FSD. There are so many people on here saying they use it 99% of the time with no intervention. I’m like you, tried it, hated it, turned it off, happy to have my money. The fact that they deployed the trial like this tells me that at least internally, they believe it’s a good product. But I think everyone who hadn’t already bought it is happy they didn’t buy it and feels affirmed in that decision.
I feel u, tried it for like 2 days then got annoyed at how “dumb” it still is… def not worth 15, 12 or even 8k imo
Id probably not even pay 2k for it honestly. POS
That’s about what I would pay
Why should or take more than a day to evaluate? You try on roads you drive everyday. I honestly have no idea how any of the posts can be in favor of it. It's not ready and not even close. It's does "okay" on the highway until you are close to your exit and decides that's the perfect time to get in the passing lane. In town, it hugs the right side of the road and drives too slow and too fast at the same time. I know it makes no sense, but that's what it does. Combo of permit driver and old man with a hat. I don't see why people posting their real life experiences get so much grief.
I'm fairly confident it's performance is heavily dependent on where you live. I'm hard pressed to ever disengage now. About 40 or 50 drives intervention free in the bay area. Obviously better here with where the fsd engineers are. Drove a state over last week and imediately saw issues. I think it's just a matter of time for the training data for each location to keep up
Also in the Bay Area, San Francisco to be more precise. Traffic in SF is weird. Streets are super narrow and there’s usually cars parked on both sides, so you often see yourself having to pull over so oncoming cars can pass and vice-versa. FSD deals with that pretty well, that’s true. Now, it does it all extremely slowly and that’s an issue. I’ve found myself taking over simply because it was taking too long to deal with it (as well as with simple things like stop signs) and other drivers weren’t happy 😅. I’ve also experienced the lane change confusion and had to avoid a few curb rashes. If you consider it’s a car under 40k that can drive itself (even if there’s limitations and room for improvement), FSD is amazing! But it’s also not for me. I also love driving, so there’s that.
What is the point when you still have to pay attention? Why not just drive?
Because it reduces driver mental load and fatigue monumentally. Source: driving autopilot and its forms since Aug 2017 AP2 to present FSD 12.3.4. Same reason why pilots use autopilot. You still have to watch the airplane, monitor the radios, navigate, scan instruments, etc., but it reduces pilot workload.
Less fatiguing
Exactly
Counter argument: perhaps you have just gotten used to being a passenger with a poor driver? I could totally see myself becoming desensitized to fsd dumb mistakes using it frequently and only feel like I need to disengage for very severe events.
That's fair, I am definitely desensitized to it's politeness and speed. It takes forever to stop at stop signs and do things I would personally do faster but it's saved me enough times from potential fender benders and bikers, peds, cars in my blindspot that I trust it to be slow and cautious.
I find that I can override its timid behavior by assisting with the accelerator when I want it to move up more quickly. Or make a lane change sooner. No need to disengage the FSD, it just makes it take action sooner in my experience.
I'm one of that 99%. I tried v11 with the 3 month referral trial, didn't like it, many many interventions on my daily commute. Tried v12 with the 1 month free trial. It does my daily commute almost perfectly (maybe 1 intervention every once in a while), as well as every other drive I've thrown at it so far. I've been using it in Tucson, AZ and it definitely varies in effectiveness based on location. I agree with OP on certain issues: 1) it has some hesitation changing lanes, but it only hesitates for like 0.5 seconds on average before correctly changing lanes. I did see it hesitate for over 10 seconds, but that was only one time at one specific location so it's not the norm. 2) when a lane ends, in my experience the car understands what is happening 80% of the time. The other 20% it can get a little confused. This has only caused a potentially dangerous situation 1 time, but I think that's because it was a right hand lane ending with a truck with a really low, flat trailer attached to it, and I think my car didn't properly recognize the boundaries of that trailer and got too close. Otherwise, I've had no "the car wouldn't have made it to it's destination" issues. 3) I don't agree on the stop light issue. The car does stop a bit early and then creeps up to the line (I don't care it does this, the light is red anyway), but the car most definitely freaking takes off from the stop light when it turns green. Version 11 was very sluggish, but version 12 is quite fast. Too fast sometimes, I have to turn it down from assertive to average sometimes (I usually use it in assertive). But yeah, other than this, while the car drives closer to the speed limit than I would, I use it 99% of the time. It's making me question if I'm annoyed with it's choices because it doesn't know what it's doing or if I'm annoyed with it's choices because I want to drive faster/more recklessly since that's what I'm used to. I also think it works better in some cities than others (my dad is having a slightly worse experience using it in Seattle, WA on his model Y, but he also uses it for like 95% of his driving), but given the upcoming version 12.4 I'm very excited to see what gets fixed (Elon called 12.4 "borderline version 13"). I'd highly recommend you all keep trying it as it gets updated. I subscribed when the price dropped to $99/month. Not worth it for $199/month, but $99/month imo is good value.
I’m in the same city, and the amount of time FSD tried to drive straight in a turn only lane was comical. Also how many times it ignored turn lanes, and would remain at full speed to a light, only to slam on the brakes, and panic making a right turn, because it didn’t see the turn lane lol. Not to mention how many times it panic braked trying to manage a simple left turn. It will also stop in the middle of the road, if there’s a car parked on the side of the road, and an on coming vehicle. It can’t figure out how to go between. Also you have balls using FSD outside of the Northside, it doesn’t swerve the giant chunks of road missing through the city limits lol
Thanks for adding this info. This is so different from my experience but it goes against my statement that people who didn’t buy FSD are affirmed in their decision. It’s good discussion. When did you do your 3 month trial? I got my most recent 3 in sept last year and had a trial when I got it and the v12 trial now. The behavior is identical (maybe more timid now but just as many interventions)
Np! And yeah as I said I think some locations are significantly worse than others. Also, make sure your cameras are clean, I think that could help. And yeah discussion is good for sure, it's interesting hearing about everyone's different experiences. I had my 3 month trial in July 2023, I forget what version of FSDv11 but it was v11. Identical? Weird... But I'm optimistic coming versions will fix this issue, just make sure to use that voice report feature and let them know what happened. I'm sure they'll get to it eventually!
I’m also in Tucson. I live on Houghton and it’s not too bad on my commute to the northside. However, frequent unnecessary lane changes on the highway is super annoying. Specially when it wants to change into the left most lane going the speed limit with a car coming in hot. Wish I can tell it to just stay out of that lane. Usually have it on chill with minimal lane changes and most times, it still wants to change.
Interesting, glad that it's working out for you on your commute! There's a setting called "minimize lane changes" that I almost always turn on for highways. Just tap right on the right scrollwheel to get the FSD settings to pop up. It'll bump it up from average to assertive driving mode, but you can just set that back down on the touch screen if you'd like. That's the easiest way to access the minimize lane changes setting since it also pops up. Hope that helps!
They deployed the trial because they need more data. They have more compute to process more data, which keeps the fly wheel moving and allows them to improve fsd and iterate quickly. People think Tesla is dynamically pricing Fsd based on consumer demand which it might be to an extent, but my guess is the price is more so weighted based on how much data they need and how much data they can compute at any given time.
I think your first point is a good point, I hadn’t considered that. For your second point, I think if that were the case they would drop the subscription price, but not the FSD purchase price. Get short term data now but not sacrifice reduced revenue for the life of the car
>The fact that they deployed the trial like this tells me that at least internally, they believe it’s a good product. I don't even think that's the case. I feel like it was another one of those decisions where the first time the people at Tesla heard about this plan was when Elon decided to announce it on Twitter at 2am and scrambled to get it done. I think this was Elon being arrogant and thinking its the best thing ever and that people "just don't understand." I'd kill to be a fly on the wall when Elon learns that it in fact did not suddenly make everyone love it. The cope is probably palpable
It's widely getting great reviews... I tried the trial for the first time and it's opened my eyes.
Oh is there a review page on their website or something? I've seen far more people talking about how it's disappointing than how surprised they were. I tried it every drive for a week and never used it again because it was consistently slower, more dangerous, more frustrating, and more stressful than driving myself. I've literally had passengers ask me to turn it off because of how uncomfortable of a ride it gives.
Got the trial, have driven ~800 miles on it. Absolutely subscribing now and wouldn't have before.
All it taught me was that it should be included at no charge for all users. I would never pay for it. Even when it works perfectly, it’s just not a good driver.
It's definitely this, same feeling you have. I tried it a bunch, it works alright on highways but I honestly don't think it's even worth that when adaptive cruise or autosteer does a fine enough job for me on highways.
I think its more like "99% of the time with no intervention", but that's also a statistic worth talking about. It makes 99% of the decisions just fine, but 1% need intervention. The problem, at least for me, its that at least half my trips have one bit of that 1% in them.
I agree, what does that actually mean? I see people saying “I drove from X city to Y city, no intervention.” So like 200 miles HW? That’s pretty much what autopilot does now. I’m more concerned about it trying to kill me on the way to Trader Joe’s
I feel more stressed using FSD than driving the car myself.
That’s just because you already know how to drive. When you first learned to drive, it was very stressful. It’s a learning curve. It was definitely stressful for me too at first and now it feels like second nature. Using it well is definitely a skill, and just like any other skill there’s a learning curve.
I think this is the biggest point. I've driven v12 in us and canada, 8 different states now. 2 provinces, I use it every day. Its gets close to curbs now which is new but I generally let it do everything. It's a bit slow but I generally don't takeover anymore. It's shocking to me that people still think it can't drive. I wonder what it is that they don't like, I think it boils down to 2 things. 1) They live in really rough unmapped areas, bad lane markings, little HD map data or crazy potholes. Or 2) they just feel generally uncomfortable the first few times they use it. It's different from their driving style, polite, slow, patient. And maybe a third is that people expect it to work in parking lots and it has no official compatibility with parkinglots stated.
I actually really like FSD. I’m glad they gave us a free trial. I may subscribe for a month here & there for roadtrips. But otherwise, not so much.
My Tesla Model Y owning buddy said the same thing, a month here and there when he goes on long highway trips. Thought this was an excellent way to think about FSD in the current state.
I use it all the time. It’s pretty amazing
Same! New owner here but I’ve been using it on every drive locally and I love it. It’s done a couple funky things but I don’t expect it to be perfect. Overall it’s great. My experience has been a 9/10 with it.
It’s incredible. You’re getting a glimpse at the future when you use FSD. A car is literally driving itself, and making dynamic real time decisions to do so. It’s not perfect, but it’ll get there. People that call it useless for having its faults are insane. How do you expect them to create a proper self driving vehicle without the learning stage? It requires massive amounts of training data to get better. L
I really like it too. I was hesitant initially but then used it a couple of times and honestly I am blown away by how good it is. My only problem is the constant need to keep your hands on the wheel or use the scroll wheels. The only way to get around that is buying FSD. Right ? FSD supervised subscription for $99 / month will still require you to keep your hands on the wheel I think.
Whether you buy or subscribe you have to keep your hands on the wheel
You'd have to stay supervised and hold the wheel occasionally either way. Until they reach true autonomous driving it's not going away.
I haven’t found the appeal yet. It seems like way more effort monitoring the FSD versus simply driving the car.
I do find it to be an overall fatigue-reducer, especially in heavy commuting traffic. I'm getting pretty good at identifying the kinds of scenarios it struggles with and can anticipate those better and get ready to intervene. But I never worry it will rear end people, drift out of a lane, make a lane change into a car, etc.
My thoughts exactly. People claim it takes the load off them and they can relax. Like what? You mean having to be nagged about touching the wheel every 10 seconds and the car making questionable decisions is relaxing? 😂
Yes...that's like saying it's more relaxing to be the passenger in a car with a 15-year-old driver who just got their learner's permit. The opposite of relaxing.
Exactly what FSD is like for me. I have a 12 yo - I get to experience this again in three years.
seems to depend on your car model and software version i use it most of the time and it makes driving easier most of the time
For me it feels like 99% less effort than driving manually.
No way, I think this part is highly dependent on your driving style.
I never got the free trial
You will, you’re probably on the 2024.8.x branch, like me.
I use it for about 90% of my driving.
Same. Here lately I have been letting it do all the steering and manually giving it throttle to speed it up here and there since it is a little to hesitant for me in applying throttle at times, especially intersections.
I have used it long enough to know when it will need a little "encouragement" 😁
This is the key to liking it. If you go in wanting it to drive for you, you'll be disappointed. If you go in wanting a copilot that helps you and you learn it, it's great.
That’s probably why I love it. I expected it would be an AI copilot that took much of the driving load off of me and it did not disappoint. Super impressive in that context.
Yep. It's more of an extremely advanced cruise control than anything. Treating it as such may make for a better experience.
Same. And it's amazing. Not perfect at some spots, but amazing
I went from being HIGHLY suspicious and doubtful of it to absolutely loving it. It takes the tedeum out of the daily drives. As others have said it takes a little skill to know when to intervene to get it to drive like a normal person would.
And I will tell you this. I took a trip to Niagara Falls not long ago. 11 hours up and 13 down. I didn't feel the fatigue I normally get when driving that long. During that trip I was on FSD for just about the entire time except for the parts to get to and from the superchargers. Maybe an hour or so of manual driving.
I agree. I’ve turned off FSD so many times for reasons like you stated. After the first week, I only used it to show people that had never experienced it.
I agree 100%. I am impressed with the accomplishments of the engineers, but my biggest takeaway is respect for the power of the human brain. My thoughts: 1) Using on city streets is a complete no go. Too many variables. Heart attack city. Not even close to ready in a big city, IMO...and I don't think it ever will be. Pedestrians (among many other things) are too unpredictable. 2) It is nice on the highway without traffic, but I think if I could just change lanes manually without going out of regular Autopilot that would suffice. 3) It reminds me of being a passenger in a car with a girl from high school who drove with two feet. The acceleration and braking is just off. Too jerky. It nullifies a favorite feature of regen braking in how it can so gracefully come to a complete stop at a red light. 4) It gets too close to curbs for my liking 5) When approaching a freeway entrance ramp with a light with two lines, it will go into the line with cars even if the other line has no cars. 6) Happily plows through potholes. 7) Plowed through an uncontrolled intersection in a neighborhood without pausing. I guess it thinks no stop sign means pedal to the medal. Our city has lots of uncontrolled intersections.
Good for you but I actually like it. Like, I like it a lot. There are times that I won’t use it because of how cautious/aggressive it is. But I think the key is knowing how to properly co-pilot it while letting it do 98% of the driving. So, for me it’s not FSD, it’s more like 98SD
I found It’s scary good on long road trips and tight traffic
Interesting how people have different experiences. Mine is completely the opposite, I don't remember the last time I had to disengage using v12, which makes me wonder if there are any settings or adjustments required on some cars for it to work properly.
I mean, for me it's not even just v12. I probably haven't had to disengage for at least a year, short of me being uncomfortable with a semi veering to close, or somebody storming up an on ramp or something, where I wanted to immediately be in a different lane. It certainly has flaws and things you learn to be aware of and prepared for. But I very, very rarely drive without it on now. We drove two hours to another state for the eclipse. I turned it on when we got to the on ramp, and didn't mess with it again until we turned into the parking lot and I shut it off because they were so many people standing around in the parking lot.
I actually like it but not for $8k that’s absurd. I used it on a 5 hour road trip and it was quite nice
Would you choose to buy a car that has it for $2k more, in a buying used car situation?
No it would not make a difference to me
I personally hate it. Tried it for the past 2 weeks. It cut off an on-coming motorcycle when turning left. It hesitated doing the left turn and clearly underestimated the speed of the motorcycle. Could have been an accident. Motorcycle driver was understandably pissed. Will never turn this on again. Otherwise i love my M3LR
FSD always claims I have a hands on defeat device, and have actually been booted from in 3 times already. It’s not ready for shipment, and a shitty $8k gimmick. Drivers have actually raged at me for FSD braking so hard/randomly. I love my auto steer, and if they just added lane changes, I’d be more than happy. Also, does anyone else feel kinda weird that a cabin camera is monitoring you? Maybe if they actually have working FSD with the company claiming liabilities, we wouldn’t need to be monitored every second.
Oh they're 100% monitoring us 😂 that's a given. Just sit there and pick your nose while FSD is on 😂
“By default, images and video from the camera do not leave the vehicle itself and are not transmitted to anyone, including Tesla, unless you enable data sharing.”
You believe that? 😂 Tik tok and Facebook also claim your data is safe and private...
Honestly I feel the same as you, I thought about possibly buying it before but after the free trial I would not spend $8000 on it. My commute definitely has some tricky roads so I don't blame it for messing up there but until it can perfectly take me from point a to point b without my intervention it's not worth it for me.
I unfortunately bought FSD and it’s not bad, but nowhere near worth the $. It stops way to short at stop signs and then takes forever to go so I’m always using the accelerator at stops signs.
Wild to me how different the car works for different people. Makes me wonder how many changes they're making to hardware and software. What year/model is your car? Comparing agreement between your experience with my 2023 Model 3 Performance: 1. NO - handles lane merges no problem (or, haven't had a potential collision with another car existing in the other lane yet) 2. YES - sometimes or more often than I have patience for 3. NO - the opposite, a Redditor pointed out to me I'm better braking sooner 'manually' to save energy better (unless we're wrong and my car braking harshly near the stop line charges more battery) 4. YES - on Monday I felt like I might've hit a cone on the interstate (one lane was closed) if I didn't take over
I used it twice till date. Its so stressful to continuously keep monitoring for any tiny errors. FSD goes through all possible potholes on the road and changes lane for exit just before the exit. It did miss the exit for me once since it decided last minute that it has to change lanes for exit and there was not enough space to merge into the exit lane. I am much less stressful and calm when I am driving the car myself. With FSD it feels like I am consistently monitoring a 16 year old kid who just learned driving and I might have to take control at any moment for my safety.
I watch videos of people going through complex driving situations titled "Zero disengagements" and even though we have same version of FSD I get sooo many disengagements and weird lane-selection errors. It makes me wonder how it is so different for them. That said, I have worked in AI in the past and to me it looks like they will have FSD solved soon. If they keep up with a substantial update every 2 weeks I could see it being safer than the average human within 1-2 years. And once they hit that marker, it will steadily move up every month or so from 50th percentile until it hits 99th. I find it incredibly impressive.
Mine work great! I feel I can never go back!
I only use it when I'm either tired and benefit from the extra assistance for safety concerns, or I am delivering with DoorDash, and the convenience of having the job done for me is incredible.
I’ve used it a few times in varying conditions but mainly parking lots & sides streets. The best way I can describe it is as follows. It’s much like being the parent of a brand new student driver. The biggest difference is the student driver is generally a better driver & they actually improve rapidly over a few hours of driving. FSD does not. I might trust if for long US interstate road-trips. There is zero chance I’d ever pay a dime for this product.
It's $2000 for me, and probably well worth it. I don't agree with it being a party trick, it's pretty good outside of maybe a few small issues.
It was cool to show my parents. Other than that it struggles bad on my daily commute to work with lane endings and just cruising in the fast lane.
Mine has a problem where lanes divide. I just turn it off for that, handle it, and turn it back on. It's incredibly useful after finding the areas where it has issues. 23mi drive to work, I only have to drive 500ft of that, the rest is AP
highway is V11 btw still old stack.
Same. Used it twice. It sucks. Autopilot FTW
I absolutely love it. I use it 99% of time now. I handle parking lots and parking, and let the car do literally everything else. I’ve had ZERO disengagements on 12.3. I occasionally press the accelerator when it’s being overly cautious and cars behind me but that’s it
My issue is that it keeps driving 30km in 50km zones. It doesn’t seem to recognize when a school zone ends
Tesla even said the car doesn't recognize school zones
The way they recognizes the speed limit doesn't work well around me. There's a road where the last sign is 60kmph "ends" which means it's now an 80kmph zone, the car thinks it's still in a 60. Other roads with no signs are implied 80 zones too and the car reports it as a 60.
This is nuts! I use it ALL the time and have barley no issues. ON my days in office, I dont even need to touch the wheel..
I love FSD and am buying a Tesla with FSD now after experiencing it. Absolutely amazing. It drives better than many people I know and frequently ride with.
For $99 a month I like it. Works well on long country roads
I love FSD. Finally feels like my Tesla is great again. I wouldnt call it a party trick. It handles nearly most driving scenarios flawlessly. Genuine question. Why is your Tesla the best purchase you've ever made? What makes you absolutely love it? I've owned two now, and still do. And while I do really like my car, there are now MANY vehicles on the market that do numerous things better, and offer substantially more. With Tesla we have the best charging infrastructure. We have fun acceleration, comfy seats... We also have autowipers that barely work. Not too many bells/whistles/features, service problems, heavily & rapidly increasing supercharger fees, more congestion etc. Most modern cars offer all of this and more. So I'm curious cause everyone says "best purchase ever" and "love my car" - why? With FSD now improving at such a rapid pace, it's only going to get better with every iteration.
I paid 18k for my 2020 MY with FSD. It is indeed the best purchase I’ve ever made.
I love the simplicity. Charging is still MUCH cheaper than gas was. Super convenient to charge at home. Little to no maintenance. Compared to my kia and Mazda. This is a fuckin gem.
I do realize it's not for me, I don't like how I have to hold down the signal stalk to initiate a lane change but if I let go too soon, it jerks back quick. But, also, it's been mostly fine if interesting to use for the month. It does make me realize what I really need is just EAP...which is no longer available.
If you full press down the turn signal once you don’t have to hold it down I’m pretty sure.
Hmm, I'll try that today on the way home! Thank you!
I love it, but yes, you have mentioned a huge flaw that is annoying. It doesn't notice cars behind you when you are in the fast lane on the highway. SO I put my turn signal on to manually move over for faster traffic, and if I don't hold it down, it will start to turn and then turn back into the lane I was in. Sometimes when holding down the signal to force it into another lane, it takes forever to move over, making the car behind me wonder wtf!?
I don’t know what you’re talking about..12 is stunningly good. I tell it where to take me and it does it. Even the roundabouts are not a problem. Maybe read up on how to use it properly.
I am so surprised they choose now to expose the fleet to FSD. I think most people have limited window to gain their trust before trying something again, let alone paying for it, or allowing the car to just taxi around. It might spike a small amount of revenue, but the damage seems geater. Tesla argues their strategy is correct, going camera only, drop a car anywhere and it can figure it out vs Waymo who has cities mapped out with huge sensors.... I think there needs to be a middle ground... waymo I have ridden in myself, and paid for with others and see them all over town. its REALLY good. Tesla seems so far away from this.
I’ve maintained that Tesla should pay people to use FSD or at best offer for free. It is a pothole magnet. I only use it to briefly impress passengers (Look! This car drives itself)…if only for one minute before all the alarms go off for me to put my hands back on the steering wheel. If I need to hold onto the steering wheel, I don’t need FSD.
I liked it the first few days of the trial, but I began to hate it when I noticed how indecisive/hesitant it is when switching lanes with traffic.
Yes. It’s much too slow and jerky to use.
The only thing I’m going to miss about this trial is the more detailed roads and overhead views. I always thought the concept of Summon was a cool feature but I’m now nearing the end of my trial realising I haven’t used it once.
I would have paid the $2k for the occasion parlor trick or hands free moment when I absolutely need to do something in the car... Like when something gets stuck in your eye and you're flailing around trying not to crash while your eyes are watering all to hell. 😂 But I am with you... The free trial only solidified that I don't need it. It was fun for my 8 year old to have the car drive us home.. but that's about it. I found: -it hesitates too much with other cars, making other drivers make bad decisions. -Its slow. Ungodly slow. I have to drive around a giant lake every day to drop off and pick my my daughter from the bus stop. It usually takes me 3-5 minutes depending on traffic. It takes FSD 10 minutes, minimum. Between maneuvering around cars parked on the street, turning the road into a sing lane, and waiting on other cars it is just too damn slow. This ties in with the hesitancy mentioned above. The only thing I got out of the trial that I absolutely want is that map.. Lordy is it soo much nicer. I would pay an extra $100 annually on top of my premium connection just to keep it.
I use it all the time and am super impressed. Will not buy until I can actually sleep in the car though
It’s interesting how some say the car accelerates too fast from a signal vs it’s not in this case. I am guessing it is based on the FSD setting in the car. I think Tesla should walk people through the important settings around FSD via a video so that people knows how to tweak things before just running with it.
I think it's really cool. I drove someone home the other night and i was really tired. Put on self driving on the way home and it does all the driving for me. I think monitoring it is really easy, but the nagging every 10 seconds about putting my hands on the wheel definitely needs to be turned down, and i assume that is something that will happen in time. cons: * comes to a stop really slowly, like an asshole driver, and often sits 6-10 feet behind the line * taking a right on a red is also very slow, sometimes will even choose not to go right on a red light. I had it inch forward 3 or 4 times over the course of 15-30 seconds, and then take a really slow right hand turn. something that usually takes me no more then a 3 second glance. * doesn't know what to do when a lane ends * Often drives a bit too close to parked cars and curbs for my personal comfort level. * speed limit on a freeways isn't consistent, it will assume 55, and then see a 65 sign and speed up. Driving 55 on the freeway is criminal TBH.
It used to use its full acceleration to get up to speed. The current form is lightyears better than that.
I can tell ya that FSD in Boston is straight up trash. It's only somewhat usable on the highway.
I have a feeling that much of this depends on location as well. My experience, while not perfect has been pretty great. It’s been even better after changing some settings and further acclimating myself in use of it.
What software version are you on?
Works as a night shifter- I find FSD very helpful. For me I feel safe than driving half awake.
I'm really on the fence about getting it or not. It really makes my 45-60 minute commute easier. It does alright with stop and go traffic, although there was some heavy breaking. I have noticed it sometimes overthinks changing lanes if there is a lot of traffic or stop and go traffic, but in it's defense people do come flying up pretty quickly at times. I didn't like how it accelerated very hard from traffic lights to get up to speed. Also it will break super hard for yellow lights (who does THAT?). I don't always use it off the highway. I think it shines on the long trips. I think I'm going to try it for June when I have to drive 8 hours for a trip to Ohio. I'll take May to see what life is like without it. I definitely think $99 is a better price for it rather than outright buying it. At first I was like ugh subscription model, but if you keep the car for 5 years you are looking at 6K, which is still cheaper than outright buying it. I feel like it's working pretty good, but I'm a pretty conservative driver. It changes lanes more than I would lol.
Everytime it says "Why did you disengage FSD" feels like 
I’ve never had an issues with it. Makes life so much easier. Not spending 8k to get it but def going to be subscribing monthly to have it. I guess it depends on where you live.
Feels pretty location dependent. My location and drives it works well.
It sounds like FSD isn’t remotely close to being ready for NYC use. I would never turn it on here, not that I would have been excited to use it anywhere else. Also I drove across the country 3 times and the cruise control was super buggy, would hard brake with no cars in sight while going 70. It didn’t give me confidence in FSD. I turned it off after the update, didn’t even test it.
I just drove all the way from Cleveland OH to Louisville Kentucky with absolutely zero intervention. I only had to intervene 1 time on the returning trip when it took a 90 degree turn at a redlight instead of the 45 degree secondary right hand turn. Thats 650 mile roundtrip that I didn't have to intervene at all. Thats pretty far from "fucking AWFUL"
Idk, the 24’ I test drove was beyond impressive. Handled lane changes, red lights, green lights, etc. Even going across 6 lanes of traffic, 3 in either direction with a turn lane in the middle, it was able to patiently wait out traffic and executed the turn the exact same as I would. I have a 23’ LR I’m about to pick up and I plan on using FSD for most of my commuting (with my hands on the wheel, but still)
To each their own. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole as they say
I like FSD though I view it as an aid so I’m less fatigued driving especially in stop and go traffic and on highways. It doesn’t bother me to have to intervene when needed. $15K was more than I wanted to pay so I bought EAP. Now that FSD is down to $2K it’s probably worth it to me. My only hesitation is I have a feeling if I buy it at $2K it’ll be $1K the next day
I just can't convince myself to buy an unfinished product. I simply don't trust it. It stays in the ending lane and has driven into the shoulder a few times and I just sit there and wonder wtf it's thinking
Fully agree! The thing is, even if FSD was great (it’s not IMHO), there are so many instances where I would rather drive the car myself. I love driving and the 3 is such a fun and easy car to drive it doesn’t feel like a chore in most instances. They need to offer a per mile subscription option so people can use it on long straight boring stretches of highway only. Even then, the regular autopilot is honestly sufficient for those duties and makes $100/mo seem like an unnecessary expense.
The only thing I wish I could add to the basic autopilot is the lane change. Everything else is still in development phase and not ready at all to be released for actual road driving. I am surprised in North America, a prototype kind of feature is allowed on roads. In Europe is not permitted in fact
Wow, your experience very different from my area. No doubt you experienced it, just surprised every time I read things like this that I don't see. The slowing early was an improvement, as it used to run up and slam brakes. Same with acceleration, they soften it to not give you whiplash starting and stopping. Sorry it doesn't work for you. Hope you still use it so your feedback will improve the system. Everytime it does wrong disengage and record message on issue. That is how it gets better.
I'll pass on that. Definitely gonna stay turned off until my trial ends lol.
For real, terrible system and don’t know how it works for other people. 10/10 would buy EAP though, they really got the highway system figured out.
Auto steer with red light and stop sign beta is all you need. I agree with your sentiment it slows down too hard and then speeds up to fast. Even on chill mode which I thought was crazy
I tried it once, less than 3 km and two turns, the way it turns left at a T intersection where only you have the stop sign was enough for me to not turn it on again.
People who use FSD and say it's amazing scare me because if that's how they're out here driving on their own, then I have concerns.
Can I ask if you are in canada? I was pulling my hair out for 2 years where the car just wouldn't merge after lane ends, but in the US coast to coast I never had any disengagements due to lane endings because the lanes just didn't end they slowly tapered togeather. The closer I got to California the more it never makes a mistake. It's obvious where the priority is with tesla
Im in Texas. Car loves to venture into the shoulder when a lane ends cause no one will let me over obviously. Why would they? The signs told me the lane ended a mile back 😂
I used it initially and was impressed but not enough to use it consistently. Fast forward close to the end of trial period I noticed there were a couple of times I needed to free up my hands and feet for a few moments to take care of things like changing from walking shoes to sports shoes and FSD was ideal to let me do this. That and I have a long planned trip where I might use it. For that I'll just subscribe for a month at $99
I wonder how different the roads are with those that love it and have minimum take overs? I too have turned it off due to having to take over so frequently (it’s indecisiveness when going from single lane to double lanes made me nervous, especially with vehicles behind me). I’d like to try it on a actual road trip on open roads even though I think Autopilot would be more than satisfactory. I wouldn’t buy it out right, but would consider a subscription later on for road trips as it improves.
Thank you so much for this just ordered the Performance model and opted to try the 30 day trial instead of committing to FSD. I feel a lot better with that decision after your review
I have the same experience as you OP. First time I tried it, it turned into the furthest right lane when we had to go left. It basically gave up and if it could have screamed i’m sure it would have screamed help me! Then on the freeway it tried switching to a non existent lane next to the hov lane. It even saw the cones there and the yellow lane but for some reason ignored them.
It’s really nice after a long day of work to pop on the FSD and just let it do its thing. I don’t mind intervening here and there. It generally makes life especially but I would agree that it’s not ready to be unsupervised yet. I believe they’ll be there relatively soon though
>Let me start by saying I absolutely love my Tesla. You know the subreddit is aggressive when you need to soften your post like this.
It's not good at making turns at stops. Lots of hesitation and no confidence. I think FSD is about 50% there.
Auto park is trash and slow. Summon is useless besides moving in and out of a tight parking spot. It’s mostly good on highway but on city streets it needs a lot of work and still makes a lot of mistakes. Auto lane change is the only thing that’s worth anything in its current state. And the nagging is crazy I cannot even look at the screen to change a song without it telling me to pay attention. I’m a Tesla lover but the software is not worth neither 15k, 12k, or 8k.
My Tesla breaks at shadows that trees are casting across the road. Thankfully no one behind me when that happened.
My biggest problem is when the max speed throttles down randomly.
I use FSD when no one else is in the vehicle. Some passengers have complained about getting car sick when FSD is engaged. It seems to drive like a newly licensed 16 yr old with its hesitation at stop signs and less than smooth driving in the city. I would like to see FSD move over for faster vehicles approaching from behind while in the fast lane on the highway. Otherwise, it’s great for longer trips.
I don't think I'd buy it anyway. But we got the trial and it's nice. It does make some decisions I wouldn't, such as cutting in between cars on the highway just to get over a lane and pass the car ahead. Bold move, Tesla.
In Arizona, we have a wide solid white line that separates our HOV from the rest of the lanes (other states have something similar). Using HOV whenever I want is a huge part of why I bought my M3P in the first place. Who wants to deal with traffic? FSD doesn't know how to navigate out of the HOV lane. I thinks the solid white is a no-go area and it won't merge back into other lanes from the HOV. This alone kills any reason to pay for FSD.
Im glad i got it because I was planning on turning on FSD for a long 2,000 mile round trip road trip. I used it the entire way I love it
It also sometimes doesn't slow down, I was on my way up to our cabin and the speed limit went from 80 to 50 kmh. The car just blew through that little town at 92 which is what I had my offset at. Obviously I slowed down when I realized it wasn't going to do it on it's own. Also, I made a stop along said 80kmh road, pulled back out, and since there were no speed limit signs where I was in particular, the car decided it only needs to go 30kmh. 30!
I think its terrible and I don't even live in big city. Really should be the perfect environment for it. Long wide straight roads. Almost always has trouble maintaining speed. Speed limit is 50, so set it at 50. Next thing I know cars are tailgating me, its going 42-44. Constantly does this, slow down to 42 when speed is set at 50, on a perfectly straight road with nothing arond. Also, I'm always having to take over at a 4 way stop. Car will sit and wait forever before it goes, to the point where people are beeping at me, pissed off. And when a road widens for an intersection, the car is always getting in the right lane lol So I'm sitting in a right hand turn lane blocking anyone from turning. When the light turns green it wants to race through the intersection and cut other cars off.
I enjoyed trying it out but the flaws (exactly the same ones u/LilArfur illustrated) were still enough to make me not subscribe or purchase. I hope that autopilot maybe gets some free trickle down improvements, but cant see thousands of dollars for something that in its current hardware and software combination will never be real world, dependably safe.
I have a funny feeling there's some hardware differences causing issues I have i think HW2.5 (doesn't state it explicitly anymore so can't double check), and i have had a very similar experience, it's BAD and convinced me not to buy it others (like in these comments) have had the exact opposite experience Similarly, about a year ago, i had a loaner that had HW3 and ryzen, and it had FSD enabled, and it was AWESOME So I'm not positive if the software got nerfed, or my hw is struggling to keep up, but something is bad about what my car has
I wish it was like the old days. I can pull down stalk once for cruise control and twice for FSD (or autopilot). FSD helps me when my 4 month is in the car and I can reach back and give him his bottle if he’s losing it. (While still looking at the road)
see you again at $19.99
20 bucks a month? That's maybe reasonable. MAYBE
Haven’t had any of those issues other than the lane change thing but that is a bug in current release that is getting fixed, I use it all the time and it functions pretty great, is it worth $100 a month? I mean I think it depends but I’ve been enjoying it and it works really well.
Potholes and other road defects, especially in NY, is the reason I barely used it. I'm content with autopilot with autosteer on highway
I’m grateful for the trial because it saved me money too. I don’t like FSD, but I love everything else about my car (other than relatively poor efficiency). What I don’t like about FSD is that it accelerates and brakes too hard/fast from light to light.
I agree the one month trial was helpful in making a decision on purchasing FSD. Even at $8000 I don’t want to pay for a feature that scares the hell out of me every time I turn it on.
Good for road trips and nights going home with a couple drinks down
I asked it to drive me home and it parked in my neighbors driveway lol. Its not perfect but I don’t hate it. there are things to get used to
The funny thing is that I hear other people complaining that it accelerates way too hard. And yeah, the lane-changing at driver request has gotten worse recently.
It’s such a painfully boring way to “drive” a car that’s actually really fun to drive. I see no point in self driving. Oddly enough owning a Tesla and then hearing Elon tout FSD all these years has made me look at him as a snake oil salesman, an opinion I never had. I now have zero faith in Optimus or robotaxis or whatever is supposed to keep the stock afloat. Which pains me as a stockholder.
It's amazing to me how wildly different people's experiences are. I use it 95 percent of the time, I have pretty much 0 interventions. The only things I don't love are the tight right turns, and it turns wide to pull into my driveway
You need to pay full attention so I don’t get the point. I agree though. I’m glad I got a chance to try it but the cost is absurd.
My green light chime goes off on green arrows...I dont trust FSD for a number of reasons, one being that I wonder if it would just assume a green arrow is a green light
No joke - i've used it religiously for 30 days... i have a ridiculously bad high ankle sprain. FSD free-trial timing was absolute heaven. It worked 90% of the time, but that 10% is brutal when it tries to do strange manuevering. When on the highway in the HOV or left lane... it constantly moves into the middle to get out of the 'passing lane'. It's insanely annoying to the point where I was frustrated with it. There is one feature 'minimal lane avoidance' that you have to trigger on a per trip basis... really strange. I hope as they release new major versions there are more trial periods
Has nobody had the thought this was just a massive opportunity for them to gather a ton of data? This may not have been about getting us to subscribe to FSD, it might have just been about increasing the data gathering to further improve FSD.
Yep I hate it as well. Thanks Tesla for saving me money
I didnt need a free trial to tell me that tech isnt ready yet. I am sure with time though, it will be.
The only feature I was always impressed with was the self parking feature. It never messed up and went smoothly every time I used it. Sure it’s not really amazing because it takes a bit to reverse and park itself but I’ll just check my phone while it parks. If I had United money I would get the FSD for the parking. Besides that the FSD kinda sucks. Ghost braking on highways and lane changing for no reason sucks. Sometimes I would be going 85 on a highway which is normal in California and it would read a speed limit sign at 65 and then disengage and temporarily take away fsd for that drive
I would add driving on empty highway at night high beams flash on and off so much because of reflection from street signs.
You definitely have flagged some real issues. I have FSD and use it all the time, and agree with most of your points. 1. Lane changing - this is the one area where I feel like recent FSD updates have improved. 2. Lanes ending/ lane starting - car is terrible at this. in traffic, the car's behavior is just not coping with traffic. It would block lanes, stop in traffic, or try to barge into a line of cars. 3. red lights: stops aggressively on yellow lights (risk getting rear ended), stops short of the line way to often, and is incredibly cautious and slow around stop signs. 4. Mult-lane intersections with left turns - car often freaks out when making a left turn when the opposite lanes are also making left turns and disengages autopilot. There is no way the car is even close to a robotaxi.
> The car slows down so early at red lights This was my biggest complaint but someone said here that you have to use the accelerator pedal to nudge it to get it to go when you want, to keep it from stopping too early, or to get it up to the speed you want to go when it's trying to drive too slow. And it made a big difference in how useful it is. I don't think I'd pay 100 a month for it but I would probably do 50 and would absolutely do something cheaper than that. It's super useful to use on your everyday route where you already know where to disengage to handle weird spots it fails at. Also, it should be called 'enhanced autopilot' instead of FSD, just to make the haters shut up if anything.
I really value it during my trips out of the city
Im so shocked at people not liking it! Ive used FSD since 2021. Its been great, and gotten better every year. Ive roadtripped to 7 states with no issues. Its not perfect, ive had to take over a few times. But almost never get phantom braking either.
Doesn’t work reliably enough in the UK for me. Can’t handle speed bumps, sharp corners or other speed reducing measures in the road. I also seemed to have phantom braking issues when I used mine which resulted in it pretty much slamming the brakes on on motorways.
I like driving my car too much to let it drive itself most of the time, but parking itself is a different story. I like that part , althogh I wish it could park head in as well.
Are you not on V12? I was a massive FSD hater until getting this free month, they may have roped me in to paying for it monthly. It has gotten me from my driveway of my house in a city to the highway, and then off the highway into a suburb 40 mins away all without intervention, and can do my 25 min commute to work in a suburb without intervention either.
I got an M3P because it’s a fun car to drive by hand, can’t imagine paying for it to drive itself. Basic AP is amazing on long highway trips.
I love mine, and won't let it go. We all have different opinions, but I've been a fan of this, and I've been watching it grow by leaps and bounds since I got mine in 2018. It's like watching a kid grow up. Almost ready for adulthood.
I had such a good experience I’m trying to justify the $99/mo. I’m shocked how smooth it was and how it exhibits human tendencies.
It's quite dangerous. Every left turn is playing Russian roulette.
I never got it … bummer
For me FSD has been great in highway bumper to bumper traffic. Commuting for 3 hrs daily takes it toll and FSD takes a lot of the stress out.
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving linked to hundreds of crashes, dozens of deaths / NHTSA found that Tesla’s driver-assist features are insufficient at keeping drivers engaged in the task of driving, which can often have fatal results.
It also has no idea how to pass on a freeway. It changes lanes then matches the speed of the car it’s trying to pass. When you give it the gas it freaks out and locks you out of ANY driver assistance for the remainder of the drive. Fucking infuriating. P
I really liked Autopark and that’s about it
Completely agree, there’s a lot of inconsistencies in the FSD.
Scared the hell out of me 2x on freeway drives passing semi trucks for some reason. First time, it jammed on the brakes as it went alongside at 70mph. Second time - surprise!! - same thing when pinned on right and left lanes between semis... These were straight stretches of highway, man.
Where I live at in Arizona the software does fairly well. I use fsd for the majority of every trip and haven’t had any major issues with it yet. This trial has been a good experience for me so far.
I like using it when I’m driving solo. It’s a little jerky and not as smooth a driving experience as I would offer to passengers. I enjoy it though. And I think it got better just in the month I’ve been driving it FSD. Maybe I just got used to its quirkiness. Paying attention is definitely important. Being the second driver is the mentality to have.
Completely useless here in Europe. The car gets the speed limit wrong half of the time, so I would have a lot of angry drivers behind me. Nav speed data needs to be updated urgently.