So is it 100 miles in one shot? Or just 100 miles total of AP? Because I have about 2,000 miles of AP use on my new M3P and still no ******* beta
Look: Getting the FSD-b package is just like hitting the door close button on an elevator. There are all these elevators out there that, I swear, that door close button doesn't do anything: But mashing it like mad so the elevator will take off and take one where one wants to go relieves some primal instinct in humans. One
thinks the button is doing something.. but one would need a double-blind test to prove it and lots of statistics.
It's nearly as bad when one wants just a regular software update for one's Tesla. By now, most people got the drill: It doesn't depend upon wishes, it's just when Tesla Does It, and one's position in the queue is pretty much random. People who get torqued over it sometimes actually call the Service Centers and plead; I suspect that if it's a slow day and the customer doesn't piss off the service guy too much, these people get their new release. But if the SC person is smart, they won't do it: Do it once, and the customer will attempt to make it a regular thing. Worse than toddlers, I swear. And related.
So, a bunch of people do $RANDOM things and some of them get the Beta. They then tell their next best buddies on TMC what they did. Drive 100 miles on AP? Sacrifice a chicken? Bow to the Gods of Chance? The ones who succeed say, "I succeeded!" and may be convinced that That Was What Did It. The ones who failed don't talk much (maybe) and we don't hear from them so much. Humans are Very Good at pattern matching. They're also very good at wishful thinking. Witness: Casinos. Yeah,
everybody knows that, in the end, the house wins. So, why do people go there? Fundamentally, people don't really get statistics.
So, I happen to have FSD-b. But:
- Last fall, put in the request on the car.
- First week or two, the score was in the 80's or lower on a day-by-day.
- Over the next month, started driving like a maniac 90-year-old Grandmother.
- Found out about resetting about 1.5 months after starting, did that.
- Slowly crept up from the low 90's to, like, 95 or 97. Was really, really trying for a 98 score. Got it; then, the next day, all those blame alerts from people cutting in front of me. Down to 96.
- Discovered that in normal FSD mode, no matter how weird the behavior, one wouldn't get dinged. Driving got more dangerous and scary because, well, FSD is like letting a teenager drive the car, especially in heavy merge traffic. Started gathering while knuckles and hairs.
- Got nearly to 98 again - and another bunch of NJ crazies drove it down again. Not to mention the detector going off on cars 100 yards away turning right.
- Lost my temper. Disabled FSD, including the request, completely. DROVE the car like it was meant to be driven, much safer. After a couple of days of this (mid February?) my adrenaline levels dropped, I was more relaxed. Turned on regular FSD. Started using it for cruise control again, but Off It Went in all those congested merge situations.
- There was an earnings call. Musk was there. He didn't precisely beg, but he asked people to get into the FSD program. I thought about it for a while. OK, I've paid for the full-bore FSD, I'd like it, but Tesla needs the help to get there. All right: Turned on the request, but swore that I would drive normally, wouldn't look at the Safety Score (much), but would drive the car in a safe manner, heck with what the safety score thought. Accelerating hard on a turn when moving up with traffic? Sure. Pay no attention to all those Forward Collision Warnings when doing this three-lane-keep-on-shifting-to-the-left merge? You betcha. Cruise control when convenient.. sure.
- Blood pressure went down. Some days (I'd check, like once a week or so) the score would be in the 80's. Most of the time in the mid 90's. Once in super-long while, 100. Average around 93.
- They delivered FSD-b six weeks ago.
So, where was the 100 miles on FSD? OK: Over this time, I had been back and forth to Boston a few times, naturally using FSD, fakey FCW's and all. But, given the "resets", I don't think I had that on the official history when FSD-b appeared.
I was driving, well,
normally, purposely avoiding granny-mode driving. Was that it? Who knows.
I live in a congested state: Ask anybody. Was that why, Tesla wanted input from that kind of place? Who knows.
Does Tesla own the equivalent of a dartboard, and they pick $RANDOM people? Who knows.
They have all that data from the Safety Score. They running some funky analysis that eliminates some people, adds others, or does some analysis on the driving by random dartboard recipients? Who knows.
Nobody knows. Tesla doesn't talk. Yeah, Safety score. See above. And nobody says that Tesla's criteria, over time, has to stay static, either.
As far as I can guess (and, natch, it's only a guess) Tesla happens to be collecting data for the improvement of FSD-b to the point where they can install it on every FSD-owners' cars. So, they want good data. So, they get that data from drivers. What's the criteria for a driver that gives Tesla good data? No clue, beyond Safety Score (see above), but, given my low score, they're probably looking for more than that. What are they looking for? No idea. And Tesla doesn't talk.