AP Question for NEW M3 owners

[Pwdr Extreme]

Hi guys, I’ve owned an 18 MS and an 16 MX HW2, both with the old “enhanced” auto pilot, the MX I purchased with FSD, the MS I added the FSD option later. I am confused about the new standard AP and what it actually will do.
I’m not too concerned about self park as it was WAY too slow and rarely would engage anyway, the “enhanced summon” was also too slow and rarely brought the car to me where it logically should have. The automatic highway navigation with auto lane change wasn’t too impressive either. It would often either change lanes for no reason saying “following route” or would pass a car and then stay in the passing lane and not move back to driving lane, etc. quite often it would slow down before deciding to pass. Stop light recognition NEVER worked for me. (This was all in my HW 2.5 MS)

Anyway, all of the above is a great idea if it worked right, but it never did. So my question is what actually DOES work right on a new M3? And I’d just like to hear from owners of the most recent hardware versions.

Will the car still drive in town stopping and starting with traffic it is following? On the highway will it change lanes when you initiate doing so with the turn signal?

Those two things are really all I ever used AP for anyway since the rest wasn’t really functional.

If those features work, I’m going to buy an M3 without FSD which I will only keep for a year and then purchase a new Model S Performance next March, probably with FSD as hopefully it will be closer to functional.

 

[adrianp89]

AP won't change lanes for you, you have to do that. You can follow someone around town and it will stop behind them if the light is red (also seems to limit speed for auto steer in the city), but you need to take over for stop signs and red lights where no one is in front of you. I don't see much of a reason to buy FSD personally. The lane change would be really nice but not worth the money.

 

[Booma]

AP won't change lanes but you still get TACC for the lane change. For me the $7,500 savings more than makes up for having to take over steering, but not throttle, for lane changes on the highway. Once you get a feel for releasing AP with the turn signal it becomes really smooth to pop in and out of AP.

It does bumper to bumper traffic really well on city streets or highway but it leaves an awkward gap at times even if you're set on 1 follow distance. The AP on city streets in my area is often limited to 45 which can be an issue if prevailing traffic is up around 50-55 but apart from that it works great.

FYI I'm a new buyer with a 1/20 manufactured P3D.

 

[DirtyT3sla]

I have a detailed video here, but if you don't have time/want to watch it, I'll give you the cliff notes below

Basic AP will keep your lane, keep your speed... and that's about it. The FSD software upgrade will do those things, but can also do lane changes when you hit the turn signal, and can do pretty much everything on a highway on its own (lane change to exit, lane change to pass slower cars, etc). It also comes with summon, smart summon, and auto park.

The real benefit of FSD is the future updates... I speculate we're getting close to stop sign and stop light recognition. But who really knows. You could always buy it later if you have $7k sitting around as Elon will most likely give a warning before the next price increase.

 

[Pwdr Extreme]

Thanks guys, although I will miss tapping the turn signal to change lanes, that really is about the only functional portion of FSD on my MS that I used all the time. The “Navigate on autopilot” for me always wanted to unnecessarily change lanes and passing of traffic never seemed to have much logic, sometimes would move back to the driving lane, often just stay in the passing lane, and quite often move to the passing lane for no reason, a few times causing the person behind me to slow down, no doubt making them unhappy.

$7,000 just to change lanes certainly is not worth it.

I will absolutely buy another MS performance next March once I start receiving payments for a business I just sold, I’m thinking another year of FSD refinement will be a good thing and actually worth it on that future car.

Another question, how often does AP nag you to “apply pressure” to the wheel when driving 75mph on the interstate? My MX in the latest version and my MS always nagged every .6 miles.

 

[Booma]

Another question, how often does AP nag you to “apply pressure” to the wheel when driving 75mph on the interstate? My MX in the latest version and my MS always nagged every .6 miles.

For me it depends on hand placement. If I rest my hand at just either side of six o'clock on the bottom of the wheel I can more or less go indefinitely without getting buzzed. If I let off and don't properly rest my hand there it dings me every mile or so.

 

[Pwdr Extreme]

Ya, that’s what I mean. Completely hands off mine will go .6 miles. Sometimes I can find a sweet spot to rest my hand and rarely get the warning but not always.

 

[DVCLIFFORD]

People complain about having to strangle grip the wheel when on AP. I find a click up on the radio volume wheel and then a click down a half mile later keeps the warnings at bay.

 

[adrianp89]

Same here, I just turn speed up and down real quick every 30-40 seconds.

 

[Sandiegodoug]

I do the volume thing too, works great. Bought fsd when on sale for the new driving computer. (Free). The auto lane change works really good.

 

[Sunshine State]

Thanks guys, although I will miss tapping the turn signal to change lanes, that really is about the only functional portion of FSD on my MS that I used all the time. The “Navigate on autopilot” for me always wanted to unnecessarily change lanes and passing of traffic never seemed to have much logic, sometimes would move back to the driving lane, often just stay in the passing lane, and quite often move to the passing lane for no reason, a few times causing the person behind me to slow down, no doubt making them unhappy.

$7,000 just to change lanes certainly is not worth it.

I will absolutely buy another MS performance next March once I start receiving payments for a business I just sold, I’m thinking another year of FSD refinement will be a good thing and actually worth it on that future car.

Another question, how often does AP nag you to “apply pressure” to the wheel when driving 75mph on the interstate? My MX in the latest version and my MS always nagged every .6 miles.

We have both and I can confidently say in my opinion that the current FSD is currently not worth anything additional other than resale value down the road. The additional resale value will not equal the $7k upfront cost plus tax. The only thing I thought I’d miss on base AP is the turn signal lane change feature but on AP when the blinker is activated the torque to disengage the AP is greatly reduced so disengagement is very smooth and then a simple double tap reengages AP at the same speed. I prefer my lane change judgement much more than the FSD ability. I think it will be a long time (several new Tesla purchases for me) at best before Tesla gets close to reasonable human ability.

 

[Vanteer]

Same here, I just turn speed up and down real quick every 30-40 seconds.

I wonder how many clicks that switch wheel was designed for. 120 clicks per hour..........

 

[adrianp89]

I wonder how many clicks that switch wheel was designed for. 120 clicks per hour..........

Well, if it was designed for 1 million clicks, and I drove my car every day for 2 hours with clicking it every 30 seconds, it would last me 11.5 years. Figuring the car leaves the garage 2-3 times a week and maybe AP for less than an hour for the whole week on average, it should probably last me at least 30 years.

 

[sdorn]

I went from a 2016 Model S (version 2.0 hardware) with FSD to a Model 3 with base autopilot and I don’t miss FSD at all. As noted above auto park, summon and navigate on AP are all pretty much worthless. It took a minute or two to get the hang of changing lanes and reengaging AP but now it is no issue at all and I prefer handling my own lane changes anyway.

I get the FSD preview currently that shows traffic lights and stop signs, etc. on the display which is cool but doesn’t provide any functionality.

I can’t see paying for FSD until true fully automated driving is released, which I don’t see coming during the term of my lease which ends in early 2023.