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California, The Land That Time Forgot
- Thread starter waterbrain
- Start date
It's a good question.
Based on favorable financing I think it is completely no brainer to add in before taking delivery. Cost and final derived benefit is expected to be cheap once you are done paying for it.
Buying in at a lump sum, due immediately? I would hesitate but ultimately say yes if the holding period is 3 years+.
A couple of rationalizations from my POV.
If you were -ever- going to add FSD at any point on your car, it is better to do it sooner than later. You have more time to enjoy the benefits. It's hard to argue at this time if FSD price goes up in the future because they are ways to adjust the price via the vehicle itself, etc. However it is logical to deduce that very capable driving assistance systems will command more premium.
Even for highway driving, think about the number of lane changes one does. FSD executes the majority of lane changes very well. The first 7000 lane changes costs you $1 each. Not worth it, but it will be pennies per change after a few years.
The miles between FSD disengagement is getting larger and larger. I had EAP/FSD since 2016. It has gone from a complete liability to a valuable driving aid. I am far less fatigued now that I am not disengaging much and less tense when travelling.
AP/Basic Autosteer is very nice - -but the lane changing AND future benefits make it worthwhile to me.
Eventually when stopped traffic is detected, there are stops for lights, the amount of disengagements goes down which grows the value of the system.
Summary: Divide the cost of FSD into years of ownership and price per disengagement. It's cheap for what it is expected to bring. Tesla makes steady progress on their driver assistance systems. Driver Confidence (From GM) + ProPilot (Nissan) etc are all pretty bad and don't improve.
fishyducky
Member
no text, no calls, nothing. I’ve had to chase them around every day to keep updated. The only text I ever received from Tesla was the original delivery scheduling text back around the 23rd or whenever it was.
All of those benefits of the LR vs SR you explained make sense, but again, all of that is relative to the individual financial (and driving) situation. I just wouldn't make blanket statements telling people that making a last minute switch to a LR makes great sense if I don't know their specifics. I've read some scary posts on here about the financial decisions some are making just to get into a Model 3 SR.
Side note - I'm not necessarily in agreement with buying the biggest battery you can afford. By that logic I should have bought a long range Model S, as I could afford the payments. However, what if I don't want to pay that much for a car? What if 50-60% of the 55kwh battery would serve 98% of my annual driving, and I have an ICE to handle the other 2%? Maybe some would say you should still do it in that case. I wouldn't. I would say buy the biggest you can afford and actually need.
Decided to try and call the Fremont factory. Got bounced to another showroom. An SA was super helpful and pulled up my account. Said my car was off the production line, and waiting to get washed. Now it needs to get inspected, then should hopefully either be sent to the delivery center or I get it from the factory. Now I got a couple hours to kill. He said people showed up to work at 5am today and are supposed to go till midnight!
dandrewk
Active Member
This may be getting off topic for the thread, but herein lies my main issue with FSD. It executes the -majority- of lane changes very well? Even with due driver diligence, that seems unacceptable. To me, it's one strike and you're out. For safety's sake, it either works all of the time or not at all.
If I had it and used the lane change (or even NOA), I'd be swiveling my head every time the car makes a decision, worried that it won't see another car or motorcycle in the adjacent lane. Sure, -most- of the time it works great. The risk/reward just doesn't add up, at least not yet.
This is exactly like the AT&T commercials. FSD is ok. But is that good enough?
dandrewk
Active Member
I have this image in my head about the last minute deliveries at the Fremont factory: New owners are going to their cars on the production line after being admonished not to touch the exterior because the clear coat isn't dry yet. The final touches are applied while in the vehicle, and they drive down the ramp with their new cars at 0.00 odometer.
yes, plan to drive to Buena Park at lunch time to see what information i can get to decide should i sit tight at home to wait for 9pm pick up time tonight, or F it, they are just playing me again, and i should go to party instead
I was gonna buy some Porto's and deliver to the Buena Park but since I am sick so no go...good luck and keep us posted!
tren01t
Member
I agree and even with AP, the same diligence is needed and of course the legal aspect is another consideration of self driving in CA.
dandrewk
Active Member
I've spent the last month retraining my right foot/leg not to be tensed up while on the accelerator pedal when using AP. It's real hard to let it just sit there, as it always wants to hover just over the pedal. As I've used TACC and auto steer and seen how well it works, the trust is building. It's still not quite there yet.
ZappCatt
Member
WOW, sorry for the wall of text, I had a quick reply...and turned it into a novel!
TL: DR FSD/NoA is not ready for prime time, but I really enjoyed trying it out. Would love a Trial of it at some future stage of development, since there is no way I am going to pay $7k for FSD on my 36 month lease.
Yep. During my overnight test, I used NoA a couple of times. I found that it was fun when it worked...but super not fun when it did not. It could NOT figure out the 101 North to 880 interchange and was always going full Freeway speed at the approach to that cloverleaf. I overrode it both times. I also felt that moving to the far right lane 1.5 miles before the exit was a bit early, but realize it has to do it pretty early since often our exit ramps can back up .5 miles or more pretty easily. This was one of the questions I had when just thinking about Autonomous driving... "how does it know if an exit is backed up, and thus must get over much earlier than you would typically expect"
It seems like it wants 1.5 miles per lane change. This is tough on a 4 lane road when you are using the HOV lane, first move over is 4.5 miles out, then 3 miles and last lane is 1.5 miles. While my commute is 18 miles, so on full NoA, I would still get a benefit of much of the HOV lane, someone with a shorter, 6 mile on fwy commute would just hit the HOV lane and start the process of moving over for their exit. I wonder if this will be a user selectable setting(my preference) but then people who change it to very short distances to move over will whine when they miss their exit due to it being backed up.
I was probably on .35 software at the time(Early November) and felt that its lane changes were TERRIBAD! If it saw someone in the blind spot, it just kept pace with them with the blinker on the whole time. It did not slow down to get behind them, or speed up to go in front. This was not on very busy roads, so I was able to easily make the lane change once I overrode its attempt.
ZappCatt
Member
Yep, attention is very important..and lost on many, BUT, all of the concentration can be focused on emergency maneuvers required due to other peoples mistakes(swerve and brake) so you do not have to spend as much time making the minute changes in your driving.
I really liked it, and that was a huge reason why I "upgraded" to the Tesla for my new lease.
While it was more than the basic models of the other EV's, I would have had to add multiple packages to come up with lane keep, traffic aware CC, etc.
... I'll take it one further. When I bought FSD back in April at $5k on my LR AWD, it was a no brainer. It continues to be a no brainer, even at $7k. If we do pull the trigger on a Model X (depending on how the Great Deer Incident of 2019 turns out) ... I'd certainly add it.
Reasons?
#1 - Guaranteed me an HW3 upgrade
#2 - Lane changing is real, works now, works great. I couldn't IMAGINE driving on Autopilot without it. It makes the entire experience so so so smooth.
#3 - NoA - eh. Not there yet.
#4 - Autopark works well. Not perfect, but well enough when I don't want to park mself.
#5 - Smart Summon is an AWESOME parlor trick. I use it at the supermarket when it's raining; saves me from getting soaked and gets a ton of "holy sh!t look at that!" comments.
#6 - most importantly - by bundling with the vehicle, it falls under NJ's electric vehicle sales tax exemption. If I were to add it on later, I'd have to pay said tax. Huge benefit to bundling up front.
#7 - all the futures of FSD are coming.... If you're familiar with the Gartner hype cycle, I'd say we're probably around the Peak of Inflated Expectations, maybe on our way to the Trough of Disillusionment already ... it's early, folks, but we're getting there.
Good luck! I haven’t gotten a text either. I wonder if I will be there during the event... maybe they’ll do something special for us? Lol or maybe nothing at all
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