When Model 3 was first launched, even Autopilot was an option. I probably would not even have bothered with Autopilot. Its the wifes car and she was unlikely to use autopilot so it was really a toy for me.
By the time Model 3 was launched in UK, Autopilot was standard (albeit with a price increase to partially compensate) FSD was a £4800 option. I thought long and hard but in the end came to the conclusion that we had spent enough on the car that we may as well go the full monty. I knew full well what we were getting, and its functional limitations, but not how it behaved.
Part of buying it was to be part of the journey to FSD and the potentially false hope that if there was something physically wrong that prevented the system becoming fully operative then, as there was a free HW2 to HW3 upgrade for FSD owners, the same would hopefully be true for us.
What was never clear was what the end goal of FSD would ever be. But with long term ownership of the vehicle, we would hopefully be in the best position to find out. I never really thought of what capabilities I would like to see, certainly in terms of SAE levels, but I would be disapointed if, in the lifetime of our ownership, I would not be able to summon the car in a car park with it P-ing down with roan and that I could not drive a journey including in traffic in a town, and not have the car do most of the work for me. As for hands on the steering, I hadn't really given it much thought - hands on or off didn't really bother me, so I thought.
The reality was/is quite different. There was quite a bit of expectation based upon huge other peoples publicly expressed experiences. The reality meant a big reality check. Whilst it does do some things very well, it soon became very clear that there were some fundamental omissions in its functionality and reliability/consistency. To be very clear, I'm not talking about its operation in situations where Tesla say not to use its features (which attracts lots of unwarranted criticism), but on Motorways and on/off ramps, the very scenarios where things should be rock solid. A whole host of issues, but the main ones being (1) on/off ramp handling, (2) driver confirmation, aka the nag, (3) auto-lane change behaviour and (4) the risk of phantom braking. 15 months later, #1 remains a problem but has improved, #2 needs a fundamental rethink (potentially in hand) as the Tesla method of torque sensing is not a great way of doing things, #3 is a poor implementation of a UNECE regulation that again, is promised to improve and #4 has only affected me in significant form on a handful of occasions, but thats a handful too many and even though they can be predicted and/or mitigated against, rather detracts from the pleasure of being driven.
What I really like about the package is being part of its evolution. Each release brings change, some positive, some negative. The FSD limited beta is showing what the system should be capable of, which is far in excess of what many people give it credit it for based upon their experiences of using Autopilot/TACC in scenarios specifically warned against by Tesla. But at present, it can only be seen as a best case scenario where in UK at best will take quite some time to materialise even in limited form. imho, FSD beta progress has slowed and we are now in the 20% remaining functionality taking 80% of the time phase. Really looking forward so some of the FSD beta benefits to merge into the wider functionality.
My advice to anyone is to go into it with open eyes and understand what, how and where it is operational. Its a long journey, so if you have a finance package over a limited number of years, factor in that you may not even get to see half the features over the duration of 'ownership'. I couldn't recommend that you sell a kidney for it, or even take finance on it unless you were prepared to see next to nothing for the return, but if you don't mind paying a fairly high entry fee into a bit of an adventure that may or may not work out for you in the end, then I wouldn't talk anyone out of it.
tl;dr FSD is now £2k more than what we originally paid for it. If I was doing it again, would I do things differently? Yes. I would wait to see if EAP (enhanced autopilot) was offered again and see what the forthcoming FSD subscription package offered.
imho.