For anyone doubting buying FSD, go ahead and buy it now

[argon2018]

With the new V10 and testing smart summon (which I always thought as a gimmick and never thought I would use it until I actually needed to use it), I have become a believer. It will blow your mind.

If you ever had doubts about purchasing FSD, go ahead and purchase it. This thing is amazing and new features will be rolling out soon such as stop light and red light detection and AP on street.

Tesla is ahead of the competition by a long long shot.

I have no doubt they will raise price of FSD soon

 

[qdeathstar]

I bought fsd and I get plenty of use out of it now, but I say buy the most car you canc(the highest level trim) and save the fsd for later... there is only so high they can raise it and my biggest mistake was forgoing awd lr for fsd and bigger wheels/blue paint.

 

[smashcz]

$6k is too much for me, I'd maybe pay $3k

 

[notAnExpert]

I wish I felt as enthusiastic about FSD's current state and *immediate* future as the OP. In the 24+ hours I have had Smart Summon, I haven't felt confident enough to use it. It cuts through parking lot lines, doesn't read signs, makes wild turns, gets confused and pauses awkwardly potentially angering other drivers.

I think the only other "FSD" feature currently is NoAP, which I also turned off because I didn't find it refined enough to use.

Tesla says street sign/light recognition and city street FSD is supposed to be released "later this year". But it is hard for me to feel optimistic about such an aggressive schedule, considering current state of publicly released firmware and in general, Tesla's track record on keeping schedules.

Don't get me wrong. I'm an FSD owner, Tesla well-wisher, and a stock holder. I am optimistic that they will eventually get this all working well. But I don't feel the same level of FSD purchase urgency as the OP does.

 

[XLR82XS]

I'm a maybe as well at 3K..... 1K is more tempting. I don't REALLY NEED FSD. I enjoy AP on trips and the rest of the time I enjoy DRIVING my car.

 

[WileyTheMan]

Glad to see you're excited about v10. I don't think those currently with EAP are in a rush to get FSD, though. Tesla was smart to remove EAP from their lineup and put those more advanced features into FSD for the newer cars. It definitely gives new buyers more incentive to invest in FSD.

 

[Kognos]

Sorry, but no.

FSD needs to be aware of the environment, full stop.

When Smart Summon can do the following, I'll consider it:

1. It no longer needs my button on the app, or at least that I feel confident enough to not need it.
2. It drives on the correct side of the lane. You know, how people in US hug right.
3. It has a way to resolve conflict. Imagine a tesla at a 4-way stop with 3 other cars there. What is the resolution?
4. It parks intelligently when picking me up. Right now every single example would have the car cutting off traffic. I can't for the life of me envision this thing picking me up in front of a busy grocery store because it'll angle across multiple lanes to stick it's "nose" at me instead of stopping quickly in the lane of traffic.

In other words, the smart summon needs to really be somewhat smart. Either that or just abandon it and let me go all Pierce Brosnan style car control and let me drive it remotely, because what it's doing right now is something that I would never ever use in any busy environment.

Having it pick a roughshod path over parking lot lines isn't good. Stopping utterly for everything isn't good. It needs to get an awful lot better.

My barometer for success here is that this thing needs to pick me up in front of Costco on a busy day. Some people here have a low threshold for success, but damn guys, this thing needs to be practical and useful. I see what Tesla is doing with the smart summon feature as a way to incrementally be more environmentally aware without doing it at deadly speed, so I put a lot of value into how this aspect of design progresses.

 

[FunSecured]

I have full self driving and have used Smart Summon (since V10) about 4 times (so, I concede I haven’t trialed it a bunch of times and under all conditions).

I DO think though that from what I’ve seen, it is absolutely amazing in what it does...but more importantly, in the inroads you can see the self driving/auto pilot suite making, over time.

Yes..many miles to go, but objectively...pretty cool/amazing in how it’s transforming before our eyes.

Example: In a Stater Bros lot and invoke Smart Summon. It -rightly- avoided all raised curbs, backed out its parking space and onto main pathway and temporarily stopped for a person and then vehicle backing out.

While it is certainly still slower than ideal and devotes a good amount of time to problem solving when it encounters something unexpected, it rightly kept on its path. At one point, an elderly lady was exiting the front of the store and began to walk toward the lot. The car recognized her and paused as it was negotiating a turn through the area.

It was super funny to see her then wave the car on (as if to say go ahead) all the while, not recognizing there was no driver inside! Super funny.

The car, eventually-after realizing she was not going to go, re-positioned and resumed and then, avoided a parked fire truck that was parked and nearby and was partially blocking the pathway. It then, properly came to us and stopped. I think there were about 4 unanticipated variances to its intended path that came up but ultimately it problem solved them all. Wow.

A Model 3 Owner happened to pull into the lot as all this was happening and was amazed and awe inspired as she watched us have the vehicle negotiate all the above and arrive at our location.

SUPER COOL was my at the time and now take away....as -No One- BUT Tesla has this and is doing this...today. Out of all the many many cars I’ve owned over decades...Nothing comes close to the fun of this Tesla experience and fun and new that comes with each update. Netflix and al that (too in V10) transform the car into experience versus a car and jointly is just cool.

We were in a Home Depot lot and did the same thing and I watched a woman perplexed and then, as the car arrived at where we were standing...realized that the car was driving
Itself and simply said, “That is amazing.”

Yes...agreed that it’s not perfection and in two other instances the smart summon seemed confused or simply aborted...but...my take...thus far...as in Elon’s words...”Worth it!”

 

[moogoo]

ummm no. Smart summon could barely get out of my garage correctly. It tried to come out at an angle almost rubbing my other car. I own fsd but doubt it will ever truly have real fsd

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

For most individuals Smart Summons doesn't offer enough usefulness or consistency to be all that useful.

It's also historically an Enhanced Autopilot feature, and not a FSD feature. It was moved into the FSD package when Tesla deleted the Enhanced Summons, but doesn't require HW3.

So I'd say to the people that don't have FSD should hold off until Tesla releases a FSD feature that actually takes advantage of HW3.

The Smart Summons feature is simply something Tesla had on their ToDo list for Enhanced Autopilot owners, and new FSD owners. Now that they have at least a preliminary version they can focus more on HW3 stuff.

So it's exciting, but we're not quite there yet.

 

[acarney]

For $3k I would buy it, for $6k, well it just isn’t worth it.

I’m still curious how the car knows about cross traffic at an intersection. I have yet to see smart Summon handle a parking lot with other moving cars. Will it just pause while someone is walking down the lane but 3 feet to one side (so out of its direct path), or does it err way ok the side of caution and just stop until they’ve walked completely past? I could see that being wildly annoying to drivers behind the car seeing a completely empty area in front and people just a few feet off to the side.

Does it just nose it’s self out into an intersection of the parking lot and then pause half way out of it senses a car crossing in front of it? Using ultra sonic sensor?

Show me it handling a somewhat busy parking lot with a couple people pushing carts, a car or two behind it following it down the lane, maybe a car turning up the lane toward it, and some cross traffic. If it’s pausing every five feet until someone passes, it’s nothing more then a party trick. Humans can navigate that without stopping. We go slow, but we can tell when someone is 3 feet to our left loading stuff in their trunk or walking to their car. We don’t stop *just in case*. While it needs to be ultra safe, it also needs to be somewhat confident in people following rules and common sense (don’t step directly in front of the slow moving car).

 

[acarney]

Sorry, but no.

FSD needs to be aware of the environment, full stop.

When Smart Summon can do the following, I'll consider it:

1. It no longer needs my button on the app, or at least that I feel confident enough to not need it.
2. It drives on the correct side of the lane. You know, how people in US hug right.
3. It has a way to resolve conflict. Imagine a tesla at a 4-way stop with 3 other cars there. What is the resolution?
4. It parks intelligently when picking me up. Right now every single example would have the car cutting off traffic. I can't for the life of me envision this thing picking me up in front of a busy grocery store because it'll angle across multiple lanes to stick it's "nose" at me instead of stopping quickly in the lane of traffic.

In other words, the smart summon needs to really be somewhat smart. Either that or just abandon it and let me go all Pierce Brosnan style car control and let me drive it remotely, because what it's doing right now is something that I would never ever use in any busy environment.

Having it pick a roughshod path over parking lot lines isn't good. Stopping utterly for everything isn't good. It needs to get an awful lot better.

My barometer for success here is that this thing needs to pick me up in front of Costco on a busy day. Some people here have a low threshold for success, but damn guys, this thing needs to be practical and useful. I see what Tesla is doing with the smart summon feature as a way to incrementally be more environmentally aware without doing it at deadly speed, so I put a lot of value into how this aspect of design progresses.

Agreed. You’re paying $6k right now for a party trick in an empty, or almost empty parking lot and the ability to change lanes on the freeway. I get the idea that more is promised down the road, but we’ve already had people sell the cars before they got any real features, probably die before seeing any real features, etc.

A subscription service with credit toward the full package seems more “beta testing” focused rather then buying a promised future. I suspect a heck of a lot of people would pay $50 a month or something to use the current features. That’s $600 a year, and if FSD takes five more years (likely at least this long) that’s a $3,000 credit towards FSD. When the car can actually drive it’s self the subscription service is ended and new buyers pay $6k to get it and people with subscription credits pay a prorated amount ($3k, etc).

For someone that does ten to twelve road trips a year is automatic lane changes worth $6,000? Hell no. Would I pay $600 a year for it... probably. Is that $600 more a year in Tesla’s pocket, yep!

 

[JG T3SLA]

Really don’t think there is going to be a FSD cliff. Incremental updates that help solve aspects of the sometimes monotonous driving functions will be the path forward. Which I think is great. If you expect a switch to be flipped and your car will be full self driving tomorrow you need to re set your expectations.

Personally I’m enjoying the journey to self driving. As such I’m happy with my FSD purchase.

 

[TomT]

I honestly can't see why I would ever use Smart Summon except as a party trick or, perhaps, when it was raining...

 

[Phlier]

Really don’t think there is going to be a FSD cliff. Incremental updates that help solve aspects of the sometimes monotonous driving functions will be the path forward. Which I think is great. If you expect a switch to be flipped and your car will be full self driving tomorrow you need to re set your expectations.

This has my mind running much faster than I can type, so I apologize for being all over the place in this post.

People should understand that the current software we are all running is targeted for HW 2.5; they have not released software that takes advantage of the new processing power of HW 3.

Elon is running a dev version of the software that correctly handles traffic lights and stop signs.

I have no information to back this up, but IMO, here's what's happening, and I'm using the above statement about Elon running dev software as a starting point for my opinion.

Tesla is developing a code fork for HW 3, that has much, much more functionality than what HW 2.5 is capable of supporting (imagine trying to run iOS 13 on an original iPhone). When they finally release software that targets the abilities of HW 3, we very well could have a "flip the switch" moment referenced in the post quoted. Imagine upgrading from iOS 1 to iOS 13, skipping everything in between.

So currently Tesla is writing a code fork for HW 2.5, as well as 3. They're cooking the HW 3 fork, and when it's finally mature, tested, and safe enough, we'll see the functionality we've been dreaming of.

I think the majority of their developing efforts is going into the HW 3 fork, and they're just adding functionality and features to HW 2.5 to keep us satiated until they can finally release HW 3 code. And they may very well be bumping up to the limit of what HW 2.5 is capable of doing.

IMO, there is a very real possibility of an upcoming "holy crap!" moment similar to what we all experienced the first time we put the go pedal to the floor on a Tesla when they finally release HW 3 code, and we're finally able to see what that hardware is capable of doing.

I bought FSD when I purchased the car because I felt that purchasing FSD was a way to support the effort, similar to sending money in to a KickStarter project I believe in, not because of the actual functionality I was purchasing.

But Elon has stated that now is a good time to buy FSD. And I *think* the reason for this is because of the upcoming "real soon now" release of software that targets the abilities of HW 3, and it's going to be a holy crap moment when we finally see it.

But how far away is that moment? The fact that Elon is saying that it's a good time to buy FSD makes me think that we'll see it by the end of the year.

But how do you really gauge Elon time...it could be a long time before we see HW 3 code. Saying it's going to be by the end of the year is nothing more than a wild guess, really, but they are working on it, and we will get it... eventually.

Now to see how many "Disagrees" this post generates.

 

[Dan203]

I'm on a lease so if I were to buy I'd only get use of it for 3 years. If they make major advancements to it in the next few months I'll consider it. If it's still basically where it is now in a year then no way. Not going to pay $6k for a software update to a car I don’t own on a promise of future functionality.

Now if they offered it as some sort of subscription and I could pay a much, much, smaller sum every month/year I might consider trying it out for a while and seeing how I like it.

 

[acarney]

If that’s the case, why not roll out HW3 accelerated code for HW2 features like Smart Summon. I assume they’ve been testing HW3 during development and since ~April. I get not releasing new HW3 dependent features (stop sign and red light, etc), but the stuff that HW2 can handle should be an easy move to HW3. If we saw summons really blow us away (not party trick blow us away but honest to goodness busy parking lot as quick as a human would do) then you might see a heck of a lot more support for what’s just about to come.

Right now though it doesn’t seem like HW3 drastically improves things, even if it does, when you look at the car you think.... ya, no way can that handle five moving variables around it without just stopping and letting everyone pass by.

 

[Phlier]

Right now though it doesn’t seem like HW3 drastically improves things

That's because it currently doesn't; the code is targeted at the abilities of HW 2.5.

It's like running iOS 1.0 on an iPhone X; the hardware is capable of doing a lot more things, but the software hasn't been targeted for that hardware... yet.

 

[acarney]

Oof! On Twitter Teslarati described it as a crowded parting lot! I see ONE car that was moving, but then became stationary in front of the family before the Tesla even got there.

Come on YouTube. Put it to the test. If you don’t want to risk it in a real Costco parking lot or something, get a big channel to call to action 100 friends to bring their cars, park in an empty lot and recreate a busy environment.

Have a couple cars turn up the same aisle the car is coming down, toss some trash in the aisle (think a big gulp cup), have some cross traffic, a few pedestrians walking around and loading their trunk with a cart near the rear of their car.

Either Musk will feature you and you’ll get millions of views, or you’ll go viral for showing that Tesla fails and you’ll get millions of views. I want it to work, I really do, but let’s see if it’s a party trick or not!

Tesla Model 3 unparks itself and drives to save family from torrential rainstorm

 

[Trevor B]

Enjoy the kool aid