I very much like having fun with cars. But all the Tesla autonomy supporters breathlessly talk about how Tesla's L2 autonomy is super useful, or "Game changing." When asked how this exact release is useful beyond entertainment, there's just crickets. Because the car DID NOT drive you to work. It literally would have stopped if you had closed your eyes. You must be present. You must be attentive. You are responsible for accidents or tickets. It WILL kill you if you ignore these rules.
And please, do not tell anyone that your car drove itself. We're all in agreement that this is L2, and acting like a Tesla is autonomous is disingenuous, and dangerous, right? Everyone that crashes a Tesla thinking it could handle some situation by itself was an idiot for not understanding that.
Tell me, how has the game changed? Game changing is when my car can go park itself. When it can take my kids to school without me in it. When it can earn revenue by itself. But requiring you to be right in the same seat you always were, paying more attention than before? That's game changing? What game are we playing? I assumed we were playing the "environmentally conscious, affordable, safer than humans transportation with nobody in the driver's seat" game.
I get that it is very fun. If it was available to me, I'd use it all the time because it would be fun. But I would never tell someone that my car could drive itself, and the fact that it's taken 5 years to get to this point since Tesla showed us a video of a car doing even more than FSD currently can tells me that it's highly unlikely that a current Tesla will move from "entertaining" to "Game changing useful" in the next 5 years.
And don't forget the psychology trick Tesla has played on you- which is that you're in the "special" group that got the beta. They've created a have vs have not situation, which creates some very interesting defense mechanisms for the haves when they are questioned in any way. It's politics 101.
If Tesla gave the current FSD beta to every single Tesla owner, without manuals or communication like they did with you, would you feel comfortable driving or walking next to a Tesla on the road? If not, how has the game changed if it's only safe for 1,000 special people to use it, leaving 269,999,000 American drivers and 1,499,000 Teslas without it?