Hi Gang,
I thought I'd let my inner muse free and comment on why I am thrilled I was talked out of the $10k I originally ordered for FSD for my S refresh LR, and glad I tried a $199 subscription which I just cancelled.
Mind you, my opinion only, your mileage may vary.
Full disclosure - I'm a Tesla fanboy.
Here we go - very briefly, my neighbor/friend talked me out of the FSD purchase with my refresh, and my FOMO went into overdrive when I heard about the $2k price increase.
Fast forward some 6 months, and with a few long trips (for me) expected, I opted into FSD July 9 or so, and I cancelled it a few days ago. It will run until August 9.
I think the concept is promising, and the most advanced system out there, but far from ready for prime time.
Lane Changes - FSD is superb at lane changes on a highway or roadway. You can opt to make it automatic (I didn't) or require a confirmation. I felt it was flawless in execution, but suboptimal in deciding whether to change lanes - for example, it may prompt you to change out of the passing lane, but not consider how quickly you'll have to get back into the lane as the cars are slow in the right lane. FSD lane changing won't work on single lane roads where you signal for a left turn.
Summons - I tried it a couple of times. Most useful if 2 idiots park so closely to you you can't open your doors - then summon the beast forward or backwards, and if it works, the car will do so, very slowly. I found numerous times after 30 seconds the app still didn't sync well with the car to activate summons. I also tried it once at my office parking lot. If I walked to the car, and drove to where i was standing, it would have taken maybe 15 seconds or less. Instead, using summons, it took about 2.5 minutes. It did work, though I helped it along by selecting to first back the car straight out.
Subtopic - gear selection - my gear selection is appropriate maybe 80% of the time. Elon called any user input error - fine, but what about when I'm parked by a wall, or with a car in front of me, and the car autoselects to crash? Um, no. Nyet. Nada. For similar reasons, I didn't trust FSD to choose the appropriate gear (D or R) when pulling out of a spot to me.
Driving score & Grandma mode - I was generally scoring lower than I expected - city driving has starts and starts the scoring doesn't like. Switch out of insane into sport, and then use autopilot all over, and your scores will climb. And be prepared for autopilot to try to kill you about once every 5 drives, and prepare to disengage at any curves that have a yellow reduced speed sign, like 35 or 40 when the speed limit is generally a few mph over that.
Driving intelligence - just this a.m. on streets (where FSD won't really work) I was in autopilot, and the car knew based on the navigation that I was going straight, yet it was pulling me into a left turn lane. Not cool.
Persistence - I don't think the system can keep track of cars around you on the road, and it certainly can't keep track of bad drivers that you or I might afford a much wider berth to, or follow a further distance from.
Parking - I got it to work about 2 times. The rest of the time I look for the parking notice, but sure don't see it.
Potholes/obstacle avoidance - I sure didn't see it.
Braking and acceleration - Ironically, the FSD system/AP would drive far more harshly than I would, but I would get a demerit on my scores - i.e. if the cars a slow or stopped ahead, the car may accelerate nearly full speed until it then starts to regen and then hit the brakes --- hard - whereas the typical driver would likely accelerate just a tad, and then maybe coast the rest of the way.
Stopping distance - no intelligence here. If you're going 30, you need less stopping distance than going 60. How about some variability here?
Speeding - I've had AP on in the past, and yeah, gone fast and gently get back down to my set speed. With FSD I didn't mean to, but I stomped, passed a guy, and broke 95, which broke FSD and my rebuke was no AP/FSD for the rest of my 3 hour drive. Um, no again, and nyet again. I pulled off the next exit, my wife wanted to kill me and just get home, and I had to find a place, park, get out, get back in, and voila - AP restored. And I made sure not to break 95 again (I came very close by accident though).
I think the PROMISE of FSD is exciting. I also realized if I got into the beta (I requested my first day, never got it even with averaging 97 for a week) that the beta would be useful in town/on streets, but no improvement on the highway, I guess until the single stack. So, I was auditioning for something that wouldn't have improved my longer drives more than I already had. Don't get me wrong - having the car keep the lane through lane changes is great - though with free AP, I can keep the lane, jostle the wheel as I have to with FSD, and the only thing is after a lane change, I'd have to press the AP button again.
I can see where updates will help, and maybe some of this stuff is easy to implement, but even then how should it handle say potholes - if within the lane, and you can move a few inches either way to avoid - yeah, it should. What if you have to move to the edge of the lane, and your mirror would hit another vehicle, or one that was creeping over? what about passing over a dotted line to avoid?
I had to emergency disengage the FSD somewhat often - cars merging, near misses or other stupid things, and the near full brake stomping the system would do was horrible.
TLDR; FSD is promising but not there yet. Maybe the beta is better than sliced bread, but I sure didn't see it. If I paid $10k or $12k for what I had, I'd be furious. The thing is helpful at best and dangerous at worst.
Would I subscribe again? You bet. When 11 or even 10.X is available without the need to audition, I'd plunk down another $200 or possibly higher to try it out. In its current incarnation, and without the beta, I think it is an overpriced gimmick and not worth it.
