FSD Owners - Do any of you prefer leaving it off?

[Tronguy]

So, I’ve been in the FSD-b program since early last year. Mostly left it on and did Bug Report to Tesla all the time. You know, working as a Beta Tester, in the hope that eventually Tesla would improve things to the point of it coming out of Beta. And, you betcha, the farther back one goes, the worse it was and definitely more suicidal. I was up to 11.4.7 and, compared to the early days, it was a heck of a lot less scary and smoother driving. Still made mistakes from time to time, maybe several miles between interventions on city streets and near none on highways. With good and bad days, especially on this one (and only one) intersection where it liked to run a red light if it was first in line and stopped.

So, a week and a bit ago I bit and bought a new M3 LR AWD 2023, doing the FSD transfer bit. And now the story gets a bit interesting.

So the car came with the factory load and 11.3.7, the last variant before the 11.4.x series. Man, it was nasty; I had forgotten how bad. Really jerky driving on turns, left and right, inability handling short on and off ramps, not getting over soon enough for exits, serious hesitancy handling stop signs. Scary - I had forgotten how scary. Highways were kind of ok, except that, when changing lanes, it would take forever to get up to speed.

Four days ago, the factory load was updated to 11.4.4. This is going to sound stupid, but it was a massive change. Smooth on left and right turns, much better on ramps, gets over earlier on exits, much better speed up on highway lane shifts. Much more relaxing driving around. Not as good as 11.4.7.

So, this thread.. Seems like new cars come with 11.3.7 these days. Which is kind of ugly. After a week and some, when Tesla gets around to it, one gets upgraded to something newer, and that includes the EAP stuff.

Did any of you wait for that first update before bailing?

 

[Kate and Kevin]

My wife and I just drove our 2022 model Y from Alexandria, VA to Nashville, TN and back. I prefer Full Self Driving on the Interstate highways, but she prefers Autosteer. One gripe is that when driving in the right lane past a merge lane, the FSD swerves toward the merge lane. Another is that FSD often attempts to pass when the vehicle is within a mile or two of an exit commanded via the navigation software. I am pleased to report that there were only two phantom braking incidents, which is a good improvement from prior software releases. FSD is not ready for secondary roads, we both agree. There is too much uncertainty by the FSD software at stop signs, traffic lights, left and right turns, and other situations.

 

[Kate and Kevin]

Yes, I've used "mimimize lane changes" but the car still seems to want to change lanes when I don't want it to, often because it wants to follow a route that I don't, I think. A good example is leaving Midtown Atlanta on I-75/85 northbound. I'm usually in the HOV lane, and need to stay on I-75 north towards Marietta. The main lanes for I-75 north are several lanes over to the right, and that's what the car tries to shoot for (albeit much too late in the game), but if you simply stay in the HOV lane, there's a dedicated HOV ramp to I-75 on the left. For whatever reason, the car ignores that and wants to move several lanes over to the right.

Thanks for the tip in any event!

Many thanks to both of you; I will try "minimize lane changes" and also try FSD without a destination.

 

[sleepydoc]

I payed for it when I bought my MY 3 years ago. I probably overpaid but I'm over that. If I were paying monthly I probably wouldn't subscribe since I don't think it adds enough value on top of EAP or even just plain AP.

Having said that, I use it for the majority of my drives unless I'm really in a hurry and don't have the patience for it. My Model Y just drove us to my daughter's music lesson - 19 miles, 25 minutes. mostly highway but some feeder and surface streets. A variety of turns, exits and lights in moderate traffic. FSD did the entire drive without any interventions and quite comfortably so.

The 'wife acceptance factor' has also increased dramatically over the last year or so. We went out to lunch on Friday. 15 minutes, 10 miles on surface streets with a bit of highway driving. Again, no interventions and no complaints from my wife.

It still does boneheaded moves on a regular basis and part of my comfort with it is due to familiarity and knowing when it will mess up but I do enjoy using it. I don't think they can sell a subscription model in its current form; they need to do some significant polishing. What would really sell subscriptions is if they made it true Level 3, even on highways. Being able to sit and read a book or do something else on a long road trip would be worth a lot to a lot of people.

 

[Padelford]

The current FSD version 11.4.7.2 will enter a freeway HOV lane, but it won't leave the left-side HOV lane to make a needed right-side exit. All the 11.4 versions have done this. I've complained about this to no avail.

I use FSD on long freeway trips, but I just can't be patient any more with the city street nonsense. I get 2-3 interventions within 2-3 miles of my house.

 

[MikeyC]

I just activated FSD for a month to try it. First drive today was a bit stressful. So far it seems worse than regular autopilot in general. At least with AP, I can predict what it's going to do. FSD gives it a mind of it's own and it'll frequently change lanes (like move to the right when a left turn is coming up soon). When you aren't expecting it, it's a bit disconcerting. It also makes the navigation worse and I end up having to drive manually more. Why? Because it takes the nav forever to realize you know a better way and want it to recalculate: if you turn FSD back on too early, it'll actually try to make a u-turn (which it can't do). I have it on the chill setting. I don't see a minimize lane changes option.

Anyway, I'll keep an open mind and see if I can get used to it. It does offer some benefits like not freaking out for bicyclists (as much as AP), letting you set the speed a little higher above the limit, etc.

Mike

 

[gcardona]

I only use it on the highway, I don't have the patience for it on city streets. It is too slow on turns, very indecisive and slows down traffic. It's OK on a straight line, but I have to babysit too much when turning.

 

[MikeyC]

I only use it on the highway, I don't have the patience for it on city streets. It is too slow on turns, very indecisive and slows down traffic. It's OK on a straight line, but I have to babysit too much when turning.

I see what you are saying: kinda feel the same way. Honestly, no real point in having it then since AP does great in one lane and you have to take over for turns anyway.

Mike

 

[kabin]

It's off most of the time for me. Freeways used to be tolerable but now I have occasional phantom braking. Go figure, here's a timely Portland Oregon phantom braking news story from today.

Tesla ‘phantom braking’ could endanger drivers and those following them. So why aren't they being warned?

A KGW investigation documented hundreds of complaints about Tesla cars slamming the brakes for imagined hazards. It even happened during the reporting of this story.

www.kgw.com

 

[UserAnon99]

Off completely almost always. It is actually fine on highways/freeways but I'm not lazy enough to not be able to hit the turn signal to let the car change lanes with EAP. I did a 3,000 mile road trip across the US this summer and it didn't make the cut, especially in city traffic or urban areas. Other than lane changes EAP does everything just as well and without the flaky "mistake the exit ramp for a lane" behavior and other oddities the juice isn't worth the squeeze as the old saying goes.

 

[El joe]

Really sounds like most of these responses would be content with EAP. I’ve had Beta on two cars and EAP on two others and really think EAP hits the sweet spot. Great on freeways, NOA is decent and auto lane changes is really nice. Beta can be terrifying at times. Amazing, yet terrifying.

 

[bobsmy]

I would like the option to have it always on, or reset every start. Too many instances where ego changes lanes only to have to return to the lane it just left to follow route ( exit or turn)..

 

[Corey Alemand]

Off mostly except for long highway stetches or testing runs. I do not trust it with intersections or rotaries if other vehicles are present. On unmarked roads it drives in the center and that’s just not right.

My neighborhood has many streets that do not have curbs. The streets are just asphalt with either grass or an open ditch. The car just drives down the middle of the road yet these are actually 2-way streets. It is infuriating. Really can't understand why it doesn't stay to the right.

I do use FSD every day to drive my 60 mile roundtrip commute to work and back. I can't use it in my neighborhood but I am only 5 blocks from the freeway so I turn it on once I get on the feeder road. It does a good job of taking the on ramp and getting onto the freeway. Most days it drives the full 30 miles with no intervention. To deal with the "nag", I just put enough pressure to keep the wheel with a slight right-tug and it leaves me alone. The car has issues making a left turn at a red-light after I exit so I have to take over. I then drive into the gates of our office but then turn it back on and it navigates pretty successfully to our garage when I take back over. On the way home, I use it partially in our campus but ever since the previous update, the navigation choses the wrong path out of the campus -- it is astounding how bad the navigation is. Once I'm out of the gates, I turn it back on. It can drive me successfully with no intervention about 26 of the 30 miles. When I get off onto the last freeway of the last 4 miles it is heavy traffic and it just can't deal the bumper-to-bumper so I take over. I have to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get in the far left. No way Tesla is figuring that out.

But overall on the highway it has been really good. Only recently have I had some weird phantom braking but never a hard stop brake just a slow down where I have to press the accelerator. I've also used it to drive the 295 mile trip to my parent's house which is all freeway. It does great.

 

[Silicon Desert]

If you own FSD do you ever prefer leaving it off?

On trips, I have it on ALL the time I am on the freeway. I would not want to be without it. The only time I use it on city streets is if there is stop and go traffic. Otherwise never use in on city streets.

 

[T061]

I got 11.4.7.3 today and tested it on a 60 mile non-highway round trip.

They seem to have ironed out some quirks that made 11.4.7.2 unsafe and unusable on this particular road I take all the time.

Overall it was a good run (not perfect) and I'm encouraged to use FSDb more.

 

[sleepydoc]

I got kicked out of FSDb a few weeks ago after getting my 5th strike. My car reverted to 'standard' autopilot for a week until I was un-grounded. after switching from FSD back to AP then back to FSD I can definitely say I'd rather have FSD.

 

[Braumeister]

Nope ,Have turned it off,Autopilot is good enough for me...Pete

 

[snorp]

I would leave it on if I could disable auto lane changes. But that "feature" pisses me off so bad that I just leave it off now. Mine always wants to change lanes when it makes no sense, like .3 miles from an exit and it wants to get in the left lane in heavy traffic.

I turn it on every month or so just to remind myself why I don't use it.

 

[PianoAl]

On all the time, although I take over rather than thinking, I wonder how FSD will handle this situation?

 

[sleepydoc]

I would leave it on if I could disable auto lane changes. But that "feature" pisses me off so bad that I just leave it off now. Mine always wants to change lanes when it makes no sense, like .3 miles from an exit and it wants to get in the left lane in heavy traffic.

I turn it on every month or so just to remind myself why I don't use it.

You can select ‘minimal lane changes’ from the autopilot menu.