Help me decide if I buy FSD this weekend, or not! ONCE AND FOR ALL.

[M3BlueGeorgia]

Sadly, it appears the trend of just more parlor tricks and gimmicks will continue, at least in the near term. For those who are on the fence about dropping $6000 for FSD, my recommendation would be to wait until there is real functionality that you can rely on and trust with your life.

If you have AP, getting FSD gets you the EAP capabilities missing from AP. If you have EAP, it currently gets you nothing extra.

So for AP owners, there is an immediate, usable, valuable benefit, worth (using Tesla's implied pricing) US$3K, with some extra FSD-specific capabilities coming "soon". Not full FSD, as that's years away, but incrementally extra capabilities.
Those being red light detection and stop sign detection, which I find attractive capabilities. Originally promised for Q4-19, but probably more likely Q1-20, but only time will tell.

 

[NHK X]

Summon is terrible with curbs! So many times I've had to stop it, because it didn't sense a low curb, and was going to scratch my wheels, or the front bumper.

But, most already know this.....I'm going to wait for the next version before further testing.

do you have smart summon?

 

[jordanair45]

do you have smart summon?

Nope. If you're talking about version 10.

 

[jordanair45]

So far FSD has been the biggest waste of money, ever, for me. "Cool", but totally worthless .

To anyone reading this, not worth the upgrade.

 

[NHK X]

So far FSD has been the biggest waste of money, ever, for me. "Cool", but totally worthless .

To anyone reading this, not worth the upgrade.

Hahaha not sure exactly what you were expecting right out the gate.

 

[VincentM3]

I would wait and keep my money. Unless Tesla can give us a "carved in stone" date rather than an ETA, I'm not willing to fork over 6 G's on what may turn out to be nothing more than a promise. I prefer losing a couple of thousand if it's there and have to pay more, rather than losing 6 thousand for nothing. Even then, I would STILL wait and hear back from owner experiences, like e.g. how does the FSD handle potholes, what if road markings get covered with snow,... stuff like that.

 

[jebinc]

Hahaha not sure exactly what you were expecting right out the gate.

Really? There were people who put up a lot of coin three years ago and got nothing more above the EAP they already have.

 

[totteraptor]

So far FSD has been the biggest waste of money, ever, for me. "Cool", but totally worthless .

To anyone reading this, not worth the upgrade.

Hi Marc,
Sorry to hear that you regretted the FSD upgrade.
I think you did the right thing asking the Forum before buying but the vote was pretty 50/50. Personally, I agree with you that the FSD upgrade is waste of 6000CHF. I have regretted buying it myself - I got carried away with the hype.

 

[jebinc]

Hi Marc,
Sorry to hear that you regretted the FSD upgrade.
I think you did the right thing asking the Forum before buying but the vote was pretty 50/50. Personally, I agree with you that the FSD upgrade is waste of 6000CHF. I have regretted buying it myself - I got carried away with the hype.

Same

 

[jordanair45]

Hi Marc,
Sorry to hear that you regretted the FSD upgrade.
I think you did the right thing asking the Forum before buying but the vote was pretty 50/50. Personally, I agree with you that the FSD upgrade is waste of 6000CHF. I have regretted buying it myself - I got carried away with the hype.

The forum was telling me NO. But my mind said YES. It’s just money. But to think that would have covered 1 year of car payments and insurance for me lol

Oh well...come on robo taxis

 

[NHK X]

I would wait and keep my money. Unless Tesla can give us a "carved in stone" date rather than an ETA, I'm not willing to fork over 6 G's on what may turn out to be nothing more than a promise. I prefer losing a couple of thousand if it's there and have to pay more, rather than losing 6 thousand for nothing. Even then, I would STILL wait and hear back from owner experiences, like e.g. how does the FSD handle potholes, what if road markings get covered with snow,... stuff like that.

Sounds like you could be alluding to level 5 FSD. How does the car behave in extreme circumstances when snow covers the lines, ect. In terms of the HW3 upgrade and spending the 6k, I don’t the benefits as being an all or nothing decision. Level 5 like you describe may or may not come to our hardware config. But to me, getting HW3 is worth the benefit of continued incremental improvement towards level 5. For example pothole detection, or other features we haven’t thought about yet might be only for HW3 and up in the future. It definitely is a risk it may not get to level 5 FSD. At the point it reaches level 5, I will be surprised if it only costs 6k at that point. I see this next year as the time where all the patience and frustration of some owners starts to peel off as we start to see actual feature differentiation. Let’s come back to this post in a year and retouch on the idea of cost analysis. It will be interesting to see how things unfolded.

For my situation, after spending 100k on the X and almost 60k on our 3, it makes sense to me to spend a smaller fraction of that cost to optimize hardware for the long haul (plan on driving these cars into the dirt) , to give it the best chance for continued advancement in features. If leasing or planning on new cars every few years, you might have a different cost calculus. This is my sentiment while keeping fingers crossed but expectations tempered that one day these cars will be able to handle level 5 FSD.

 

[NHK X]

Really? There were people who put up a lot of coin three years ago and got nothing more above the EAP they already have.

Not disputing that. Given the information the OP had about the state of FSD right at this moment, not sure what he was expecting. If you are coming from enchanted AP, no feature changes, at the moment. If coming from base AP, then you get NOA. NOA isn’t perfect and more useful in certain areas and less in other areas. Even new features in near term expect to be buggy. I personally have had a great experience with NOA, living WA state, and on our road trip and move to TX. Not a perfect experience but I use it all the time.

Like I mentioned in my post above, there are other reasons to upgrade. The debate isn’t about will new features come with HW3. Most of us agree it will. There will be continued features that roll out in the near future that will possibly make the investment “worth” it for your situation. Quotes because we all get to judge for each of our unique situations. Also by this I don’t mean smart summon. I’m looking 1-2 years out for additional features built upon smart summon. The real debate is if our cars we purchased will be able to handle level 5 FSD, or if Tesla/we will need to upgrade certain components in the future to get there. Nobody knows the real answer. Tesla says we can make it, but in tech and specifically in this complex problem of solving driving, nobody really has the answer. All we can do is look for near future benefits and hope for the best. If near future benefits don’t make it worth your money, don’t purchase.

 

[jebinc]

Not disputing that. Given the information the OP had about the state of FSD right at this moment, not sure what he was expecting. If you are coming from enchanted AP, no feature changes, at the moment. If coming from base AP, then you get NOA. NOA isn’t perfect and more useful in certain areas and less in other areas. Even new features in near term expect to be buggy. I personally have had a great experience with NOA, living WA state, and on our road trip and move to TX. Not a perfect experience but I use it all the time.

Like I mentioned in my post above, there are other reasons to upgrade. The debate isn’t about will new features come with HW3. Most of us agree it will. There will be continued features that roll out in the near future that will possibly make the investment “worth” it for your situation. Quotes because we all get to judge for each of our unique situations. Also by this I don’t mean smart summon. I’m looking 1-2 years out for additional features built upon smart summon. The real debate is if our cars we purchased will be able to handle level 5 FSD, or if Tesla/we will need to upgrade certain components in the future to get there. Nobody knows the real answer. Tesla says we can make it, but in tech and specifically in this complex problem of solving driving, nobody really has the answer. All we can do is look for near future benefits and hope for the best. If near future benefits don’t make it worth your money, don’t purchase.

We all home this is true. The Tesla buyers three years ago (AP2, 2.5), that bought either EAP or definitely EAP have been "hoping" for three+ years now. Nada for their FSD $$$ as of yet, after three years. For those of us that bought FSD this year, it's quite possible we could be these people three years from now as there are no guarantees...

 

[NHK X]

We all home this is true. The Tesla buyers three years ago (AP2, 2.5), that bought either EAP or definitely EAP have been "hoping" for three+ years now. Nada for their FSD $$$ as of yet, after three years. For those of us that bought FSD this year, it's quite possible we could be these people three years from now as there are no guarantees...

true. I bought EAP 2 years ago, still waiting on enhanced summon and better NOA. I’m in the boat of purchasing FSD recently. I feel like progress has been made, just not leaps and bounds like some were expecting. NOA still needs a lot of work and it feels like progress has stalled at points, but that for me doesn’t equal no progress. It also to me doesn’t equal future promises or advancements won’t occur. Although like you say, things can always get delayed and go off track. In some ways, my purchase of Teslas was understanding the uncertainty in new tech and having some tolerance for waiting and missed deadlines. And there are others who absolutely hate that, and it’s understandable. Tesla could communicate and be more realistic in goals, and make caveats to timeline promises more clear.

 

[MarsNext]

If you believe in the 'dream' - go for it.

 

[jebinc]

If you believe in the 'dream' - go for it.

Tesla is exciting, but SpaceX is magnitudes more exciting.

 

[jordanair45]

NoA works great. But honestly just having autopilot was enough.

My Tesla is updating to v10 as we speak can’t wait to try the new version out. Especially summon. I love to summon my car to me after leg day at the gym

 

[jebinc]

NoA works great. But honestly just having autopilot was enough.

My Tesla is updating to v10 as we speak can’t wait to try the new version out. Especially summon. I love to summon my car to me after leg day at the gym

Are you EAP? How do you know it's a v10 update? If it is, and you're not subject to the EAP NDA, please tell us about it, and share the release notes for the public v10 Enhanced Summon feature as well. Good luck!

 

[jordanair45]

Are you EAP? How do you know it's a v10 update? If it is, and you're not subject to the EAP NDA, please tell us about it, and share the release notes for the public v10 Enhanced Summon feature as well. Good luck!

Came in here to edit. It’s not v 10 don’t know what I was thinking lol only updated to v9 2019.32.2.2 sorry !

 

[electronblue]

Are you EAP? How do you know it's a v10 update? If it is, and you're not subject to the EAP NDA, please tell us about it, and share the release notes for the public v10 Enhanced Summon feature as well. Good luck!

Reading this message I finally realized what Elon meant when he said all early FSD buyers would be invited to EAP! He meant Enhanced Autopilot... which clearly all early FSD buyers have been invited to...

(On a more serious note, personally I would prefer EAP = Enhanced Autopilot, not Early Access Program which I’d simply call something else... This is reminiscent of SC being Service Center and Supercharger being SpC, both can’t be SC.)