The “autopilot” is worthwhile, it keeps the car centered in the lane and has the traffic aware cruise control. The FSD adds the ability to park the car unattended, unpark the car and bring it to you, and to change lanes or recommend changing lanes while navigating. I don’t trust the car to park itself, one of the two times I tried to unpark the car and come and get me unattended, it turned the wrong way and headed away from me. I don’t trust that either. And the lane changes, the car wants to change lanes far more often than I like to change lanes so I don’t let it do it automatically and I ignore the recommendations more often than I use them. So the “autopilot” gets me the features I want and the actual FSD adds nothing thus far. It’s been 4 years. The promise of me crawling into the back seat and snoozing while the car takes me home is just as far off now as it was 4 years ago. I added the FSD during one of the ”sales”, I paid $2k for it and that includes a computer upgrade to the much faster one. I haven’t made that upgrade yet. Anyway, the incremental addition of the FSD adds nothing I use and I think my car will go to the crusher before FSD becomes the actual full self drive. I’m old, 70 this year, so I’d hoped the car would increase it’s self drive utility as my abilities decline. We’ve ordered a Kia Telluride in top trim, it will have the lane keeping ability and the traffic aware cruise control that makes highway driving in the Tesla so much more relaxing. So the other manufacturers are catching up, they’re even with Tesla as far as what I actually use. I bought my car and got free supercharging, I’m grandfathered in with the music, and my car isn’t driven a lot so I have only about 15K on it. I’d love to have the latest fastest S but I’d give up all the perks I have with this one. Tesla won’t transfer my upgrades and purchases to a new one despite the $130K cost of the plaid performance monster. If a new one simply took on the features and perks of my current one, I might even consider it, I’m still juvenile enough to want the fastest car there is. That’s a deep lingering scar left over from the 70’s when all my friends all had the fast Cameros, Corvettes, and the 454 Chevrolets. I had a $250 Rambler Rebel, a car that had a suspension that fatigued and broke aiming a front wheel in severe and totally inappropriate directions. That car was as dangerous as it was cheap. So I have a 4 year old S that still looks new, and Tesla’s costly upgrades will keep me in the one I have for a very long time. Mine is a 75D uncorked to a 4.1 second 0-60 time, so it isn’t at all slow. I ask myself when I’d ever use the additional acceleration, and honestly I wouldn’t beyond just every now and again to feel that thrilling push. I suppose mine’s worth $40K or so now, so the upgrade to the plaid would be beyond expensive, and I don’t think the new one will be any better at carting me home once I reach the point I drool and should no longer drive. So the free supercharging is something I seldom use but do enjoy it immensely when I do, the free music is great, the FSD is virtually useless for me but would needlessly add 10K to the cost of any new S if I was to add it. I wouldn’t. By the time it becomes useful, all the other cars will have it and the competition will mean it won’t be any longer a $10K addition.
I personally think the FSD will need LIDAR mapping before it becomes truly viable, and Elon’s been dug in as far as not even considering adding it. I understand they’re testing it, though, so maybe his heels aren’t as dug in as far as I’d thought.
OK, I’ve rambled, put it down to age. I’d have rambled in my younger years, perhaps not as much.
I don’t think Tesla planned it that way but the perks of my current car have pretty much mentally locked me into not ever upgrading. It seems it might be worthwhile for Tesla to offer a “Perks Graft” to those of us that bought Teslas when Teslas were rare, that “perks graft” moving absolutely everything the legacy owner has to a brand new car. On the other hand, they’ve got absolutely no problems with removing all those nice perks when the car moves through Tesla to a new owner. I’m sure that there aren’t that many of us, when compared to the number of owners of new Teslas. I think we are the more vocal, and likely the most fiercely brand loyal of all the Tesla owners. My car is absolutely the best there is. Four years of ownership has only deepened my conviction.
