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Question: How do you start FSD ??

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Ok - stup1d question, I know. But seems to be falling through the cracks. All YouTube FSD videos start after it's already on. All instructions and walkthroughs somehow omit this point.

How exactly do you start FSD (on residential streets)?? Do you have to be driving already and double-click the stalk (like you do with autopilot on highway? Or can you be stationary and tell the car "Start driving yourself" by pressing a button on the screen?

I got my FSD couple weeks ago (after waiting couple months due to the car not downloading updates at all). I haven't had time to play with it much since. I only managed to turn it on once and at that point I was almost home already. The car did something ridiculous (stopped at a red light and left so much space in front that you could easily fit another car there), and did one thing right (unprotected left turn, it waited the traffic out and did the turn perfectly) - but that was it. The 2nd time I tried to turn FSD on was at night and raining and it kept screaming for me to take the wheel immediately (and did couple things the looked ridiculous); my wife decided she never wants to see it again. I personally think I need to play with it a lot more. But first things first - what is the exact way to start it?
 
You have to use navigation to use FSD City Streets Beta (just like you do for Navigate on Autopilot). Once you're navigating, turn on AP like you normally do. Since you've already used it, I assume you've already enabled all the appropriate settings under Controls > Autopilot.
 
You can be either stationary or moving--but you need to see the little greyed-out Tesla icon at the right end of the row of icons at the top left of the left screen.

It seems to me that the main thing that makes that icon go away is lacking proper lane marking in the immediate driving view. For example, just driving down a four-lane divided major street, that icon will disappear for a hundred feet or so when crossing many of the intersections.

Unlike NOA, where you can't start it up when stopped unless you have a lead vehicle. You can start NSDb dead stopped in the majority of situations where you'd want to. It will even invited me to start it up in my driveway (I don't).

All of this assumes that you actually not only have FSDb-capable software installed on the car, but also have actually enabled it in the car menus under Autopilot.
 
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I think a question that plague users early on was, when engaging FSDb (mostly only for NON highway or median streets) does one ALSO have to engage NOA in the navigation details in order for everything to be seamless when moving from highway to off highway and reverse.
 
Unlike NOA, where you can't start it up when stopped unless you have a lead vehicle. You can start NSDb dead stopped in the majority of situations where you'd want to.
If you prees the brake hard enough to get the HOLD mode, you can start FSD while stopped. Basically your foot just needs to be off the brake and there needs to be lane markers (which gives you the little grey steering wheel).
 
I think a question that plague users early on was, when engaging FSDb (mostly only for NON highway or median streets) does one ALSO have to engage NOA in the navigation details in order for everything to be seamless when moving from highway to off highway and reverse.
I was under the impression that NoA is automatically enabled on the highway when using FSDb (navigating) and that you can’t disable it.
 
I was under the impression that NoA is automatically enabled on the highway when using FSDb (navigating) and that you can’t disable it.
Back when I had FSDb available and activated, but had not adjusted the setting under Autopilot|Navigate on Autopilot|Customize Navigate on Autopilot to activate the "Enable at start of every trip option" I occasionally forgot to tap the little half-blue icon near the bottom of the trip to turn it full blue.

The ONLY difference I personally ever detected in running FSDb in that mode was that the car would not take freeway exits announced by the navigation voice. This seemed odd given that I had just been running for miles in what seemed to be full automation.

Now I changed the option in question to "every trip" a few releases ago, so I can't promise this is current behavior, but it was true some time less than four months ago. So by that definition, NoA was not automatically enabled in the case you cite from the point of view of exit execution, even if it had the single blue line and some other properties associated with it being active.
 
If you have NoA lane change confirmations turned on, NoA won't change lanes on the highway even if you're using FSDb. Is that what you were referring to? Without FSDb, you can turn NoA on or off when navigating, and the ability to turn NoA off is what I thought was different with FSDb.