Many people seem to have a Yoda approach to AP/TACC/FSDBeta - "Do, or do not. There is no try." I think the fault is in the expectations from people, and the fatigue most feel for any EULA language. We install some software or buy a new iPhone and are given pages of legal language with an "Accept" button at the bottom. The vast majority just scroll down and press Accept without reading it. For the past decades, cars have had some form of cruise control, and recently adaptive cruise control. These are baked-in features and "just work" for most people. It's the point that they take the features for granted and assume they will "just work" on any vehicle that has such features.
Then comes Telsa with AP, TACC, and now FSD Beta. However, to use those feature (including "adaptive cruise control"), the driver has to enable them in the car's settings, which brings up an EULA type verbiage and an Accept button. Most people just press Accept and start using it. Then it doesn't live up to their expectations or experiences with other vehicles, and they become frustrated and, based on TMC threads, angry over it.
It may be helpful to look at Telsa as a totally different car company than any other. Yes, they have a car with a steering wheel, two pedals, a turn signal stalk, and "gear shifter" stalk. You can drive a Tesla like a normal vehicle. Aside from the center touchscreen controlling nearly every other aspect, it's a normal car, and can be driven as such.
However, Tesla's approach to all other features behind simple driving is done through new methods. In many ways it's cutting edge, but in other ways it's also different and frustrating. Other cars use old technology like radar and basic ECUs to handle their "adaptive cruise control", and it works well in most situations. Tesla went with vision (cameras) and neural nets to learn and adapt. Because there is no firmware code in basic ECUs to tell the car what to do, instead an elaborate array of heuristic algorithms and learning neural nets, the car works very differently than what most people expect. It's like a teenager learning how to drive for the first time. And the agreements that come up on the screen when you enable the advanced features of AP, TACC, and FSD Beta tell you that the software and hardware can act differently and cause problems, which requires your total concentration and control of the vehicle at all times.
So, if you want a car with adaptive cruise control that "just works" and based on tried-and-true technology for the past decade, there are many car companies out there to choose from, including many all-electrics on the road today. But many people buy Teslas because they love the cutting edge technology, the new approaches to driving, and innovative ways the company is advancing autonomy. Of course we're all excited and impatient for the future to manifest today, and frustrated at the setbacks and overpromises from Elon, but change takes time. Disruption of the market takes time. Full-Self-Driving takes time.
Is Tesla's approach to these advanced features the right way to do it? That's up to you to decide. You can be patient and turn off those features - driving the car just like any other car (though arguably more fun to drive!) and wait for Telsa's teenage brain to learn and evolve into something that can drive as good as us humans. Or you can decide that those features like adaptive cruise control are too important to you to wait for Tesla, and purchase another car that gives you what you need today. Then perhaps, in a few years, revisit Tesla or read these forums to see how AP, TACC, and FSD are progressing.
Hopefully this alternate way of seeing things will help some people.
