Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

The thing I thought I’d like the most about my Model 3 is the thing I like the least

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I know I’m going to catch some flak for this thread whatever I do, so I will try to head off at least some of it by saying up front that I still love my Model 3 overall, think it’s better than other EVs available at the same price point for a variety of reasons, and I have no intention of swapping it for something else. I’m sure I’ll get a flood of “well if you hate it so much why don’t you sell it!!” replies despite having said this 😆

But today I was ‘hypermiling’ down the motorway, sat behind a lorry that was doing a steady 56mph. I don’t normally try to squeeze out every last drop of efficiency like that, but my home charger is broken at the moment and rapid charging costs are ruinous, so needs must! As I did this, I became more and more annoyed that the car would frequently back off a few mph, let some distance build up to the lorry, then surge back up to my set speed (60mph), close right up to the lorry, then back off again, over and over. I find the adaptive cruise control in the Model 3 frequently does this. It doesn’t match the speed of the vehicle in front, it sort of matches the speed of the vehicle in front within a 5mph or so range, backing off and closing up again frequently. It is annoying.

I then thought back to my previous two cars that had adaptive cruise control, which were both VWs. In those cars, the speed always matched exactly to the vehicle in front. No backing off and surging forward, it was extremely precise. Why is the VW system so much better? Presumably because it uses a radar to detect the distance rather than relying on cameras.

It then occurred to me that when I bought the Tesla, I’d believed the hype about its ‘self-driving’ aids, believed it was the leader in this technology, and it was the thing I was most interested in trying out. However, I now think that in the real world, Tesla’s implementation of this is much worse than VW’s, and presumably other traditional manufacturers too. I tried the Enhanced Autopilot as well, but got my money back as, Autopark aside, it was hopeless. The thing I thought I would like most about the Model 3 is the thing I like the least.

Now, that’s ok overall. I’ve discovered over my time owning the car that there are many many things I love about this car, and overall those things make up for the crappy driver aid implementation. But I thought it worth posting my opinion in case belief that Tesla’s driver aids are more advanced than others is a reason anyone here is considering buying a Model 3. If you think that’s the car’s USP, and it is really important to you, then you will be disappointed. You’ll find loads of other amazing things about the car that you love, but you will be disappointed in the self-driving tech on UK roads in 2022.

I also know that data scientists are going to set me on fire for this thread, because I don’t understand the awesome potential of vision based systems, and that the AI models will learn and improve over time. That’s fine, but I bought a car in 2022 to work as a car in 2022. I didn’t buy the car for the joy of being part of a research project, or in the hope that in 5-10 years time it will surpass the abilities of cars that rely on radar. If you’re happy to accept lousy driver aid performance to be at the vanguard of a machine learning revolution then fine, but I just want features on my car to work now, like they did on my VWs.

But again, to repeat one last time - I prefer my Model 3 to my previous cars overall, and have no desire to get rid of it.

0x0-Model3_20.jpg

(Featured Image Courtesy of Tesla, Inc)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It then occurred to me that when I bought the Tesla, I’d believed the hype about its ‘self-driving’ aids, believed it was the leader in this technology
Elon has stated that he doesn't believe in solving technology problems in the ways that are obvious. And that makes it infuriating at times.

For example, Mythbusters proved that the faster you go in rain, the more wet you get. Yet when you're in a Tesla and you speed up from 0-60 at a freeway onramp for example, the wipers never speed up with it. It makes merging with busy highway traffic in Oregon drizzle actually terrifying simply because it's a tiny data point that could make the driving experience better.

... for humans.

That data point is something that Tesla refuses to do. Conjoin speed with detected rain and voila -- pleasant human experience. But the car sees fine, so screw it.

Elon and Tesla live outside of the human desires. It doesn't matter what you think because as long as the car can see things fine, the wipers won't speed up to accommodate us poor fleshbags. As long as the car is driving acceptably it doesn't matter if it speeds up or slows down. There's no "Caravan-Mode" in Tesla because FSD would just as soon pass the car in front of you than match speed. Caravaning is a human thing.

I've made this analogy in other threads but to me fixing the wipers or making the driving experience better for a human desire is like the concept of why airline pilots wear suits. Do they wear suits because it's needed to fly? Of course not. But it provides a very real psychological confidence in the professionality of the service. It would go a long way for the techology within Tesla to provide these human-centric desires to help bridge the obvious gaps between where we are now in a non-level-5 FSD world to where we want to be. Because of course if I didn't have to care about driving I would also not care about the blades, or the caravaning, but we're not there, and because they don't help ME, I feel like Tesla "AI" is absolutely stupid.

The Tesla AI is of course not stupid, but I have zero respect for it, just like an airline pilot dressed in a T-shirt and ripped jeans. It doesn't make me comfortable, happy, or confident. It's the little things that "sell it."

Tesla if you're listening, and as a TLDR: if you improve the AI to help actual humans do actual-human, non L5 driving tasks that decrease stress in the world where we live right now, you'll go a ton farther in selling FSD and selling that you know how to sense problems. Because this is a problem, right now. I need to be able to see the road for pete's sake. You can't get wiper timing right for the human driver, I'll never pay a single penny on this "AI". I'm not an outlier.
 
Elon and Tesla live outside of the human desires. It doesn't matter what you think because as long as the car can see things fine, the wipers won't speed up to accommodate us poor fleshbags. As long as the car is driving acceptably it doesn't matter if it speeds up or slows down. There's no "Caravan-Mode" in Tesla because FSD would just as soon pass the car in front of you than match speed. Caravaning is a human thing.

What's crazy is that everything you've stated about their lack of interest in human experience is a logical tradeoff, or "necessary evil" if you're a member of the group that buys into his vision of the future.

The rest of us have to accept it as a compromise and balance those minor gripes with what the cars are brilliant at right now.

The 'robo-taxi' or 'robo-minibus' or whatever it will be eventually makes complete sense to me as a fallback if they fail to realise the stated goal in the given timeframe.
 
  • Like
Reactions: init6
I know I’m going to catch some flak for this thread whatever I do, so I will try to head off at least some of it by saying up front that I still love my Model 3 overall, think it’s better than other EVs available at the same price point for a variety of reasons, and I have no intention of swapping it for something else. I’m sure I’ll get a flood of “well if you hate it so much why don’t you sell it!!” replies despite having said this 😆

But today I was ‘hypermiling’ down the motorway, sat behind a lorry that was doing a steady 56mph. I don’t normally try to squeeze out every last drop of efficiency like that, but my home charger is broken at the moment and rapid charging costs are ruinous, so needs must! As I did this, I became more and more annoyed that the car would frequently back off a few mph, let some distance build up to the lorry, then surge back up to my set speed (60mph), close right up to the lorry, then back off again, over and over. I find the adaptive cruise control in the Model 3 frequently does this. It doesn’t match the speed of the vehicle in front, it sort of matches the speed of the vehicle in front within a 5mph or so range, backing off and closing up again frequently. It is annoying.

I then thought back to my previous two cars that had adaptive cruise control, which were both VWs. In those cars, the speed always matched exactly to the vehicle in front. No backing off and surging forward, it was extremely precise. Why is the VW system so much better? Presumably because it uses a radar to detect the distance rather than relying on cameras.

It then occurred to me that when I bought the Tesla, I’d believed the hype about its ‘self-driving’ aids, believed it was the leader in this technology, and it was the thing I was most interested in trying out. However, I now think that in the real world, Tesla’s implementation of this is much worse than VW’s, and presumably other traditional manufacturers too. I tried the Enhanced Autopilot as well, but got my money back as, Autopark aside, it was hopeless. The thing I thought I would like most about the Model 3 is the thing I like the least.

Now, that’s ok overall. I’ve discovered over my time owning the car that there are many many things I love about this car, and overall those things make up for the crappy driver aid implementation. But I thought it worth posting my opinion in case belief that Tesla’s driver aids are more advanced than others is a reason anyone here is considering buying a Model 3. If you think that’s the car’s USP, and it is really important to you, then you will be disappointed. You’ll find loads of other amazing things about the car that you love, but you will be disappointed in the self-driving tech on UK roads in 2022.

I also know that data scientists are going to set me on fire for this thread, because I don’t understand the awesome potential of vision based systems, and that the AI models will learn and improve over time. That’s fine, but I bought a car in 2022 to work as a car in 2022. I didn’t buy the car for the joy of being part of a research project, or in the hope that in 5-10 years time it will surpass the abilities of cars that rely on radar. If you’re happy to accept lousy driver aid performance to be at the vanguard of a machine learning revolution then fine, but I just want features on my car to work now, like they did on my VWs.

But again, to repeat one last time - I prefer my Model 3 to my previous cars overall, and have no desire to get rid of it.

View attachment 819366
(Featured Image Courtesy of Tesla, Inc)
I have the same experience's (and more bad stuff), my previous car was a VW Golf GTE VIII, and lane keeping assist & DCC worked way better in most situations, and that was before the '23 CPU upgrade. Right turning country roads are always nervewrecking when my M3 LR drifts too close to the center line, both for my "comfort" and for opposite drivers that visually get's nervous. Then it cannot figure out the speed limits, and constantly choose the lowest limit it can think of, having me drive without DCC since I'm not following traffic (Mine have radar). The Golf just allowed me to set the speed I wanted, and that was it. Tesla's restrictive/punishment strategy is just annoying, and not increasing safety, quite the opposite, daily creating dangerous situations. Not to mention daily phantom braking 🙄. Just soo many things regarding DCC/Autopilot that just dont work in daily driving...Wish Tesla would show an interest to all the troubles, but not really... On autobahn it work's well though! Apart from the constant BONG's from lane change 😤

Then there's autowipers that constantly need manual help to work in Scandi weather. And HB/LB does not work at all, mainly just annoying other drivers.

Good stuff though; Drivetrain is impressive in mild weather. (In winter range it is silly-short). Great driving characteristics. Rattly but pretty and comfortable interior.

I have a lease, when it runs out late '22 I'm done with Tesla if (Musk) promised fixes of autopilot, autowipers and HB/LB have not shown up.

Merc, BMW, VW etc. systems are just better & safer. Maybe Fisker's will be good?

Br Per
 
  • Like
Reactions: candida
What's crazy is that everything you've stated about their lack of interest in human experience is a logical tradeoff, or "necessary evil" if you're a member of the group that buys into his vision of the future.

The rest of us have to accept it as a compromise and balance those minor gripes with what the cars are brilliant at right now.

The 'robo-taxi' or 'robo-minibus' or whatever it will be eventually makes complete sense to me as a fallback if they fail to realise the stated goal in the given timeframe.
Poorly working autowipers is not a minor thing in the Scandinavian winter dark!
 
We can use the 2017 Model 3 for comparison since it will have much larger numbers out there than the X, but just compare the NHTSA pages for the model years

2017 Model 3 - 7 owner complaints

2021 Model 3 - 328 owner complaints

Almost all of the 2021 complaints are attributable to Autopilot and the auto wipers/lights

Of course many more 2021s were produced than 2017s, but it‘s a massive disparity that I don’t think can be explained by production numbers alone.
Model 3s delivered in 2017 - 1764, 2021 - 911015
That gives a complaint rate of 0.4% in 2017 and 0.04% in 2021.

Looks like things are getting better!
 
If true, then it is even more baffling why Tesla’s system is so much worse than VW’s. I assumed it was because Tesla was relying on camera data rather than radar data, but if not then there’s even less of an excuse for its poor performance.

The other thing VW’s system did, which was lovely, was that as soon as you put on your indicator to overtake it would start accelerating back up to your set speed. This matched normal driving so much better, because most people don’t wait until they’ve fully completed the lane change (plus a second or two for Tesla’s system to be confident that you have completed the lane change) before they start accelerating. It’s annoying to cars coming up behind you in the lane you’ve just pulled into if you then take an age to start accelerating after pulling into their lane.

For this reason, when I overtake in the Tesla I manually accelerate with the pedal, rather than waiting for the car to do it. In my VWs I never had to do this. I could drive happily for 100s of miles without touching any pedals.
With the radar (on my M3 LR) it's still silly-slow to accelerate up, so I just push the throttle, it require more attention to use Tesla ADAS than just drive fully manual - that's hmm..just rubbish?
 
I think what ticks people off is that Musk has promised so much over the years and failed to deliver. Most of what he’s said about FSD is complete tosh. Here’s just one example:

“I think we will be feature complete, full self-driving, this year. Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention. This year. I would say I am of certain of that, that is not a question mark.”

That was in February 2019, more than THREE years ago.

When I ordered my car in June 2019 and added FSD the website said “auto steer on city streets coming later this year”. Now it just says it’s “upcoming” with no timeline, which is just as well because it’s still years away in this country. In fact just how much has FSD improved and developed in the nearly three years I’ve had my car? Oh, it hasn’t.

After over promising and under delivering for so long you’d think Musk would have learnt to put a sock in it.
 
Well I don’t know what to believe about anything now 🤣 I was skeptical further up the thread about the driver assistance aids performing differently in two different Model 3s. But, I’m currently sat in a 2019 Standard Range courtesy car* and, well, they do seem to! 😂

First was a negative difference. Using Autopilot in queueing traffic is worse. Braking to a stop is so much harsher in this. Maybe it has to use the friction brake more due to not having motors on the front wheels and that’s why? 🤔

But then, a positive difference! This car has Enhanced Autopilot (EAP)** and FSD Beta. I tried out EAP in my Model 3 when I got it in Feb, and the auto lane changes were so unreliably horrible that I got my money back. But I just did a little jaunt down the motorway in this and the car did the lane changes itself reliably every time. I also just reacquainted myself with Autopark which works great (though it did when I tried it with my own Model 3 in Feb as well).

Now I’m not sure what to do. If Auto Lane Change worked as well as this when I tried it before I wouldn’t have asked for a refund. What’s going on?? Is this car just different/better at it? Did Tesla improve it vastly with software updates? Is there something about having EAP and FSD Beta that improves the lane changes? Does the bright, sunny weather make it work better? It was probably gloomier when I tried it in Feb! Was it just luck that it worked well this time, and it would still annoy me if I used it for a longer period of time?

I’m honestly wondering whether I should buy EAP for my Model 3 again, but I can’t get another refund if I do so if it’s pants again on my car then I’m stuck with it this time.

———
*My car has a clicking sound coming from the front right suspension when the steering is turned to full left lock. Searching this forum makes me think it might be the CV joint. So it’s into a service centre for them to investigate.

**Note to any Americans reading, EAP and FSD are still two separate things in the UK.
I've not noticed any differences to auto-lane change for at least a couple of years.

It took me a while to become familiar with the size of gap you need to have before you can use it, and when to apply pressure to the wheel for the change to be allowed, certainly more than any day long trial. Perhaps the road was quieter this time so this wasn't the same issue.
 
Much of the driving technology (that is available on other cars) is in fact inferior on Teslas. Sign reading, adaptive cruise control, navigation, automatic parking. All far superior on VWs and Toyotas in my experience. I'm enjoying my Model Y, but I am very underwhelmed by its technology.

PS. I'll join you in the flames from the Tesla fanboys
Better to keep it real.