I thought I might have bought the wrong car.
Missed this thread when it started, so most of my points likely been made, but fwiw:
I took a long time deciding to buy Model S with FSD having had a few previous EVs, and with Covid it didn't get driven as much as expected. Initially I genuinely thought that even very slow progress from where the car started off would make it a good buy during my ownership. Money wise I'm still ok, but the ownership experience has been a letdown.
the only camera that has a chance in winter is the forward facing one
I was thinking same thing. Completely moronic to base any safety system on the view of one camera. The camera suite is so regularly compromised for one reason or another that it can't possibly form the basis of emergency braking etc.
keep the ultrasonic sensors until they have a proven and working alternative
At the very least. Actually, on my MS they only work down to about a foot distance, and often the warning beeps and messages to STOP come seconds after clearing the obstacle..... but that's likely to remain the case with vision based if you look at progress in other VO areas.
honoured the spec that the car was ordered
Absolutely. Even if it's flawed (in which case safety flaws should acknowledged as such and be fixed promptly) it is part of what you purchased. Tesla really behaves as though the cars still belong to them.
they're not so much edge cases as 25% of the time.
Agree. There has been no published rationale explaining why ultrasonic based as used by most of the industry to good effect no longer has a place on my MS that I bought with it installed on.
"camera blinded messages" for months of the year
Tesla must be very well aware of this. Yet they still press on with VO based designs.
I ordered and paid for a car with parking sensors.
Yes. And it's not rocket science to make them work, unless you are Tesla it seems
It'll be a while before these cars hit the street
Surely it's the software rather than new cars. I am under the impression (although it's hard to tell since everything is by hear say) that new software disables my radar. Why won't it disable USS when Tesla decide to do that?
What really gets me is that Tesla don't put in much if any effort to give new (but legacy) models new features (like remote viewing of sentry - even when 3rd parties show it's quite possible to do) yet they downgrade / fail to fix my car as and when they feel like it.
purchased FSD instead to enjoy the journey,
I haven't really enjoyed any journey with FSD.
Cameras with better night vision would be a good start.
Right. My rear view has had messed up contrast / black levels since new. It is an issue effecting all MCU2 MS cars from what I can work out. Any bright light source in an otherwise dark scene and the whole image becomes mainly black / dark grey. Just when you need USS because it's too dark to see and the reversing camera is a pos.
On the question of regulatory approval and development of FSD, there are so many unresolved issues that imo show that Tesla is making minimal overall progress (eg fogging of cabin and b-pillar cameras) that if I were a regulator, I would trust them at all!