Hi,
@Deaf Paul! Welcome to the forums!
First: If you haven't done this already, here's
Tesla's description of the different flavors of Autopilot. Starting from the top:
- Autopilot. Everybody gets this. You get:
- Traffic-Aware Cruise Control. Somebody slows down, even to a halt: You slow down and/or stop, too. Great for traffic jams.
- Autosteer. If you're in a clearly marked lane (or, maybe, even a not-so-clearly marked lane), the car will steer to stay in the middle. Great for limited access highways, good for local highways, somewhat problematical for roads sans painted lanes.
- Enhanced Autopilot. My S.O. has this on her 2021 MY. You get the Autopilot and:
- Navigate on Autopilot (NoA).
- Say one is on a non-limited access highway and taking the on-ramp to a limited access highway. Get in the on-ramp, double-swipe the shift lever, and the car will get onto the interstate. It may or may not handle the on-ramp onto the interstate perfectly: See below.
- Say one is on a limited access highway and is switching to another limited access highway. (Say, I80 to I87 or something). If one is in the rightmost lane, the car will go onto the off-ramp, navigate the off-ramp to the new highway, and merge (see below) onto the new limited access highway.
- Finally, say one is on a limited access highway and one's desired destination exit is present. The car will turn into the off-ramp, then tell you the rest is up to you. Autopilot (see above) will be what you get.
- Auto Lane Change. If one is on a limited access highway, the car will (options are up to you) boop or message you and suggest a lane to switch to. Hit the turn signal and it'll switch lanes. It's also possible to let it do this on its own, with or without boops. But this is only on a limited access highway.
- Autopark. Current versions will do that.
- Summon. If people are really close, or you want to back the car out of the garage, one can get the car to come out of the garage using the app.
- Smart Summon. I've tried using this a few times. Range is, like, 100 yards, and it's Parking Lots Only. However: If it runs into something, you're responsible. Too risky for my blood at the moment, although I've verified that it does work. (In an empty parking lot with nobody else around.)
- FSD (non-beta). Everything in EAP and Autopilot and:
- Will stop at stop signs. Will stop at all traffic lights, unless the car is following somebody through the traffic light, in which case it'll follow the car in front of one. It's possible with a stop sign to get the car to go straight ahead and turn right or left, but it's probably faster if you do it.
- Upcoming: FSD-Beta. City Streets. Eventually, everybody with FSD will get the full city streets version. At this time, in this place: One can ask to join the Beta program and you'll get (a) more stress and (b) 90%+ of the time, it'll take you places at your random choice. The 10%? That's when you find out that it's a Beta. My 2018 M3 LR RWD has all the appropriate upgrades; a few years ago I sprung $6k for the package; and yeah, that's my daily driver.
- Just so we're clear on this: The current Beta is a Beta. I'm not kidding: Just yesterday it attempted, after a full stop at a red light, to run that red light. Most of the time it doesn't do idiot stuff like that. But on any given day, it requires a couple-three interventions to prevent other drivers from going nutso around one, keep sheet metal from being bent, and, occasionally, to prevent serious injury or death. Tesla's words on the subject: "The car will do the worst thing at the wrong time."
- Going on in this vein: The current versions out there (11.3.6 and 11.4.2) are vastly improved from the versions that people were using a year ago. People do report going over a hundred miles without an intervention. When it's working, it's 'way cool. But one has to expect that, at any moment, at any time, it may do Something Stupid. You Have Been Warned.
Next: In all the various flavors of Autopilot, exactly
none of them have the ability to run around the landscape without the driver paying attention. Or the driver sleeping. Or reading a book. And, at this time, in this place, none of the other car manufacturers' (GM, Ford, VW, etc., etc.) can do any of that either.
ALL of them have some scheme to verify that the driver is awake and ready to take over.
GM, Ford, and, I think, VW, put in an infrared camera in the cabin whose purpose is to track one's eyeballs and verify that said eyeballs are looking out the front. There is, in my opinion, a bit of a problem with that. Say one has one's hands up and behind one's back, doing a stretch, when the Demon Semi from $BAD_PLACE makes an appearance at speed from the right. Just... how fast can one get one's hands up front and on the steering wheel, anyway?
Tesla has decided to do two things: 1) Measure the vibrating torque on the steering wheel caused by one or a pair of hands. 2) A camera that may or may not be infrared pointed into the cabin that attempts to make sure one is looking out the window.
With #1, I put one hand on the wheel and let it rest there. The usual jostling around in the car causes enough variable torque to keep the car happy. Alternatively, one can put both hands on the wheel, then gently go back and forth. That works, too.
I kind of like this better than Ford/GM/VW, because, if The Evil Semi appears, one has one's hands where they can do the most good.
With #2: It's easy. Don't stare at the screen while trying to figure out how to use the streaming services. A quick open it up, peck whatever option one is after, then back to business works.
With either of the above: You'll first get a message, then a boop, then the car visualization area will start flashing blue. This can be seen, handily, out of the corner of one's eye, so to speak: At which point, torquing the wheel in another direction will fix the problem. Don't do anything: You'll get a demerit. Too many demerits and you won't be able to use the Autopilot until it resets. Which, at the present time, is roughly a week.
As far as which to pick: At this time, EAP is probably the biggest bang for the buck. The SO and I make trips up and down the East Coast on a regular basis. EAP and NoA on the interstates makes the trip, even in traffic, somewhat more restful and very definitely safer. (The car will slam the brakes on and halt faster than a human will, something that's saved our collective butts a couple of times. Further, the blind spot cameras will literally prevent one from changing lanes into another car.)
FSD, non-beta, does provide a little fun on local roads and highways. But it's not a full driving solution and won't do NoA on local roads. As you may have figured by now, I'm kind of a nerd, like new and shiny stuff, would like to see the full package up to robo-taxi, don't mind helping Tesla get to its aims, and further don't mind staying alert all the time for idiocy. It's kind of like driving around with a 17-year-old particularly stupid student driver.. but, heck, I've worked with student drivers before. You can rent it for a month and see if you like it; but you've got EAP and most of the benefits already.
teslamotorsclub.com
