Using FSD for 3 months - Is my experience typical?

[johnnyruz]

I think your experience closely matches mine. My FSDb trial expired yesterday and I’m both sad and relieved.

I’m obsessed with technology so whenever I was in the car during the first 3 months I would always want to experiment with FSD and activate it. I quickly learned that, while it is amazing technology, it’s not ready yet and actually made driving more stressful (except on the highway). I know I could have disabled it at any point but I wanted to at least put it through the paces while enabled, so I would enable it on almost every drive when I was alone as my wife could not stand the frequent questionable driving dynamics and decisions while on FSD. The entire time I don’t think I had a single 100% successful FSDb drive, I would always have to disengage at some point, either in response to a dumb decision, or preemptively when I approached a situation where I just didn’t feel comfortable with it handling it. Now that its gone, I can’t be tempted to enable it and can just focus on regular city driving and use Basic AP on highways.

That being said I’m a little sad because I loved the visualizations which have disappeared without a subscription and I’ve lost Auto Lane Change which I used very frequently on the highway with amazing success. I think I could get both of those back with EAP (not sure about the visualizations?) but I still can’t justify $6k USD for EAP when the only features enabled on my HW4 car are lane change and NoA which I don’t really have a need for. If Summon/Auto-Park get re-enabled and actually perform well I may be tempted to go for the package, but I REALLY hope by some miracle the lane change feature is either rolled into Basic AP or is made available as a standalone option for purchase.

As it stands, I’ll likely be subscribing to FSD 1-2 months per year if there’s some killer new feature that is released or there is consensus that the performance has made massive leaps forward.

 

[ucmndd]

FSD is an all-around stress increaser. By that measure it is not a driver assistance technology whatsoever. I feel sorry for the people that got scammed out of $15,000.

Basic autopilot is a stress reducer. Anything beyond that where the car is trying to think for itself is still a joke and is going to be a joke for years to come.

 

[Dewg]

How's cabin camera affect GPS? FSD not running. I am just using Navigation as a GPS device.

This only happened to me a few times. Most of the times are quite accurate.

The GPS antenna is in the cabin camera housing. There were many cars where the camera caused significant interference to the GPS and had to be replaced.

 

[jfabula]

Highway speeds are not so accurate, car slows and follow the 55 while in fact, it is 65 and not 55. Dangerously insane.

 

[ngng]

Highway speeds are not so accurate, car slows and follow the 55 while in fact, it is 65 and not 55. Dangerously insane.

this this happens to me on my commute on 101 all the time. My trial is up next month, I can’t imagine spending 12k. It has been raining and it sucks I can’t use cruise control.

 

[KLam]

The GPS antenna is in the cabin camera housing. There were many cars where the camera caused significant interference to the GPS and had to be replaced.

Thanks for the info. I thought it was interference, as the few cases I came across are on the LAX landing flight path. GPS recovered after a few minutes or restart on next trip. I used to have some GPS interference on my phone on the golf courses around town, so I am not that concern. I know phones sometimes use cellular to beef up GPS accuracy. Wonder whether Tesla is doing that.

 

[gforce2002]

I think your experience closely matches mine. My FSDb trial expired yesterday and I’m both sad and relieved.

I’m obsessed with technology so whenever I was in the car during the first 3 months I would always want to experiment with FSD and activate it. I quickly learned that, while it is amazing technology, it’s not ready yet and actually made driving more stressful (except on the highway). I know I could have disabled it at any point but I wanted to at least put it through the paces while enabled, so I would enable it on almost every drive when I was alone as my wife could not stand the frequent questionable driving dynamics and decisions while on FSD. The entire time I don’t think I had a single 100% successful FSDb drive, I would always have to disengage at some point, either in response to a dumb decision, or preemptively when I approached a situation where I just didn’t feel comfortable with it handling it. Now that its gone, I can’t be tempted to enable it and can just focus on regular city driving and use Basic AP on highways.

That being said I’m a little sad because I loved the visualizations which have disappeared without a subscription and I’ve lost Auto Lane Change which I used very frequently on the highway with amazing success. I think I could get both of those back with EAP (not sure about the visualizations?) but I still can’t justify $6k USD for EAP when the only features enabled on my HW4 car are lane change and NoA which I don’t really have a need for. If Summon/Auto-Park get re-enabled and actually perform well I may be tempted to go for the package, but I REALLY hope by some miracle the lane change feature is either rolled into Basic AP or is made available as a standalone option for purchase.

As it stands, I’ll likely be subscribing to FSD 1-2 months per year if there’s some killer new feature that is released or there is consensus that the performance has made massive leaps forward.

This is basically my experience with the 3-month trial. Fascinating and in some ways amazing that it can do what it does, it's no where NEAR a fully usable product, it's more stressful than relaxing, and it's ridiculously overpriced. Regular AP seems so sweet and peaceful afterward. I love the rest of the car and the ownership experience, but I believe continuous FSD overpromising is leaving a black eye on Tesla's reputation.

 

[El joe]

I own a '23 MYLR which I've had since Feb, no FSD. My wife just bought a '23 M3P that came with FSD for 3 months which just ended. I've run FSD in a combination of highway, suburban, and rural environments. Two things are very clear to me after three months. First, it's performance ranges between excessively timid to suicidal. Second after all the work Tesla engineers have put into this code base, it still doesn't follow some of the most basic rules of the road.

Overall, the level of vigilance and attention required to safely operate in with FSD engaged is significantly in excess of simply driving normally. It's like teaching a first time driver who knows the basic rules (mostly) but is so obviously inexperienced and inconsistent as to require your sub-second intervention. The system is in no way "driver assistance". Rather, it is Tesla product development assistance for those willing to accept the liability and expense of participating. I'm only talking about FSD here. Autopilot, on the other hand, I find to be very useful on the highway.

Summary of FSD behaviors ranging from dangerous to annoying:
1) By far the absolute worst / scariest FSD behavior I experienced was on a 4-lane highway with many at-grade intersections. On multiple occasions while cruising at 65mph in the right lane, the car abruptly attempted to cut right into very short turn lanes. One incident left me with less than a second to recover to avoid the abrupt end of that turn lane and the high-speed swerve required active recovery. (this one is repeatable. FSD will do this every time I pass this intersection). It does this even though the lane is clearly painted with a right turn arrow.
2) Occasional confusion cruising through large, at-grade intersections where FSD seemed to lose track of the lane resulting in abrupt jerk of the wheel left or right.
3) Inexplicable desire of the system to cruise in the passing lane on 4+ lane roads. This one is most annoying because at this point FSD should be best at highway driving. How is it possible that Tesla hasn't figured out that FSD should keep the car in the right lane except as needed to pass slower traffic? Even when I command the car to the right lane with the turn signal, a minute or two later it will try to change to the left lane when I can see faster traffic approaching from behind.
4) (Also an issue with regular AP) The on-ramp acceleration / merge lane swerve. Every time I approach the merge lane the car swerves to 'center' the merged lanes. The car should stick a fixed max distance from the dashed line when on the highway. My Ford with lane keeping and Blue Cruise doesn't do this.
5) FSD fails to initiate the turn signal BEFORE abruptly decelerating for an upcoming turn. FSD signals very late, last 50-100' before the turn regardless of speed. This means the car will abruptly decelerate without a turn signal which could cause a rear-end collision.
6) FSD too tentative at intersections to be used with other traffic present. I get this from a safety perspective, but other drivers don't appreciate a car that stops 10' before a stop sign, then creeps forward before taking off, or jamming on the brakes if cross traffic is detected during the 'creep' phase.

I love both cars for all the regular car stuff they do better than most other cars. However, it's very clear to me that these cars are very far from being truly FSD capable and more than likely lack the sensors necessary to become so. I'm curious if my experience is typical or an outlier.

Yeah, FSD can be pretty brutal. It’s amazing technology, but probably not ready to be used in beta by so many people. I’ve had it on two separate cars (both times it was already on a car I bought) and got beta with both. Again, it’s amazing what it can do in general, but it can be terrifying.

I feel bad for people that bought it outright at $15k, or even the $12k price it’s at now.

 

[AndyBee]

Sounds like GPS is inaccurate.

It happened again today , I had about another mile to go to make a ' U ' turn. The car surprisingly went into the center lane to make the ' U ' earlier. The map still indicated to go straight ahead.

 

[sdbonez]

So it's interesting now that my FSD 3-month trial just expired and I did my first trip without FSD (and without enhanced Autopilot).

1. Autopilot + AutoSteer (Beta) enabled is really good on the highway. I wish I could indicate lane changes and have it change lanes but even though I swore I read it could do this (even without EAP/FSD), it doesn't appear to do it.
2. This makes using it a little awkward. So with it enabled, I have to disengage it before switching lanes so that I don't fight with the car's want to stay in the current lane (or maybe I'm just not doing it right - still need to play with it a bit more). Thinking I'll turn off the chime and move it to 'single depress of the stalk mode'
3. It still works ok in regular traffic but definitely not as good as FSD...even in stop and go traffic, staying in the same lane (which ironically, was always how I liked FSD... to 'minimize lane changes')

Anyone have other config tweaks to #2 to make it easier? I thought maybe putting on my indicator disengaged AP but then a few times, it did not...so?!?

No way spending $6k. No way spending $12k. At least for my needs. We'll see what v12 brings.

 

[UncleCreepy]

Same bad experience here. I bought a M3 RWD for my gf in mid December. There was a promotion that got us free supercharging for 6 months and also 3 months of FSD. I was excited to see how much has changed since the free trial I got years earlier, but apparently, FSD doesn't even get the basics right. As others have decribed, it feels like supervising a 16 year old driving for the first time. I turned it off after less than a week. AP is working well and mostly predictable, but if I was offered FSD even for $1, I would decline. Ymmv, but my experience with FSD has been mostly negative. I don't even think they'll ever be able to get it right.

 

[johnnyruz]

1. Autopilot + AutoSteer (Beta) enabled is really good on the highway. I wish I could indicate lane changes and have it change lanes but even though I swore I read it could do this (even without EAP/FSD), it doesn't appear to do it.
2. This makes using it a little awkward. So with it enabled, I have to disengage it before switching lanes so that I don't fight with the car's want to stay in the current lane (or maybe I'm just not doing it right - still need to play with it a bit more). Thinking I'll turn off the chime and move it to 'single depress of the stalk mode'

Same frustration here - I don't need the "automatic" lane change where it decides for you, but I definitely miss the ability to just click the turn signal and have the car execute the lane change for me. Unfortunately, that functionality appears to be bundled with the EAP package.

For highway driving it absolutely is awkward and will take some getting used to. In my short experience with it I've found if you indicate the lane change its much easier to "break" autopilot to manually change lanes. But you then still have to re-enable it after you're in the new lane and get the bells and chimes of AP dis-engaging and re-engaging. The other option is to disable AP manually via the stalk (in cars that have them), change lanes, then re-enable.

Very clunky behavior but not worth $6k to solve.

 

[sdbonez]

Same frustration here - I don't need the "automatic" lane change where it decides for you, but I definitely miss the ability to just click the turn signal and have the car execute the lane change for me. Unfortunately, that functionality appears to be bundled with the EAP package.

For highway driving it absolutely is awkward and will take some getting used to. In my short experience with it I've found if you indicate the lane change its much easier to "break" autopilot to manually change lanes. But you then still have to re-enable it after you're in the new lane and get the bells and chimes of AP dis-engaging and re-engaging. The other option is to disable AP manually via the stalk (in cars that have them), change lanes, then re-enable.

Very clunky behavior but not worth $6k to solve.

I figured out my confusion. I was reading the manual where it's fully unclear that 'Auto Lane Change' is an additional upgrade....but on the upgrade option (now that i have it) it clearly says 'auto lane change' is part of the first $6k option.

The mention of being easier to 'break' from autopilot must have been what I experienced a few times (where I indicated the lane change before making it) - thanks.

but if I was offered FSD even for $1, I would decline.

I'd totally pay $1 for it. Just to get Auto Lane Change back..but for nothing else

 

[Goose66]

Overall, the level of vigilance and attention required to safely operate in with FSD engaged is significantly in excess of simply driving normally. ... I'm only talking about FSD here. Autopilot, on the other hand, I find to be very useful on the highway.

100% my experience and has been exactly that since I got Navigate on Autopilot in Oct/Nov or 2018. As I have posted many times here, for me Autopark, Smart Summon, and Autosteer on City Streets (FSDb) are simply parlor tricks to play with or show to your friends but offer no real utility as ADAS features.

 

[kimwin]

I love my Tesla but FSD is a No no.

 

[kimwin]

totally pay $1 for it. Just to get Auto Lane Change back..but for nothing else

I would pay 2$, to get lane changes and stop on red light and STOP sign.

 

[David99]

So it's interesting now that my FSD 3-month trial just expired and I did my first trip without FSD (and without enhanced Autopilot).

1. Autopilot + AutoSteer (Beta) enabled is really good on the highway. I wish I could indicate lane changes and have it change lanes but even though I swore I read it could do this (even without EAP/FSD), it doesn't appear to do it.
2. This makes using it a little awkward. So with it enabled, I have to disengage it before switching lanes so that I don't fight with the car's want to stay in the current lane (or maybe I'm just not doing it right - still need to play with it a bit more). Thinking I'll turn off the chime and move it to 'single depress of the stalk mode'
3. It still works ok in regular traffic but definitely not as good as FSD...even in stop and go traffic, staying in the same lane (which ironically, was always how I liked FSD... to 'minimize lane changes')

Anyone have other config tweaks to #2 to make it easier? I thought maybe putting on my indicator disengaged AP but then a few times, it did not...so?!?

The S3XY buttons system can help. You use the blinker, you change lane which disengages AP. The S3XY commander notices that behavior and can, if you set it up that way, automatically enable AP again for you after a set time.

 

[David99]

This thread echos exactly my experience. Fascinating to watch the technology at work, but terrifying as I had to take over instantly in so many situations.

One thing that I found odd is how differently AP and FSD drive. They are clearly two completely different systems. I actually love how safely and smoothly FSD changes lanes on freeways. AP doesn't do it that well.

 

[sdbonez]

The S3XY buttons system can help. You use the blinker, you change lane which disengages AP. The S3XY commander notices that behavior and can, if you set it up that way, automatically enable AP again for you after a set time.

thanks for answering the question I was wondering about even before I asked it Was eyeing their new knob the other day and it was my first time looking into the functionality they've built out. Pretty extensive.

 

[David99]

thanks for answering the question I was wondering about even before I asked it Was eyeing their new knob the other day and it was my first time looking into the functionality they've built out. Pretty extensive.

I got them just for the ability to have some physical buttons. Now that I have the system installed, I'm really impressed with all the features. One of the all time best accessories for Teslas.