10 ms·

I used it every day and it does almost all of my daily driving. If it never improves from where it is now, it will be worth the $6k I paid for it. And yeah, y

by jaxn 4y ago

I used it every day and it does almost all of my daily driving. If it never improves from where it is now, it will be worth the $6k I paid for it. And yeah, you gotta watch it and pay attention.

rainsford 4y ago
No snark intended, but doesn't having to constantly pay attention and be ready to take over control negate a lot of the benefit of the self-driving features? It seems like you'd have to apply just as much mental energy to the task as if you were actually driving, so the only real benefit is that you don't have to physically make the motions. In fact in some ways it seems mentally worse, since when you're driving you aren't surprised by sudden turns in front of trams and the like. With self-driving, there's a constant possibility of those kind of surprises, so I would think it would feel a lot like riding in the passenger seat with a new teenage driver.
- jetbalsa 4y ago
  I used a Comma 3 (somewhat close to FSD, just simpler) and I found that it allows to you look forward in time more then you normally would. Normally you might be looking at the first 50ft for issues, now I find I'm able to expand out to 200ft and look around more for traffic.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    Not having that much situational awareness sounds super dangerous. 50 ft is way too little for safe driving.
    - coryrc 4y ago
      Every day I drive, I see dozens of incidents where I think someone should be ticketed for reckless driving: tailgating, excessive speed, unexpected lane changes, etc They never, ever are. We do not enforce good driving except after people die (or even then, vehicular homicide has low sentences).
    - jetbalsa 4y ago
      It's not that I say 50ft is the only zone, but its my main focus, that and traffic around me (Mind you, this is all highway) With the Comma, it moves out a good bit, Allowing me to process more of the future traffic going on and the more edge cases that might come up at highway speeds. Also its vision and radar based so it keeps me 250ft+ from the car in front of me and keeps speed, it won't ever change lanes. This is why its more of a LKAS with better settings. Of course there are cases the system doesn't work at all and is not well suited for surface roads very well. Its behavior is very predictable and easy to feel when its seeing something I'm not. (Slowing down to match speed 1:1 with the car in front of me when they let off the gas is a common example)
      - vardump 4y ago
        50 ft is just three car lengths. That's a really short distance while driving. If something happens suddenly in that range, you might not be able to brake in time even if you were driving at just 20 mph. You might actually mean a longer distance?
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        50 ft is 15 meters and change, at regular car speeds that is much shorter than your reaction speed. It's essentially an accident waiting to happen. At highway speeds you should be looking about 200 ft ahead of you for safe driving. See the 'two second rule', and that's for clear skies, daylight: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-driving-distance-2-Second-rule_fig1_319851766 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-driving-distance-2-...
  - nradov 4y ago
    If you can't keep your visual scan out further without relying on a driver assistance system then you're incompetent and shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel in the first place.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  Worse: it's like driving with an alien driver. The teenage driver at least shares your language and some "human" cognitive patterns with you. You may communicate with it, you may receive its feedback, and you may even understand when he struggles with something so that you pay more attention to correct him (i.e. because it's highly likely he struggles at the same places you do) No such luck with this ridiculous software. An incoming train that any human (with normal sight) would have no problems to detect? The car drives right into it. You literally have to pay full attention during even the simplest of situations because there is no way to understand how this piece of software actually thinks, much less to predict how it will misbehave. Today it's an incoming train that's painted white, tomorrow is a cricket on the road that causes it swerve onto oncoming traffic, or a small paint chip on a traffic sign that causes the OCR to read "speed limit 200" instead of 20.
  - caylus 4y ago
    > An incoming train that any human (with normal sight) would have no problems to detect? To be fair, failing to yield to oncoming traffic when turning left is an extremely common mistake for human drivers to make as well. In fact, earlier in the video, the car correctly yielded to an oncoming car, the human driver overrode it, then complained that the oncoming car "cut him off"! https://youtu.be/yxX4tDkSc_g?t=494 https://youtu.be/yxX4tDkSc_g?t=494
- pwpw 4y ago
  Because your brain is freed up from taking in all of the data points for constantly steering and speeding up and slowing down, it's incredibly less exhausting. Instead, you can focus on observing a lot more of the road and capturing things that you previously would have been unable to focus on. It's not often it deviates from expected behavior and catches you off guard with some radically unpredictable maneuver. When driving longer distances between cities, it's a night and day difference compared to my car that only has radar cruise control but still requires steering. Perhaps it's something you have to experience firsthand to truly see how much less exhausting of an experience it is. By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    Throttle control and steering _are_ decision making. If you can't do these as well as every other task you need to do, you don't belong behind a wheel, period. And before i hear a "That's exclusionary", yes, excluding people unable to be safe while driving 2 tons of steel launched at high speeds is a good thing
  - rainsford 4y ago
    It could definitely be one of those experience it to understand it things, since I've never driven very far in a car with more advanced self-driving (trying it in a colleague's Tesla on a short drive to lunch is about the extent of my experience). I'm a private pilot though and what you're describing sounds a lot like the autopilots on small planes. It handles keeping course and altitude for you, so you can focus on the rest of the flight and it is indeed way less taxing than hand flying a longer distance. And like Tesla, a plane autopilot will occasionally do something weird so you can't entirely ignore it. I would think the difference though is that in a plane, nothing the autopilot does will be fatal or dangerous very quickly, so you have plenty of time to notice and correct it as long as you aren't sleeping or something. When you're driving a car though, a second of steering in the wrong direction can quickly turn into an accident, so you as the driver have to be constantly ready to immediately take over. Even in the chance is low, as long as it's often enough to be a factor, you still need that instant readiness. I wonder if the value is more on longer drives, as you said, vs city driving. The fatigue factor driving between cities is a bigger issue, and the driving tasks are simpler with less opportunity for the car to do something crazy than in busy city driving.
- deleted 4y ago
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- bamboozled 4y ago
  I hate it, I would much rather just drive. Supervising a car driving for me is a lot more boring and fatiguing. Once I let me guard down, was not paying attention, the road markings went missing annd the car almost ran straight into oncoming traffic. It wasn't a Tesla but a similar thing.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Just the adaptive cruise control on my Subaru is enormously freeing, and makes it much easier to do long drives.
nhooyr 4y ago
But is the base lane keep adaptive cruise control not enough? What additions are worth $6k to you?
- jaxn 4y ago
  It used to be close, but not anymore. I am in the beta, so we are talking door-to-door navigation with turns, stops, starts, etc. Stopping at stop signs / red lights is the biggest game changer. But all of the driving stuff is useful.
  - salawat 4y ago
    So what are you doing other than supervising the car/driving? That's what I don't get. You say it's useful. That implies you're doing something you weren't able to before, or getting some extra utility out of it, yet, from my understanding, you legally speaking should be no less attentive in the operation of this vehicle than any other. In fact, you let your family operate it in FSD? Are you really doing them any favors? Driving is hard enough without having to consciously override an additional source of errors. You may be unintentionally training them to operate Autopilot/FSD instead of driving safely in general.
kypro 4y ago
I guess to pay devil's advocate here the question you need to be asking is if it would still be worth it if a loved one was driving your Tesla and they crashed because your Tesla drove them into a train. Even if Tesla Autopilot was significantly safer than a human driver I know I would still struggle knowing a love one died because the AI in my car decide to make a really stupid (albeit unlikely) decision. Right or wrong, human error is something we've always tolerated in society. If you're using a power tool and injure yourself, so long as there is nothing that can be reasonably done to make that tool safer, it's on you. But if once in a blue moon the tool malfunctions and injures you, that is something we don't tolerate. It seems Autopilot at the moment exists in this in-between place where the driver assumes full responsibility so all situations are considered human error even if the AI is clearly malfunctioning. The more advanced autopilot gets the more we're going to have to question whether it's reasonable for the driver to expect autopilot to malfunction and take full responsibility for their car's actions.
- jaxn 4y ago
  I think of it in terms of I am still piloting the vehicle, but FSD is executing the maneuvers. This means that I am able to focus on the bigger picture (looking further forward, paying attention to what is going on in all lanes, etc). I am a MUCH safer driver with autopilot/FSD than without. So, to your devil's advocate, I am sure I would blame myself if my family member died while driving my car no matter what the car was. But FSD in my car has prevented accidents for me and my family. Edited to add: I don't want to pretend it is without risks. My biggest fear with FSD/autopilot is that it requires a constant understanding of who is in control. And that is the thing I stress to my friends/family. Your #1 job, and the thing that can kill you, is thinking that autopilot is engaged when it isn't and running a red light or driving off the road on an interstate exit. Tesla gave me a loaner for a couple days while my car was in the shop. The loaner did not have FSD, and there were a couple of times I expected it to stop and it didn't. It was mentally tough b/c it was familiar like my car, but it wasn't my car.
  - salawat 4y ago
    > The loaner did not have FSD, and there were a couple of times I expected it to stop and it didn't. It was mentally tough b/c it was familiar like my car, but it wasn't my car. You need to meditate on this. Hard. You're more right than even you realize. Your cars behavior will change on you overnight. Your access to charging infra, or even the capacity to access the full capabilities of your vehicle are locked away, and prone to change from day to day. You don't get to opt out. You don't get to say "No, this is fine exactly as is." What you believe is your car, is by no means your car.
Hellbanevil 4y ago
You are probally the exception. A guy I know said the tech is so good you let your guard down. He said there are days on 101 around 4:30 when he puts his sunglasses on and closes his eyes. He knows he taking a calculated risk. He's in bumper to bumper traffic. He also said their were times he let the car drive home, with one eye open because he was tired. With tech that good, I can see where drivers let their guard down compared to a guy in a old truck with a clutch. A vehicle he knows inside and out. A vehicle that needs his constant attention because of the sketchy alignment done years ago. Plus--he just can't afford a fender bender, or worse an ever increasing frantic fine. Hell--the stress of the old car might keep him more alert? Kinda like being in the woods when you know it's your wits, or a bear might tear you apart?
- jaxn 4y ago
  On familiar routes with nothing unusual going on, I also can let my guard down. But you do get alerts if not paying attention and will get kicked out of the beta after 5 or 6 of those. I have had 2 of those alerts in the course of the 6-7 months I have been on the beta.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > A vehicle he knows inside and out. A vehicle he can drive as well and as effortlessly as a pro marathon runner can run. A vehicle that needs as little attention as his legs when walking. Because he knows it inside and out, he knows how the sketchy alignment affects handling at low speeds and at high speeds. I was going to say "aw well as he can walk", but then I remembered that many American's are not good walkers. nice that you brought up fender-benders, though. That old truck, probably doesn't matter if the fender bends a little more. VS cost to repair the tesla if it gets a ding...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by jaxn 4y ago

I used it every day and it does almost all of my daily driving. If it never improves from where it is now, it will be worth the $6k I paid for it. And yeah, you gotta watch it and pay attention.

rainsford 4y ago

No snark intended, but doesn't having to constantly pay attention and be ready to take over control negate a lot of the benefit of the self-driving features? It seems like you'd have to apply just as much mental energy to the task as if you were actually driving, so the only real benefit is that you don't have to physically make the motions. In fact in some ways it seems mentally worse, since when you're driving you aren't surprised by sudden turns in front of trams and the like. With self-driving, there's a constant possibility of those kind of surprises, so I would think it would feel a lot like riding in the passenger seat with a new teenage driver.

jetbalsa 4y ago
I used a Comma 3 (somewhat close to FSD, just simpler) and I found that it allows to you look forward in time more then you normally would. Normally you might be looking at the first 50ft for issues, now I find I'm able to expand out to 200ft and look around more for traffic.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Not having that much situational awareness sounds super dangerous. 50 ft is way too little for safe driving.
  - coryrc 4y ago
    Every day I drive, I see dozens of incidents where I think someone should be ticketed for reckless driving: tailgating, excessive speed, unexpected lane changes, etc They never, ever are. We do not enforce good driving except after people die (or even then, vehicular homicide has low sentences).
  - jetbalsa 4y ago
    It's not that I say 50ft is the only zone, but its my main focus, that and traffic around me (Mind you, this is all highway) With the Comma, it moves out a good bit, Allowing me to process more of the future traffic going on and the more edge cases that might come up at highway speeds. Also its vision and radar based so it keeps me 250ft+ from the car in front of me and keeps speed, it won't ever change lanes. This is why its more of a LKAS with better settings. Of course there are cases the system doesn't work at all and is not well suited for surface roads very well. Its behavior is very predictable and easy to feel when its seeing something I'm not. (Slowing down to match speed 1:1 with the car in front of me when they let off the gas is a common example)
    - vardump 4y ago
      50 ft is just three car lengths. That's a really short distance while driving. If something happens suddenly in that range, you might not be able to brake in time even if you were driving at just 20 mph. You might actually mean a longer distance?
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      50 ft is 15 meters and change, at regular car speeds that is much shorter than your reaction speed. It's essentially an accident waiting to happen. At highway speeds you should be looking about 200 ft ahead of you for safe driving. See the 'two second rule', and that's for clear skies, daylight: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-driving-distance-2-Second-rule_fig1_319851766 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-driving-distance-2-...
- nradov 4y ago
  If you can't keep your visual scan out further without relying on a driver assistance system then you're incompetent and shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel in the first place.
AshamedCaptain 4y ago
Worse: it's like driving with an alien driver. The teenage driver at least shares your language and some "human" cognitive patterns with you. You may communicate with it, you may receive its feedback, and you may even understand when he struggles with something so that you pay more attention to correct him (i.e. because it's highly likely he struggles at the same places you do) No such luck with this ridiculous software. An incoming train that any human (with normal sight) would have no problems to detect? The car drives right into it. You literally have to pay full attention during even the simplest of situations because there is no way to understand how this piece of software actually thinks, much less to predict how it will misbehave. Today it's an incoming train that's painted white, tomorrow is a cricket on the road that causes it swerve onto oncoming traffic, or a small paint chip on a traffic sign that causes the OCR to read "speed limit 200" instead of 20.
- caylus 4y ago
  > An incoming train that any human (with normal sight) would have no problems to detect? To be fair, failing to yield to oncoming traffic when turning left is an extremely common mistake for human drivers to make as well. In fact, earlier in the video, the car correctly yielded to an oncoming car, the human driver overrode it, then complained that the oncoming car "cut him off"! https://youtu.be/yxX4tDkSc_g?t=494 https://youtu.be/yxX4tDkSc_g?t=494
pwpw 4y ago
Because your brain is freed up from taking in all of the data points for constantly steering and speeding up and slowing down, it's incredibly less exhausting. Instead, you can focus on observing a lot more of the road and capturing things that you previously would have been unable to focus on. It's not often it deviates from expected behavior and catches you off guard with some radically unpredictable maneuver. When driving longer distances between cities, it's a night and day difference compared to my car that only has radar cruise control but still requires steering. Perhaps it's something you have to experience firsthand to truly see how much less exhausting of an experience it is. By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  Throttle control and steering _are_ decision making. If you can't do these as well as every other task you need to do, you don't belong behind a wheel, period. And before i hear a "That's exclusionary", yes, excluding people unable to be safe while driving 2 tons of steel launched at high speeds is a good thing
- rainsford 4y ago
  It could definitely be one of those experience it to understand it things, since I've never driven very far in a car with more advanced self-driving (trying it in a colleague's Tesla on a short drive to lunch is about the extent of my experience). I'm a private pilot though and what you're describing sounds a lot like the autopilots on small planes. It handles keeping course and altitude for you, so you can focus on the rest of the flight and it is indeed way less taxing than hand flying a longer distance. And like Tesla, a plane autopilot will occasionally do something weird so you can't entirely ignore it. I would think the difference though is that in a plane, nothing the autopilot does will be fatal or dangerous very quickly, so you have plenty of time to notice and correct it as long as you aren't sleeping or something. When you're driving a car though, a second of steering in the wrong direction can quickly turn into an accident, so you as the driver have to be constantly ready to immediately take over. Even in the chance is low, as long as it's often enough to be a factor, you still need that instant readiness. I wonder if the value is more on longer drives, as you said, vs city driving. The fatigue factor driving between cities is a bigger issue, and the driving tasks are simpler with less opportunity for the car to do something crazy than in busy city driving.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bamboozled 4y ago
I hate it, I would much rather just drive. Supervising a car driving for me is a lot more boring and fatiguing. Once I let me guard down, was not paying attention, the road markings went missing annd the car almost ran straight into oncoming traffic. It wasn't a Tesla but a similar thing.
BurningFrog 4y ago
Just the adaptive cruise control on my Subaru is enormously freeing, and makes it much easier to do long drives.

nhooyr 4y ago

But is the base lane keep adaptive cruise control not enough? What additions are worth $6k to you?

jaxn 4y ago
It used to be close, but not anymore. I am in the beta, so we are talking door-to-door navigation with turns, stops, starts, etc. Stopping at stop signs / red lights is the biggest game changer. But all of the driving stuff is useful.
- salawat 4y ago
  So what are you doing other than supervising the car/driving? That's what I don't get. You say it's useful. That implies you're doing something you weren't able to before, or getting some extra utility out of it, yet, from my understanding, you legally speaking should be no less attentive in the operation of this vehicle than any other. In fact, you let your family operate it in FSD? Are you really doing them any favors? Driving is hard enough without having to consciously override an additional source of errors. You may be unintentionally training them to operate Autopilot/FSD instead of driving safely in general.

kypro 4y ago

I guess to pay devil's advocate here the question you need to be asking is if it would still be worth it if a loved one was driving your Tesla and they crashed because your Tesla drove them into a train. Even if Tesla Autopilot was significantly safer than a human driver I know I would still struggle knowing a love one died because the AI in my car decide to make a really stupid (albeit unlikely) decision. Right or wrong, human error is something we've always tolerated in society. If you're using a power tool and injure yourself, so long as there is nothing that can be reasonably done to make that tool safer, it's on you. But if once in a blue moon the tool malfunctions and injures you, that is something we don't tolerate. It seems Autopilot at the moment exists in this in-between place where the driver assumes full responsibility so all situations are considered human error even if the AI is clearly malfunctioning. The more advanced autopilot gets the more we're going to have to question whether it's reasonable for the driver to expect autopilot to malfunction and take full responsibility for their car's actions.

jaxn 4y ago
I think of it in terms of I am still piloting the vehicle, but FSD is executing the maneuvers. This means that I am able to focus on the bigger picture (looking further forward, paying attention to what is going on in all lanes, etc). I am a MUCH safer driver with autopilot/FSD than without. So, to your devil's advocate, I am sure I would blame myself if my family member died while driving my car no matter what the car was. But FSD in my car has prevented accidents for me and my family. Edited to add: I don't want to pretend it is without risks. My biggest fear with FSD/autopilot is that it requires a constant understanding of who is in control. And that is the thing I stress to my friends/family. Your #1 job, and the thing that can kill you, is thinking that autopilot is engaged when it isn't and running a red light or driving off the road on an interstate exit. Tesla gave me a loaner for a couple days while my car was in the shop. The loaner did not have FSD, and there were a couple of times I expected it to stop and it didn't. It was mentally tough b/c it was familiar like my car, but it wasn't my car.
- salawat 4y ago
  > The loaner did not have FSD, and there were a couple of times I expected it to stop and it didn't. It was mentally tough b/c it was familiar like my car, but it wasn't my car. You need to meditate on this. Hard. You're more right than even you realize. Your cars behavior will change on you overnight. Your access to charging infra, or even the capacity to access the full capabilities of your vehicle are locked away, and prone to change from day to day. You don't get to opt out. You don't get to say "No, this is fine exactly as is." What you believe is your car, is by no means your car.

Hellbanevil 4y ago

You are probally the exception. A guy I know said the tech is so good you let your guard down. He said there are days on 101 around 4:30 when he puts his sunglasses on and closes his eyes. He knows he taking a calculated risk. He's in bumper to bumper traffic. He also said their were times he let the car drive home, with one eye open because he was tired. With tech that good, I can see where drivers let their guard down compared to a guy in a old truck with a clutch. A vehicle he knows inside and out. A vehicle that needs his constant attention because of the sketchy alignment done years ago. Plus--he just can't afford a fender bender, or worse an ever increasing frantic fine. Hell--the stress of the old car might keep him more alert? Kinda like being in the woods when you know it's your wits, or a bear might tear you apart?

jaxn 4y ago
On familiar routes with nothing unusual going on, I also can let my guard down. But you do get alerts if not paying attention and will get kicked out of the beta after 5 or 6 of those. I have had 2 of those alerts in the course of the 6-7 months I have been on the beta.
mellavora 4y ago
> A vehicle he knows inside and out. A vehicle he can drive as well and as effortlessly as a pro marathon runner can run. A vehicle that needs as little attention as his legs when walking. Because he knows it inside and out, he knows how the sketchy alignment affects handling at low speeds and at high speeds. I was going to say "aw well as he can walk", but then I remembered that many American's are not good walkers. nice that you brought up fender-benders, though. That old truck, probably doesn't matter if the fender bends a little more. VS cost to repair the tesla if it gets a ding...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]