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I've had a great experience with Autopilot. It does what's advertised - maintain speed, follow the car in front of me, stay in the lane and stop if necessary. I

I've had a great experience with Autopilot. It does what's advertised - maintain speed, follow the car in front of me, stay in the lane and stop if necessary. It can even do more than that, like change lanes and follow exits. It's always healthy to question the safety record and Tesla needs to be more open about incidents with Autopilot enabled. But when operated properly (keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention) it's great and I certainly don't feel deceived. I understand that many people are confused by the name. I get the argument that aircraft autopilot has a lot of the same constraints, but there are plenty of people who hear "Autopilot" and don't understand the disambiguation between a hands-on assist system, vague rumors that "Teslas drive themselves", and "Full Self Driving". An appropriate remedy is to change the name or put heavy disclaimers on. But it doesn't feel intentionally deceptive like Full Self Driving. Full Self Driving is a huge mess and there should absolutely be more regulatory action or class action. I paid $10k for the language in the article - get in your car and it drives you where you want to go. Every 8-10 months it's only another year away. I'm not 100% convinced that what Musk claims is even possible with the hardware on my car at this point. The FSD beta is fun but terrifying and not useful. It drives like a 15 year old and I've never had a single drive where I haven't taken over, either for safety or because the car was holding up traffic. It's also important not to confuse safety (it rarely tries to drive me into a solid object!) with actual usability (it consistently gets confused and blocks other cars in traffic). It's not a few updates away, it's fundamentally not even close to full autonomy. It's not what I bought and it's absolutely false advertising to take $7-12k and just push out the deadline indefinitely.

drewg123 4y ago
I agree 100%, but I'd say the FSD beta drives like a 75 year grandparent that's never held a license. It is mostly over-cautious and is constantly holding up traffic, due to being shy to pull out, make left turns, etc. But its also totally missed stop signs, and cut people off. My 16yo son, after 1 month of holding a learners permit, is far superior to FSD. Oddly, they BOTH drive far to close to parked cars on unmarked city streets when there is no oncoming traffic. I normally drive right down the middle to leave space in case a door opens, and I've tried to instill that in my son.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Oddly, they BOTH drive far to close to parked cars on unmarked city streets when there is no oncoming traffic. I normally drive right down the middle to leave space in case a door opens, and I've tried to instill that in my son. In many U.S. states, even on unmarked streets you must always stay on the right side of two-way roads.
  - LocalH 4y ago
    I feel like they were referring to intra-lane position
  - vba616 4y ago
    Two way city streets don't have to be, and often aren't, wide enough for two lanes of traffic to pass at once. A thing that narrows the effective width is people parking on both sides or double parking. Anyway, are you saying that it is legal to pass someone on a road with a dotted yellow line, but never on an unmarked street?
LeoPanthera 4y ago
At least you even have the beta. I bought it back when it was 8K, and I'm unable to qualify for FSD because I live at the top of a hill with a tight twisty road, and no mattter how slowly I drive (slowly enough that people behind me get annoyed), the "safety score" considers that unsafe driving and I get dinged. No FSD for me. If I could refund it, I would, since there seems to be no way for me to get it.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  Seems like you need to lend the car to a friend who lives in the flatlands who can get the score up for you. But really there's no need. Any modern Toyota has most of these same features but doesn't try to pass them off as "self driving". Adaptive cruise, lane keeping, blindspot checking. Makes freeway driving a breeze.
  - willxinc 4y ago
    All the features you mentioned are part of regular (included) Autopilot, not Enhanced, or FSD.
  - onethought 4y ago
    Toyota has nothing like FSD, Enhanced Autopilot and it's version of Autopilot is closer to Tesla's passive lane-assist technology. Nothing like the rail-like feeling of Tesla Autopilot
- morder 4y ago
  Not that it really matters since it's really not worth it but in the most recent <whatever> thing musk had he mentioned that anybody will be able to request fsd by the end of the year. Not sure if that means you need a safety score or not.
- rzimmerman 4y ago
  Honestly the only reason I was so early in the beta is that I used to do a lot of freeway driving for work. Miles on autopilot counted as a perfect score, so I'd just try to leave autopilot on the whole time.
toast0 4y ago
You should probably talk to a lemon law attorney if your car is defective. If you paid for heated seats and they said hmmm maybe later, you'd ask them to refund the seats or take the car back and if they refused, you'd talk to an attorney. Same thing here.

drewg123 4y ago

I agree 100%, but I'd say the FSD beta drives like a 75 year grandparent that's never held a license. It is mostly over-cautious and is constantly holding up traffic, due to being shy to pull out, make left turns, etc. But its also totally missed stop signs, and cut people off. My 16yo son, after 1 month of holding a learners permit, is far superior to FSD. Oddly, they BOTH drive far to close to parked cars on unmarked city streets when there is no oncoming traffic. I normally drive right down the middle to leave space in case a door opens, and I've tried to instill that in my son.

CharlesW 4y ago
> Oddly, they BOTH drive far to close to parked cars on unmarked city streets when there is no oncoming traffic. I normally drive right down the middle to leave space in case a door opens, and I've tried to instill that in my son. In many U.S. states, even on unmarked streets you must always stay on the right side of two-way roads.
- LocalH 4y ago
  I feel like they were referring to intra-lane position
- vba616 4y ago
  Two way city streets don't have to be, and often aren't, wide enough for two lanes of traffic to pass at once. A thing that narrows the effective width is people parking on both sides or double parking. Anyway, are you saying that it is legal to pass someone on a road with a dotted yellow line, but never on an unmarked street?

LeoPanthera 4y ago

At least you even have the beta. I bought it back when it was 8K, and I'm unable to qualify for FSD because I live at the top of a hill with a tight twisty road, and no mattter how slowly I drive (slowly enough that people behind me get annoyed), the "safety score" considers that unsafe driving and I get dinged. No FSD for me. If I could refund it, I would, since there seems to be no way for me to get it.

Fatnino 4y ago
Seems like you need to lend the car to a friend who lives in the flatlands who can get the score up for you. But really there's no need. Any modern Toyota has most of these same features but doesn't try to pass them off as "self driving". Adaptive cruise, lane keeping, blindspot checking. Makes freeway driving a breeze.
- willxinc 4y ago
  All the features you mentioned are part of regular (included) Autopilot, not Enhanced, or FSD.
- onethought 4y ago
  Toyota has nothing like FSD, Enhanced Autopilot and it's version of Autopilot is closer to Tesla's passive lane-assist technology. Nothing like the rail-like feeling of Tesla Autopilot
morder 4y ago
Not that it really matters since it's really not worth it but in the most recent <whatever> thing musk had he mentioned that anybody will be able to request fsd by the end of the year. Not sure if that means you need a safety score or not.
rzimmerman 4y ago
Honestly the only reason I was so early in the beta is that I used to do a lot of freeway driving for work. Miles on autopilot counted as a perfect score, so I'd just try to leave autopilot on the whole time.

toast0 4y ago

You should probably talk to a lemon law attorney if your car is defective. If you paid for heated seats and they said hmmm maybe later, you'd ask them to refund the seats or take the car back and if they refused, you'd talk to an attorney. Same thing here.