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A bit tangential but I just got a Tesla Model 3 and paid $6,000 extra for “enhanced autopilot” buying into all the marketing about it, and its one of the bigges

• datavirtue 4y ago
  "Other than that it’s a great car." Please update this review in a few years. CIO was late to work, again, today because the Tesla no go. One thing after another. It's kind of ridiculous.
• 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
  Your life is pretty damn good then, all things considered.
  • kyleyeats 4y ago
    This is why I never have a good life. I can't give up my right to complain..
  • s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Yeah, total humble brag
    • paulcole 4y ago
      I think that’s what makes it so funny. It’s not a humblebrag at all. The guy is being so earnest that the silly feature he spent $6,000 extra on top of his fancy car is one of his ”life’s biggest regrets.”
• tristanb 4y ago
  Interesting - we have it on our first car, love it, and just paid for it a second time on our second car. We regularly make 3-5hr trips with it driving. Maybe something is wrong with yours?
  • LastTrain 4y ago
    TristanB9 of SF by chance - that’d be a blast from the past! At any rate - Hmm. Know loads of people with Teslas and never heard of anyone going over 10 minutes on AP unless it’s just down a single lane of interstate or something. What kind of 5 hour trips are you doing?
    • itsoktocry 4y ago
      >Know loads of people with Teslas and never heard of anyone going over 10 minutes on AP unless it’s just down a single lane of interstate or something This is how you can tell who is a TSLA shareholder and who isn't.
    • standyro 4y ago
      I use mine regularly driving to SF or to Arizona from LA for multi hour stretches.
    • b34r 4y ago
      I use AP every time I’m on the highway and it works quite well in most scenarios for me in Massachusetts. I don’t use it in the snow FWIW.
      • LastTrain 4y ago
        Are you letting it go, at length, doing anything more than a pilot assist does? I have gone > hour on pilot assist but that hardly qualifies as self driving and doesn’t free me from driving duties - which is what AP is supposed to do
        • frumper 4y ago
          I think you're confusing what AP is supposed to do. It's adaptive cruise control + lane keep assist.
        • b34r 4y ago
          Not sure what you mean, EAP is highway-only and using it off the highway is off-label and not safe. I have tried FSD beta and it was not great at the time (10.12.2) The longest stretch I’ve used EAP for is >3 hrs going from MA to NY. Highways were totally smooth, did its own lane changes, etc. It can be slightly jerky at times when the traffic keeps speeding up and slowing down sharply, that’s my only real complaint.
• heavyset_go 4y ago
  Write to your state's Attorney's General office, they usually have consumer affairs divisions. The FTC also has a Bureau of Consumer Protection.
  • funstuff007 4y ago
    The Feds are afraid of Musk. You may have better luck at the state level.
    • twblalock 4y ago
      Why on earth would they be afraid of Musk?
      • datavirtue 4y ago
        Twitter
• rockinghigh 4y ago
  In my experience (Model 3 and Y), Basic Autopilot works very well on highways and is easier to use than the competition. However, enhanced autopilot and full self-driving do not provide benefits and are still unsafe outside freeways. They are used by Tesla to increase margins and hype their brand as innovative.
  • TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    > They are used by Tesla to increase margins and hype their brand as innovative. Well, and legitimately they are used for data collection to improve the system. This is integral to how they develop FSD.
• ryantgtg 4y ago
  > buying into all the marketing about it How much research did you do? Genuinely wondering.
• ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  There's a nonzero likelihood Tesla ends up refunding this once they're forced to recall the feature.
• modeless 4y ago
  Agreed on summon and auto park, they are total garbage and not at all useful. Navigate on Autopilot is slightly better, and can actually be nice occasionally, though there are plenty of situations where it just doesn't work. But there is a bit of the enhanced autopilot package that is genuinely useful, and that's autopilot lane changes. Being able to execute lane changes on the freeway just by pressing the turn signal once and without disengaging autopilot works well and is useful. Is it worth $6k? Maybe not, but it's something. Personally, I bought FSD because I wanted to test it, not because I thought it would be robotaxi-level anytime soon. And also because I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.
  • jliptzin 4y ago
    I agree, lane changes are a really nice feature for me that made it worth it although depending on how price sensitive you are it might not be worth it. I think people forget or don’t realize that tesla is purposely pricing this stuff for the kinds of people who think $6,000 is pocket change. If that’s not you, don’t buy it.
    • unityByFreedom 4y ago
      You're still responsible if your lane change causes an accident. I don't see how it's worth $1. Do you trust the system to properly gauge the speed of a vehicle accelerating to pass you? If not then you need hands and eyes at the ready.
      • modeless 4y ago
        You still need to monitor cruise control as well, but that doesn't make it useless. It's nice on long drives.
        • ethanbond 4y ago
          IMO the boundaries of cruise control’s abilities are extremely clear, so it doesn’t require a ton of overhead to know whether you’re pushing up against them.
• giobox 4y ago
  Curious, what did you expect here? As far as I can tell, enhanced ap is identical to the standard "basic ap" on all cars, the only additions are: * automated lane change when you press indicator * Summon (a google tells you all you need to know about how bad) * Autopark (this has never worked on my model 3 either, aside from a handful of times. Again, common knowledge it doesn't work). * Automated freeway exit selection Otherwise, its the same pretty good lane-keep system they give you with the car as standard. Of course, Tesla being Tesla I'm sure the feature set will change with time, so maybe you get more later? Tesla don't promise this though, and like all tech you should evaluate purchase on its features today, not its promises tomorrow? I might have missed something, but generally thats all it adds over the basic AP you got with the car, and it's quite clearly documented as such. I can certainly agree I'd feel sick too if I'd paid $6k for it in its current advertised form!
  • outlace 4y ago
    I thought the "navigate on autopilot" feature was basically FSD but on highway only. But no, it just suggests lane changes that are dumb most of the time. Yes, I can only blame myself really, but I can't believe they would even sell such a worthless package for $6,000 more.
  • dham 4y ago
    Yea Autopilot is just adaptive cruise control on every other car maker. Such an awful term. Full self driving is the in city driving, negotiating stoplights, turns etc.
    • smaryjerry 4y ago
      I think this is only confusing because most people’s only understanding of autopilot is what they watched in movies when the pilot flicks a button and leaves the cockpit go fight a villain so they imagine autopilot means FSD which it isn’t at all in its original use in planes either.
• m463 4y ago
  The (mobileye) autopilot (version 1) is actually useful and good within its limits. It parallel parks. It summons (in a straight line, like out of the garage). It will maintain speed and distance with traffic aware cruise control. Add autosteer and it keeps its lane well. (autosteer does hunts a bit when roads get super-curvy). But it generally helps drive the car. Is autopark that bad on the model 3? To parallel park I just pull past an open spot (to let the sonar sensors see the gap) and when the P symbol shows up, put it in reverse and press [Start] on the display. It usually parks better than I could especially with tight spots.
  • formerly_proven 4y ago
    There's a hilarious video where you can see a modern Tesla utterly failing at parking while an old Tesla with mobileye works just fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA
• groos 4y ago
  I had the option of paying $3,000 for FSD back in 2018, declined, and am still convinced that was the right decision. Have no real complaints about EAP, apart from its phantom braking issues, which seem to have improved with time. I suspect, part of how well EAP works may be how well the training data match your locale.
• meltyness 4y ago
  • Lendal 4y ago
    Okay, what about $10,000? That's what I paid. I took delivery in August 2020 when he was still making the empty promises. Biggest investment failure I've ever had to write off. I guess if it isn't a Bernie Madoff level fraud, it's all good though. Maybe not prison, but I believe Elon Musk's citizenship ought to be revoked at the very least.
    • meltyness 4y ago
      This is what new technology has always looked like. Going from the discrete alphabet soup of ABS, ACC, SC, SLAM to a continuous mechanism is brand new, and not some repackaging treadmill for management to convince investors they're busy.
    • pencilguin 4y ago
      Apple Lisa was $10,000 when it came out. But it, you know, worked. Came with word processor, spreadsheet, and drawing programs included. A 5MB disk drive, even.
• FireBeyond 4y ago
  > The summon and auto park don’t really work. (One of) the things that pisses me off about this is all through Tesla's marketing and website, the consistent undertone is that these are complete and working, but that much of EAP and FSD is "just awaiting regulatory approval", when that's far from the case. Of course, it's very convenient for Tesla, too, if it never happens (and I think we are a decade or so at least from anything), they will just point blame away from themselves, ignoring that what they've offered would never reach the barrier for regulatory approval. And there will be the usual cries about the short sellers, and "big oil" pressure, rather than placing blame where it lies, Elon's cowboy-esque attitude to the whole thing.
  • sgc 4y ago
    I think one of the the questions being asked here is if there is not something a bit more sinister than just being a cowboy at play, but that it is a ruse to make money. I was literally asking myself that question this morning before I heard of this case. I had no answer (mainly because there is not enough evidence against the hypothesis). I am interested to see what, if anything, they manage to unearth.
    • user_named 4y ago
      Tesla would have gone bankrupt without selling FSD, which is a 100% margin vaporware product.
      • epgui 4y ago
        The financial statements would disagree.
        • user_named 4y ago
          No
          • epgui 4y ago
            Yes lol, go read them. Even ignoring any possibility of raising more capital, the amount of revenue recognized from FSD is much smaller than the financial hit that would have been required to bankrupt the company, at every point in time.
• HWR_14 4y ago
  At least you didn't pay $10,000 (or is it now $14,000?) for FSD you cannot get into the beta of.
• rzimmerman 4y ago
  For my Model Y: The car itself is wonderful. Driving a Tesla is a level beyond anything else I've owned. Autopilot on freeways works great. I disagree that it's deceptive. The name is confusing to the average person (it sounds like it drives itself without help). But there are constant reminders that you need to pay attention and be ready to take over. Stupid people will be stupid. A name change wouldn't be the worst outcome, but it's a great feature. Navigate on autopilot is not great. It's kind of useful, but makes dumb lane changes and is too timid in traffic to work. Being able to switch lanes with a turn signal is useful and I use it. Auto park is garbage and only works on very easy parking spots. Half the time it doesn't even "detect" the spot and won't offer the option. It's also not that good at parking. Summon (classic) is useful for me. I use it to move my car out of the way to take out the trash. It's cool and not dangerous, though not super useful. Smart summon is dangerous and not useable. As a previous commenter said, it has serious "nervous raccoon energy" and either gets confused or nearly hits things. Full self driving is not even close to ready. It's nowhere near what was promised (get in your car and it drives you from A to B). It's unclear to me that this is even possible with the vision hardware in the car. I like playing with it, but I've never had a successful drive without having to take over. This was massively overhyped, perpetually pushed out, and honestly I agree with the fraud case here. I'm mostly annoyed that all the broken features have sat stagnant while the company works on FSD releases that incrementally improve something that's fundamentally not even close to working right.
  • zhoujianfu 4y ago
    I just want to add a hearty “+1” to the everything rzimmerman said here! I do not recommend people pay for summon/autopark/fsd/navigate. The basic autopilot is pretty good for highway driving and great that Tesla includes it free though. The simple summon is fun and works most of the time but not worth paying for.
  • extrememacaroni 4y ago
    > I disagree that it's deceptive. The name is confusing okay then
    • 4y ago
• redindian75 4y ago
  I am on FSD beta since Nov of last year, it's an absolute game changer one minute, and a total teenage driver next minute. But every update makes it better , new features , tweaked turning radius, the microsecend it takes to move forward - every bit of detail is tweaked. I use it all the time - it takes me to dentist, drives me home - every single drive. It actively monitors traffic lights when stopped & when it turns green - it chimes, blinking lights, yields, left turn yields, pedestrians, bicycles on the road, dogs and blind spots - all of it gets managed by the car with just 5-10% of my attention. It doesnt let me pickup my phone (I get a warning) or fiddle with spotify. I need to keep my hands and be active, but I am not anxious about blind spot checks or bicycles in the dark. When it is released to the general public, it will be groundbreaking.
• bergenty 4y ago
  FSD works really well. I live in a suburban place so it works well almost 100% of the time. I haven’t “driven” to the grocery store in months.
• agumonkey 4y ago
  I'm surprised, maybe I was blinded by pro-tesla channels, but some recent videos about users trying the latest "autopilot" update shown very impressive results (crossing+insertion into low sight high traffic roads).
• leobg 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s a scam. It’s just Elon getting ahead of himself. And reality sometimes just needs a little to catch up. Both Tesla and SpaceX would not exist if his mind didn’t work like that. If Summon doesn’t work, try turning on Bluetooth on your phone.
• ricardobayes 4y ago
  Self-driving is currently in the 'valley of disillusionment', much like 3D printing was about 3 years ago. 3D printing currently doesn't make any headlines, but the industry quietly adopted it. I think self-driving is going to go through similar changes.
  • smaryjerry 4y ago
    I agree. Self driving, VR, and 3D printing all feel like they are in the same boat together. It’s tech that if it was a little better it could get full adoption but the current solutions feel like they aren’t enough for full adoption. Self-driving lacks because what’s the point if you have to self monitor at the same time, VR because the resolution and frame rate are barely better than a desktop computer so the immersion isn’t there, and 3D printing lacks because it’s extremely slow, struggles with certain designs, and needs sanding after - again all are missing the primary problems they mean to address and are only half-fixes. Why do I want to 3D print something when it’s going to take me 2 hours to sand down the ugly edges also? Why do I want full self driving when I have to stay just as alert? Why do I want immerse myself in a virtual reality that feels so fake?