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Tesla's self-driving tech ditched by 98 percent of customers that tried it

118 points by MBCook 2y ago

ddgflorida 2y ago
Very misleading title in that there are financial reasons for not wanting to keep the technology.
taylodl 2y ago
Here's what self-driving means to me: * Tesla absorbs all legal consequences of any accident while using their self-driving technology * The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation, i.e. driving - but in a really weird way Which is to say, Tesla does not have self-driving tech and they're not going to have self-driving tech at any time in the near future. If I have to continue sitting in the driver seat and continue driving/not-driving and be responsible for anything the car does, then the hell with it. That's not self-driving and I wouldn't pay for that either. Especially the insane prices they're charging. Nope. Not gonna happen.
- mholm 2y ago
  Especially if Tesla is going to play a game of "If you fall, you're fired before you hit the ground" with disabling autopilot in imminent accidents. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-investigation-shutoff-crash/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest...
  - yowlingcat 2y ago
    It just floors me that someone is not yet in jail for this. It's so fantastical so as to seem surreal. But it's real.
  - spookie 2y ago
    This is... I have no words. I really hope people keep their attention on the road, your life and others', isn't worth the extra minutes doomscrolling.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  I agree with your bullet points but one thing to keep in mind regarding the second one is that it is currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times (which is to say that the legislator thinks that there is no real, safe full self-driving capability yet).
  - infotainment 2y ago
    It’s not an impossible thing though; for example there are truly driverless robotaxis running in SF right now. (The Waymo ones)
  - fragmede 2y ago
    > currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times Waymos aren't running with a human driver ready to take over at all times, so that's not correct.
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      Waymo may have a specific license to operate their service in very limited areas but for vehicles sold to the public the situation is as I described pretty much globally as far as I know.
- sneak 2y ago
  $25 a week isn’t insane for the convenience that Tesla’s FSD product offers, and that would still be true if it were geofenced to just highways.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Apparently, I, and the overwhelming majority of Tesla's customers, are failing to see this convenience. Care to enlighten us?
    - sneak 2y ago
      I didn’t say that everyone should buy it, I said the pricing isn’t insane. You can disagree on the value and still recognize that $25/week is not pathological.
  - infotainment 2y ago
    $25/week indefinitely for a hardware feature in your car that you already paid for?
    - spookie 2y ago
      To be frank, it's not only a hardware feature.
  - NegativeK 2y ago
    The FSD I experienced last month was (to paraphrase someone else) like sitting in the passenger seat with a new teenage driver, ready to grab the wheel at any moment. It's wrong too often to be convenient. I'm not paying $25/week for more work as a driver.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  > The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation This is imo the biggest problems that forces users from not buying the tech. I used the beta, and not only did I have to basically pay attention, but at times, when I was already paying attention, Tesla would ask me to apply pressure on the steering to the point where self driving disengaged and I had to take quick actions. On top of that, just driving around my neighborhood, it failed miserably. It couldn't park itself when the entire curb was empty and I stopped in a non ideal spot. It would often incorrectly identify parked cars on curved streets and brake. A couple of times it almost ran over pedestrians at a stop sign, mostly because it accelerates too much on turns at a stop sign. It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40. At some point, its more stressful for the driver on self driving than driving yourself.
  - Longhanks 2y ago
    > It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40. This is not an issue with self driving but rather law enforcement.
    - darth_avocado 2y ago
      The law enforcement will stop you if you hold up the traffic by going 25
      - Longhanks 2y ago
        But it won’t if you go over the speed limit? I’m not sure what a self driving car is supposed to do here. Hell, as a foreigner, I myself wouldn’t know what to do.
        spookie 2y ago
        I think this is pretty common all around the world. But the again, you raise a fair point. I don't know what course of action an autonomous vehicle is supposed to take here. If anything, in HCI, you want consistent actions to be taken, for users to reward you with a higher level of trust.
astrodust 2y ago
Are the other 2% still with us?
dotcoma 2y ago
We’ve been promised self-driving cars since the 1960s, and the wait is far from over.
- jliptzin 2y ago
  I would have agreed up until version 12 but I literally use it now to do almost all of my driving. I just got back from a trip where I rented a regular car and I didn’t realize how much I actually hate going back to micromanaging the car. It’s just so much more relaxing letting the car do the work and just supervising. I think for a lot of people $100 / month is just not affordable for a relatively small convenience at this point. Like another commenter points out the value prop isn’t really there if you’re still liable for everything it does. But I have driven maybe ~1,000 FSD V12 miles at this point (with maybe a handful of minor interventions) and I am 100% convinced that robotaxis are a lot closer than people realize.
loeg 2y ago
After the trial, customers would have to pay $200 (or $100 now?) a month for the privilege, right? So most customers didn't think $2400 or $1200 a year for this feature was compelling.
andrewmcwatters 2y ago
You know, in standard sales situations, 2% conversion is pretty good. That being said, these are existing customers and I think the pricing for FSD is just bad. I suspect they will eventually lower it.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  If you are converting 2% of customers to the one thing which makes your company not worthless (according to it's largest owner and controller), then that might actually be bad. Tesla won't win a price dumping competition on the mechanical engineering and manufacturing quality for their cars.
  - DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
    Well, then you would be happy to know that the title misrepresents it. It was 2% of a sample of 3500 people who got the trial. Not 2% of all customers.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      That is how all statistics is done though?
    - spookie 2y ago
      Given how big the population in their dataset is, it's quite representative. Moreover, with such a low turnover percentage, it wouldn't get much bigger.
  - speedgoose 2y ago
    > Tesla won't win a price dumping competition on the mechanical engineering and manufacturing quality for their cars. They are very good value cars in their category though.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      A few years ago they were far ahead, simply because they were the only ones. Right now most major car corporations have something competing with them. To be honest if I was buying an electric car tomorrow, for the price of a Tesla, I wouldn't be buying a Tesla.
glonq 2y ago
After owning a Model 3 for five years, I somehow just got invited to a 30-day FSD trial yesterday. So today was day one for me. I intervened about 6 times, but none of them were critical like for a potential collision. Just a lack of trust that it was doing the right thing at the right time (speed, signaling, courtesy, hesitation, etc).
- MBCook 2y ago
  I believe they gave it to everyone to try to drive sales of the upgrade.
catlikesshrimp 2y ago
(About the paying customers) No problem. They already paid 10,000 bucks for it. Now you can sell version 2 in three years "We are almost there"
- samspenc 2y ago
  I'm also guessing some of them are paying the monthly subscription that costs a few hundred dollars a month vs the lifetime $8000-10000 fee.
linsomniac 2y ago
Nuance: This is a sample of 3,500 people who tried the trial and decided not to spend the $8K for it.
- samspenc 2y ago
  Yeah, I would suspect this is more inline with a limited-time free trial conversion campaign. Basically Tesla gave out a free FSD trial to every Tesla owner, and per this report, 2% of them actually signed up for the feature and are paying Tesla either the one-time or monthly fee. I'm not sure about other "free-to-paid conversion" marketing campaigns, but 2% actually seems like a good conversion rate.
  - cchance 2y ago
    It is lol 2% conversion on a 8k+$ product, from a 0 effort 30 day trial rollout seems solid. I'd imagine they will keep doing them on major releases live v13 or whatever maybe for the new smart summon even
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      The problem is, in the context of Tesla, this is still a massive failure. At Tesla's market cap, as in, "worth" more than the rest of the auto industry, any conversion rate less than about 90% is a huge failure. They have been pushing self driving for a decade now, with billions of dollars worth of investment and some of the best engineers for this in the field, and all they have to show for it is a 2% conversion rate on people who have already self identified as being willing to pay more for a new, unpolished product. Consider how much other companies have advanced in self driving in the same time, or how much better solar panels got, or the massive improvements and developments Space X had in the same time frame. Meanwhile, FSD has barely increased in value in the same time frame, and is no longer a unique selling point, but a competitor in a busy market. Tesla needed to be revolutionary. They needed world changing improvements, huge step changes in functionality. They needed something that every single human being desperately needed, even taking it's faults into account. Instead they've only really made incremental improvements over ten years and lost any tech lead they might have previously had. They've failed. It literally doesn't even matter if Tesla cars are better than any other car on the market. To justify their valuation, they needed something magical.
drewg123 2y ago
I've had FSD for years, and, well, it is awful. I keep hoping it gets better, but it doesn't. The best way I have to describe it is: Picture a timid new driver, then give them 10 cups of coffee and make them really nervous. Now make them adhere slavishly to a random assortment of rules, and not at all to others. One of my biggest pet peeves is that my car will try really hard to stay on the right side of a narrow residential road, coming inches from parked cars when there is no oncoming traffic. I always takeover, because I just know somebody is going to open a door into me, or an animal or child will dart out from between cars. It will often hesitate to merge or turn left, even when given ample opportunity. And then it will suddenly dart across traffic with no warning. I bought it in 2017 with the car, and drove like a grandma for a month to be eligible for the initial FSD beta a year or two ago. It was a complete waste of time and money. My hope when buying it was that I could have my car drop off my then 11yo son at school and save me a commute. My son is now 18 and drives far better than the car ever will.
- 0xfae 2y ago
  Humorously, I almost bought a brand new Model S in 2017 when they announced full self driving because I was so excited by the tech and the promises. Instead, I bought a used Model S with AP1. I have never regretted that decision, it's been a great car. I do feel bad about everyone who bought into those promises.
  - bradgessler 2y ago
    I have a friend who bought an X for $120k when it came out and recently sold it for $35k. So much for Elon’s promises of the cars increasing in value because “robotaxi”.
    - Induane 2y ago
      Yea the cult of personality (crumbled now but was more a thing 5-10 years back) resulted in a lot of people falling for marking FUD which sucks. I've been in software dev way too long to buy that nonsense. As far as my expectations have been it's actually ahead of schedule. That kind of pessimism keeps me constantly happy with the rate of improvement. Lovely psychological trick I've played on myself.
sneak 2y ago
The current version of FSD is astounding. I used it a lot in SoCal for most of the free trial month, and wow has it come a long way.
- cchance 2y ago
  Yep i have FSD and while i never found it to be "bad" it was annoying at times and best on highways, now i basically use it every time i go anywhere, cant wait for the wheel nag to go away in 12.4 (or 12.5 i forget)
- ComputerGuru 2y ago
  Ok, but as you’re exactly one of the cases in TFA, what was your reason for not becoming a paying FSD customer?
  - sneak 2y ago
    I don’t own a Tesla.
fourseventy 2y ago
The title is extremely misleading. It is saying that 2% of people converted from a 30 day free trial of Full Self Driving to the $8k paid upgrade.
- cchance 2y ago
  I know lol 2% of a shitload of people spent 8k$ after testing a software release, this wasnt some 5$ upgrade lol
- boringg 2y ago
  Thanks i didn't want to click the link. It smelled like it was clickbait. I thoroughly enjoyed FSD.
- gnfargbl 2y ago
  Exactly, so this is a 2% conversion rate for an unsolicited trial of a product that costs $8k. Seems really pretty decent to me.
- jc_811 2y ago
  How is that misleading? Genuinely feel like it’s saying the same exact thing you just stated, just the other end of the percent. 2% converted, therefore 98% chose to not convert (aka ditch)
  - kebsup 2y ago
    I think it's because it's not obvious that there is a free trial, so it sounds a bit like "98% of people who bought autopilot are not using".
    - ben-gy 2y ago
      This is exactly how I read it until working my way through this thread.
  - tr3ntg 2y ago
    And because it's worded so negatively. "Ditched" is strong language for an otherwise impressive conversion rate. It's silly. I'm not an explicit fan or hater of Tesla, but this headlines reads unnecessarily antagonistic.
toephu2 2y ago
I have Tesla FSD and I've started to use it more since v12 came out. It really does drive like a human and is impressively good. The only reason I don't use it all the time now is because every 15-60 seconds you need to nudge the steering wheel (or change volume or speed) so it knows you are paying attention. Elon said they are going to be removing that nudge in the coming weeks. Once they do that I'll be using it a lot more and it's going to be like having my own Waymo car to take me places.
- cchance 2y ago
  I'm with you since v12 i basically use it every time i drive, except for the damn drive way the only thing it doesn't handle yet
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Do you plan to stop paying attention?
  - sharms 2y ago
    Ironically when you are not paying attention, it is the least safe to disengage FSD. Ideally all drivers not paying attention would have FSD safety features auto engage to stop them from causing accidents.
    - afavour 2y ago
      The point the OP is making is that FSD allows you to stop paying attention. If you don’t even have to so much as hold the wheel it stands to reason your attention is more likely to drift.
  - xkqd 2y ago
    Unfortunately this will be inevitable, and this one we can chock up to human biology. The average person isn’t going to close their eyes and take a nap, but the average person will start spacing out, will start seeking their phone out to kill boredom, etc.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40357516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40357516
leetharris 2y ago
I have FSD and I think it's pretty good now. But unless I can take my hand off the wheel or do something else it's just not worth it. Regular autopilot is good enough for highways. If they can make it level 3-5, I think it will EXPLODE.
- wahnfrieden 2y ago
  They announced you will be allowed to take your hand off the wheel and stop paying attention soon, without needing to wait for level 3-5.
  - dawnerd 2y ago
    the NHTSA will shut that down real fast as they're currently investigating them over their last recall which was supposed to crack down on driver monitoring.
  - paxys 2y ago
    That is sure to cause some explosions.
  - karmicthreat 2y ago
    I think it’s just nudging the wheel that is going away. Attention detection via camera is still in effect for FSD. And it won’t start FSD without being able to see you.
    - wahnfrieden 2y ago
      Can you elaborate on what it detects as attentive vs inattentive for enabling FSD besides wheel nudge? What are the worst case inattentive behaviors that are allowed?
      - brokenmachine 2y ago
        >What are the worst case inattentive behaviors that are allowed? I understand why you're asking, but it's terrifying that there are people who would gamble other people's lives with the answer to this question.
noncoml 2y ago
After driving a model Y for 6 months now, I really really dislike it. It’s easily worse driving experience that my old 10yo Corolla. But, after trying the FSD for 30, I was pretty impressed. You do have to pay attention but it’s usually easy to see where it will get confused and you may need to intervene. The reason I didn’t buy it is not because it’s not good, but it’s because of the cost. $8k is a lot of money. So yeah, the title feels a bit dishonest to me.
- cchance 2y ago
  I mean it was a beta, now it's out of beta because its full rollout but supervised, hopefully data gets to the point they can remove the supervision and bump the autonomy rating once things get to better than human accident ratings. I'd imagine their going to do something like FSD with Full Autonomy requires Tesla Insurance to optimize their overall cost in the event of accidents that will happen (just like with even the best of human drivers)
  - spookie 2y ago
    Doing "Betas" with other non consenting humans on the road still seems pretty wild to me.
martindbp 2y ago
Except according to Elon Musk on X "It's way higher than 2%. Please" Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction, and would land him in legal trouble as said by an CEO of a public company. As always anything touching Tesla in the media is extremely biased, like this headline.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  More biased than this post? You can easily pull from dozens of examples of Musk breaking the law with a tweet, including some where a court actually found he violated the law, and still nothing happened.
- jkestner 2y ago
  Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction, and would land him in legal trouble as said by an CEO of a public company. Nevertheless, Musk lies.
- Forbo 2y ago
  Musk doesn't think about legal troubles because of things he says on Twitter. Remember "funding secured"?
- peutetre 2y ago
  > Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction Musk has spent years making very specific claims about full self-driving that turned out to be lies: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ In 2016 Tesla claimed that "as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory – including Model 3 – will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver": https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now... That was a lie.
TheAlchemist 2y ago
It may be a good time to remind people of this little gem: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now... It's from 2016 - almost a decade already. But fear not, FSD v12.5 is coming to the Cybertruck in ~2 weeks probably !
- roynasser 2y ago
  Over optimistic claims aren't at all exclusive to Tesla though... If anything we should take all claims with 10 grains of salt...
  - TheAlchemist 2y ago
    No, it's not just optimistic. Optimistic means you say - we are working on it, it's 3-5 years away, but we think we can make it. Tesla and Musk, spent the past 10 years saying that many things they work on are <1 year away. For any sane person, that timeframe implies the product is ready, already tested and it's just a matter of figuring out the details. I've recently spoke with somebody who absolutely believed Tesla is going to automate all their US manufacturing and fire all the workers, thanks to Optimus, beginning next year !
ible 2y ago
I tried it and it was laughably bad. The auto park was worse than it was years ago, leaving me a foot out from the curb in an easy spot. Trying to use the self driving on city streets resulted in it stuttering and stopping immediately. The only thing that worked decently was highway driving, which it does without the self driving package anyway. Given its performance I wouldn't dare trust it with any of my daily driving even if it was free.
andrewmcwatters 2y ago
I’m so sad over the state of self-driving cars. Waymo appears to be the clear winner, but you’ll never own the tech for yourself. So you’ve got Tesla, which sells a stupidly priced ADAS system with or without a subscription that drives like a teenager. Comma, great price, but insists they’re solving self-driving cars and their engineering team scoffs at object detection and the unit basically can’t turn at intersections anymore. And Waymo. Great passenger experience, highly tuned longitudinal comfort, industry leading perception and sensor tech. But you can only use them as a taxi.
- robertjpayne 2y ago
  And we should strive to reduce a world where car ownership is a thing. The world would be a much better place if we didn't eat up so much damn space/resources/economic output for personal cars.
pnw 2y ago
I was a skeptic on FSD from 2016, along with Elon's unrealistic announcements about timeframes. But the latest v12 releases in the last month have made substantial progress, far beyond where it was even a year ago. I've gone from being a skeptic who had FSD disabled to someone who drives on FSD in heavy traffic every day and it feels like it has finally turned a corner after eight years. I'm not sure how or what Yipitdata measured (and I can't find a link to their data), but if was the older releases it makes perfect sense that very few people would buy it.
belter 2y ago
Waiting for Tesla FSD, is like waiting for a robot to make you breakfast when you already have a perfectly good toaster...
damon_c 2y ago
I know this is unpopular to say and people love to pile on, but I have been using it for the last few weeks and I am optimistic about it. I pay $100/month. Right now, it works just about flawlessly on the freeway. If you turn it on when you are on the on-ramp, and turn it off when it delivers you to that first traffic light after you exit, it actually is maybe better than actually driving. It passes slower cars, it is way safer than I am at checking my blind spots. It uses the HOV lane at appropriate times. I enjoy letting it perform the chore of getting across 5 lanes of traffic in time for an exit much more than doing that myself. For local driving, it is still not perfect enough. It WILL get you home safe... but it is more stressful having it drive than driving myself. It pauses awkwardly sometimes... it makes an occasional wrong turn. It handles traffic lights and stop signs reasonably well but overall it's like driving with someone who is just learning to drive. It's more stressful than I prefer my transportation to be. That being said, I think in a couple of years it will stand as an incredible achievement. The driving behavior it exhibits is incredibly lifelike at times and it is really so close... like all engineering projects the last few percent is sometimes the hardest, but I can see it getting there. Edge cases.
- throw9474 2y ago
  Neural networks are fundamentally bad at edge cases. It won't get better.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Driving is an AGI-complete task. It literally requires presumptive modelling of other human beings in order to be safe. This bullshit "uh let's just navigate as if every other car is on rails" approach will never produce the safety claimed by FSD proponents.
- dawnerd 2y ago
  Autopilot works better than FSD for me on the freeway. If I turn on FSD I get lots of phantom braking and pretty out of no where lane changes that I'd call pretty abrupt and dangerous. No where near worth 100 dollars a month.
- 2y ago
freediver 2y ago
I got to test it and actually it wasn't that bad. Did several short trips and it navigated them reasonably well, but under increased scrutiny from me. The problem is even 99.99% good is not 100% good and for something that has your life in its hands, it has to be 100%. Arguably a human driver is not 100% either, but at least they understand the world around them on a fundamental level, plus they have a pretty dramatic forcing-function ('do not die') that instills confidence. An AI has nothing to lose and this makes a 99% safe AI system less trustworthy than a 80% safe human driver.
chaosprint 2y ago
Location: Norway. I haven't tried FSD, but I've used autopilot and cruise control. They don't inspire confidence, so I definitely wouldn't trust FSD, at least not currently. When using autopilot on a single-lane road with a 60 km/h speed limit, it performed a phantom emergency brake because there was an oncoming car (which was driving normally in its own lane) on a curve. Maybe I shouldn't have used autopilot in that situation? But what's even worse is the cruise control. It's a basic feature, yet Tesla's cruise control suddenly changed the speed limit to 30 km/h when passing through a tunnel with no signals and performed an emergency brake in an 80 km/h zone. This is incomprehensible. Not to mention the issues with noisy brakes, distorted sound effects. However, I don't want to switch to another car. I've driven Polestar 2, Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Nio ET5T, and none surpass Tesla. The only cars that make me consider switching are Lucid and Taycan, but they are in a different price range. With Norway soon stopping the sale of all gasoline cars, Tesla is almost the only choice. I just hope they can improve on these basic issues.
- jahnu 2y ago
  What do the other manufacturers need to improve to match the Tesla for your needs?
  - chaosprint 2y ago
    Good chassis, directional control, self-developed motor and battery life management. app experience and charging experience.
    - jahnu 2y ago
      Interesting, thanks!
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  You didn't mention BMW.
  - chaosprint 2y ago
ZiiS 2y ago
Isn't the trial all people who have just decided not to buy FSD; changing the minds of 2% of them seems a masive win?
yesimahuman 2y ago
Not surprised. I tried it and immediately disabled it as it pulled me over a double yellow divider lane into oncoming traffic and I had to take control. And then it slowed extremely aggressively from a 35 to 25 speed change that almost certainly would have caused a driver behind me to rear end or at least be very annoyed (thankfully, there was none), and it was just unpleasant to experience as a driver and passenger. I did not feel confident using it any more after that.
- ManuelKiessling 2y ago
  I‘m wondering how this (final?) barrier is supposed to be overcome: no matter how absolutely perfect the technology might one day become, how are we going to bridge the gap between “manufacturers cannot legally build a system that deliberately breaks the law” and “actual traffic in the real world only works if sometimes, drivers do not adhere to the law perfectly”?
k2xl 2y ago
2% conversion for an 8K purchase is actually incredibly high. Bought in 2018 and v12 has been absolutely amazing. Next version 12.4 will also remove the steering wheel nag.
shreezus 2y ago
Anecdotally I have been using one of the newer versions (12.3.6) and it seems to have improved significantly, however still does "strange" things like unnecessary lane changes or slowing down unnaturally to speed limits (which no driver in LA does). Autopark works well for the most part but takes twice as long as if I were just park the vehicle myself. Elon claims the next version (12.4 / 12.5) will be milestone improvements in terms of miles per disengagement, but only time will tell.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >Elon claims [...] Allow me to stop you right there,
delabay 2y ago
The user reports in this thread are split about 50/50 between "it's horrible" and "I use it every time I drive" Narrative violation
weezin 2y ago
Not entirely convinced the point was to convert the customers to the 8k price today. Seems like the data gained during the demo is the most valuable part long term. They can rinse and repeat offering a demo, gaining data, releasing a new version. As it gets better conversions will increase. All while moving toward their long term goal of fully autonomous driving.
dhosek 2y ago
The other 2 percent were killed by it.
yegle 2y ago
FSD doesn't seem to talk to the on-car navigation system. When navigation tells you to "keep left", FSD happily changed lane to the right. It makes more sense to just use FSD as a Lane Keep Assistant System on highway, with occasional surprises like switching to a faster lane mostly automated.
gwbas1c 2y ago
It's just not worth $8k to me. My Model Y is underwater on its loan because of all of Tesla's price drops. My Model 3 would require a hardware upgrade, and I don't think I'll keep it long enough to justify the upgrade. I really liked the FSD trial, (even though it was very glitchy,) but I'm just not spending more money on a car that's underwater on its loan. Even though FSD was glitchy, (entered a road without stopping, nearly got into an accident trying to take an exit,) I really enjoyed FSD. Specifically, I really enjoyed it on the freeway. I just don't see it as something that's worth an eye-watering amount of money, especially on a car that's underwater, or a car that I'll probably replace in 3-4 years. I really wish Tesla offered a deep discount on FSD as goodwill for those of us who bought the Model Y right before they dropped the price. It's really hard to justify spending that kind of money after the car's value dropped so quickly. $8k might be what Tesla needs to charge to break even, but as anyone involved in business knows, what something is worth is what someone is willing to pay, not what it costs to make.
Zigurd 2y ago
The real world experiences here are a good basis for predicting that the development emphasis on making a robotaxi later this year will be a dumpster fire. It's hard to believe it wasn't taken for self parody when Elon announced it on an earnings call. Just going from sitting in the driver's seat to sitting in the back seat would require that, by now, FSD would have to be reliably comfortable and the only issue with not using it would be price. There are safer-than-Uber, but still not flawless, robotaxis in limited areas. We know what it takes to get there. We also know it has to be done with great care and a huge amount of preparation. It isn't cheap or fast.

118 points by MBCook 2y ago

Very misleading title in that there are financial reasons for not wanting to keep the technology.

Here's what self-driving means to me: * Tesla absorbs all legal consequences of any accident while using their self-driving technology * The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation, i.e. driving - but in a really weird way Which is to say, Tesla does not have self-driving tech and they're not going to have self-driving tech at any time in the near future. If I have to continue sitting in the driver seat and continue driving/not-driving and be responsible for anything the car does, then the hell with it. That's not self-driving and I wouldn't pay for that either. Especially the insane prices they're charging. Nope. Not gonna happen.

mholm 2y ago
Especially if Tesla is going to play a game of "If you fall, you're fired before you hit the ground" with disabling autopilot in imminent accidents. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-investigation-shutoff-crash/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest...
- yowlingcat 2y ago
  It just floors me that someone is not yet in jail for this. It's so fantastical so as to seem surreal. But it's real.
- spookie 2y ago
  This is... I have no words. I really hope people keep their attention on the road, your life and others', isn't worth the extra minutes doomscrolling.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
I agree with your bullet points but one thing to keep in mind regarding the second one is that it is currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times (which is to say that the legislator thinks that there is no real, safe full self-driving capability yet).
- infotainment 2y ago
  It’s not an impossible thing though; for example there are truly driverless robotaxis running in SF right now. (The Waymo ones)
- fragmede 2y ago
  > currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times Waymos aren't running with a human driver ready to take over at all times, so that's not correct.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Waymo may have a specific license to operate their service in very limited areas but for vehicles sold to the public the situation is as I described pretty much globally as far as I know.
sneak 2y ago
$25 a week isn’t insane for the convenience that Tesla’s FSD product offers, and that would still be true if it were geofenced to just highways.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Apparently, I, and the overwhelming majority of Tesla's customers, are failing to see this convenience. Care to enlighten us?
  - sneak 2y ago
    I didn’t say that everyone should buy it, I said the pricing isn’t insane. You can disagree on the value and still recognize that $25/week is not pathological.
- infotainment 2y ago
  $25/week indefinitely for a hardware feature in your car that you already paid for?
  - spookie 2y ago
    To be frank, it's not only a hardware feature.
- NegativeK 2y ago
  The FSD I experienced last month was (to paraphrase someone else) like sitting in the passenger seat with a new teenage driver, ready to grab the wheel at any moment. It's wrong too often to be convenient. I'm not paying $25/week for more work as a driver.
darth_avocado 2y ago
> The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation This is imo the biggest problems that forces users from not buying the tech. I used the beta, and not only did I have to basically pay attention, but at times, when I was already paying attention, Tesla would ask me to apply pressure on the steering to the point where self driving disengaged and I had to take quick actions. On top of that, just driving around my neighborhood, it failed miserably. It couldn't park itself when the entire curb was empty and I stopped in a non ideal spot. It would often incorrectly identify parked cars on curved streets and brake. A couple of times it almost ran over pedestrians at a stop sign, mostly because it accelerates too much on turns at a stop sign. It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40. At some point, its more stressful for the driver on self driving than driving yourself.
- Longhanks 2y ago
  > It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40. This is not an issue with self driving but rather law enforcement.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    The law enforcement will stop you if you hold up the traffic by going 25
    - Longhanks 2y ago
      But it won’t if you go over the speed limit? I’m not sure what a self driving car is supposed to do here. Hell, as a foreigner, I myself wouldn’t know what to do.
      - spookie 2y ago
        I think this is pretty common all around the world. But the again, you raise a fair point. I don't know what course of action an autonomous vehicle is supposed to take here. If anything, in HCI, you want consistent actions to be taken, for users to reward you with a higher level of trust.

astrodust 2y ago

Are the other 2% still with us?

dotcoma 2y ago

We’ve been promised self-driving cars since the 1960s, and the wait is far from over.

jliptzin 2y ago
I would have agreed up until version 12 but I literally use it now to do almost all of my driving. I just got back from a trip where I rented a regular car and I didn’t realize how much I actually hate going back to micromanaging the car. It’s just so much more relaxing letting the car do the work and just supervising. I think for a lot of people $100 / month is just not affordable for a relatively small convenience at this point. Like another commenter points out the value prop isn’t really there if you’re still liable for everything it does. But I have driven maybe ~1,000 FSD V12 miles at this point (with maybe a handful of minor interventions) and I am 100% convinced that robotaxis are a lot closer than people realize.

loeg 2y ago

After the trial, customers would have to pay $200 (or $100 now?) a month for the privilege, right? So most customers didn't think $2400 or $1200 a year for this feature was compelling.

andrewmcwatters 2y ago

You know, in standard sales situations, 2% conversion is pretty good. That being said, these are existing customers and I think the pricing for FSD is just bad. I suspect they will eventually lower it.

constantcrying 2y ago
If you are converting 2% of customers to the one thing which makes your company not worthless (according to it's largest owner and controller), then that might actually be bad. Tesla won't win a price dumping competition on the mechanical engineering and manufacturing quality for their cars.
- DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
  Well, then you would be happy to know that the title misrepresents it. It was 2% of a sample of 3500 people who got the trial. Not 2% of all customers.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    That is how all statistics is done though?
  - spookie 2y ago
    Given how big the population in their dataset is, it's quite representative. Moreover, with such a low turnover percentage, it wouldn't get much bigger.
- speedgoose 2y ago
  > Tesla won't win a price dumping competition on the mechanical engineering and manufacturing quality for their cars. They are very good value cars in their category though.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    A few years ago they were far ahead, simply because they were the only ones. Right now most major car corporations have something competing with them. To be honest if I was buying an electric car tomorrow, for the price of a Tesla, I wouldn't be buying a Tesla.

glonq 2y ago

After owning a Model 3 for five years, I somehow just got invited to a 30-day FSD trial yesterday. So today was day one for me. I intervened about 6 times, but none of them were critical like for a potential collision. Just a lack of trust that it was doing the right thing at the right time (speed, signaling, courtesy, hesitation, etc).

MBCook 2y ago
I believe they gave it to everyone to try to drive sales of the upgrade.

catlikesshrimp 2y ago

(About the paying customers) No problem. They already paid 10,000 bucks for it. Now you can sell version 2 in three years "We are almost there"

samspenc 2y ago
I'm also guessing some of them are paying the monthly subscription that costs a few hundred dollars a month vs the lifetime $8000-10000 fee.

linsomniac 2y ago

Nuance: This is a sample of 3,500 people who tried the trial and decided not to spend the $8K for it.

samspenc 2y ago
Yeah, I would suspect this is more inline with a limited-time free trial conversion campaign. Basically Tesla gave out a free FSD trial to every Tesla owner, and per this report, 2% of them actually signed up for the feature and are paying Tesla either the one-time or monthly fee. I'm not sure about other "free-to-paid conversion" marketing campaigns, but 2% actually seems like a good conversion rate.
- cchance 2y ago
  It is lol 2% conversion on a 8k+$ product, from a 0 effort 30 day trial rollout seems solid. I'd imagine they will keep doing them on major releases live v13 or whatever maybe for the new smart summon even
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    The problem is, in the context of Tesla, this is still a massive failure. At Tesla's market cap, as in, "worth" more than the rest of the auto industry, any conversion rate less than about 90% is a huge failure. They have been pushing self driving for a decade now, with billions of dollars worth of investment and some of the best engineers for this in the field, and all they have to show for it is a 2% conversion rate on people who have already self identified as being willing to pay more for a new, unpolished product. Consider how much other companies have advanced in self driving in the same time, or how much better solar panels got, or the massive improvements and developments Space X had in the same time frame. Meanwhile, FSD has barely increased in value in the same time frame, and is no longer a unique selling point, but a competitor in a busy market. Tesla needed to be revolutionary. They needed world changing improvements, huge step changes in functionality. They needed something that every single human being desperately needed, even taking it's faults into account. Instead they've only really made incremental improvements over ten years and lost any tech lead they might have previously had. They've failed. It literally doesn't even matter if Tesla cars are better than any other car on the market. To justify their valuation, they needed something magical.

drewg123 2y ago

I've had FSD for years, and, well, it is awful. I keep hoping it gets better, but it doesn't. The best way I have to describe it is: Picture a timid new driver, then give them 10 cups of coffee and make them really nervous. Now make them adhere slavishly to a random assortment of rules, and not at all to others. One of my biggest pet peeves is that my car will try really hard to stay on the right side of a narrow residential road, coming inches from parked cars when there is no oncoming traffic. I always takeover, because I just know somebody is going to open a door into me, or an animal or child will dart out from between cars. It will often hesitate to merge or turn left, even when given ample opportunity. And then it will suddenly dart across traffic with no warning. I bought it in 2017 with the car, and drove like a grandma for a month to be eligible for the initial FSD beta a year or two ago. It was a complete waste of time and money. My hope when buying it was that I could have my car drop off my then 11yo son at school and save me a commute. My son is now 18 and drives far better than the car ever will.

0xfae 2y ago
Humorously, I almost bought a brand new Model S in 2017 when they announced full self driving because I was so excited by the tech and the promises. Instead, I bought a used Model S with AP1. I have never regretted that decision, it's been a great car. I do feel bad about everyone who bought into those promises.
- bradgessler 2y ago
  I have a friend who bought an X for $120k when it came out and recently sold it for $35k. So much for Elon’s promises of the cars increasing in value because “robotaxi”.
  - Induane 2y ago
    Yea the cult of personality (crumbled now but was more a thing 5-10 years back) resulted in a lot of people falling for marking FUD which sucks. I've been in software dev way too long to buy that nonsense. As far as my expectations have been it's actually ahead of schedule. That kind of pessimism keeps me constantly happy with the rate of improvement. Lovely psychological trick I've played on myself.

sneak 2y ago

The current version of FSD is astounding. I used it a lot in SoCal for most of the free trial month, and wow has it come a long way.

cchance 2y ago
Yep i have FSD and while i never found it to be "bad" it was annoying at times and best on highways, now i basically use it every time i go anywhere, cant wait for the wheel nag to go away in 12.4 (or 12.5 i forget)
ComputerGuru 2y ago
Ok, but as you’re exactly one of the cases in TFA, what was your reason for not becoming a paying FSD customer?
- sneak 2y ago
  I don’t own a Tesla.

fourseventy 2y ago

The title is extremely misleading. It is saying that 2% of people converted from a 30 day free trial of Full Self Driving to the $8k paid upgrade.

cchance 2y ago
I know lol 2% of a shitload of people spent 8k$ after testing a software release, this wasnt some 5$ upgrade lol
boringg 2y ago
Thanks i didn't want to click the link. It smelled like it was clickbait. I thoroughly enjoyed FSD.
gnfargbl 2y ago
Exactly, so this is a 2% conversion rate for an unsolicited trial of a product that costs $8k. Seems really pretty decent to me.
jc_811 2y ago
How is that misleading? Genuinely feel like it’s saying the same exact thing you just stated, just the other end of the percent. 2% converted, therefore 98% chose to not convert (aka ditch)
- kebsup 2y ago
  I think it's because it's not obvious that there is a free trial, so it sounds a bit like "98% of people who bought autopilot are not using".
  - ben-gy 2y ago
    This is exactly how I read it until working my way through this thread.
- tr3ntg 2y ago
  And because it's worded so negatively. "Ditched" is strong language for an otherwise impressive conversion rate. It's silly. I'm not an explicit fan or hater of Tesla, but this headlines reads unnecessarily antagonistic.

toephu2 2y ago

I have Tesla FSD and I've started to use it more since v12 came out. It really does drive like a human and is impressively good. The only reason I don't use it all the time now is because every 15-60 seconds you need to nudge the steering wheel (or change volume or speed) so it knows you are paying attention. Elon said they are going to be removing that nudge in the coming weeks. Once they do that I'll be using it a lot more and it's going to be like having my own Waymo car to take me places.

cchance 2y ago
I'm with you since v12 i basically use it every time i drive, except for the damn drive way the only thing it doesn't handle yet
saagarjha 2y ago
Do you plan to stop paying attention?
- sharms 2y ago
  Ironically when you are not paying attention, it is the least safe to disengage FSD. Ideally all drivers not paying attention would have FSD safety features auto engage to stop them from causing accidents.
  - afavour 2y ago
    The point the OP is making is that FSD allows you to stop paying attention. If you don’t even have to so much as hold the wheel it stands to reason your attention is more likely to drift.
- xkqd 2y ago
  Unfortunately this will be inevitable, and this one we can chock up to human biology. The average person isn’t going to close their eyes and take a nap, but the average person will start spacing out, will start seeking their phone out to kill boredom, etc.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40357516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40357516

leetharris 2y ago

I have FSD and I think it's pretty good now. But unless I can take my hand off the wheel or do something else it's just not worth it. Regular autopilot is good enough for highways. If they can make it level 3-5, I think it will EXPLODE.

wahnfrieden 2y ago
They announced you will be allowed to take your hand off the wheel and stop paying attention soon, without needing to wait for level 3-5.
- dawnerd 2y ago
  the NHTSA will shut that down real fast as they're currently investigating them over their last recall which was supposed to crack down on driver monitoring.
- paxys 2y ago
  That is sure to cause some explosions.
- karmicthreat 2y ago
  I think it’s just nudging the wheel that is going away. Attention detection via camera is still in effect for FSD. And it won’t start FSD without being able to see you.
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    Can you elaborate on what it detects as attentive vs inattentive for enabling FSD besides wheel nudge? What are the worst case inattentive behaviors that are allowed?
    - brokenmachine 2y ago
      >What are the worst case inattentive behaviors that are allowed? I understand why you're asking, but it's terrifying that there are people who would gamble other people's lives with the answer to this question.

noncoml 2y ago

After driving a model Y for 6 months now, I really really dislike it. It’s easily worse driving experience that my old 10yo Corolla. But, after trying the FSD for 30, I was pretty impressed. You do have to pay attention but it’s usually easy to see where it will get confused and you may need to intervene. The reason I didn’t buy it is not because it’s not good, but it’s because of the cost. $8k is a lot of money. So yeah, the title feels a bit dishonest to me.

cchance 2y ago
I mean it was a beta, now it's out of beta because its full rollout but supervised, hopefully data gets to the point they can remove the supervision and bump the autonomy rating once things get to better than human accident ratings. I'd imagine their going to do something like FSD with Full Autonomy requires Tesla Insurance to optimize their overall cost in the event of accidents that will happen (just like with even the best of human drivers)
- spookie 2y ago
  Doing "Betas" with other non consenting humans on the road still seems pretty wild to me.

martindbp 2y ago

Except according to Elon Musk on X "It's way higher than 2%. Please" Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction, and would land him in legal trouble as said by an CEO of a public company. As always anything touching Tesla in the media is extremely biased, like this headline.

JohnMakin 2y ago
More biased than this post? You can easily pull from dozens of examples of Musk breaking the law with a tweet, including some where a court actually found he violated the law, and still nothing happened.
jkestner 2y ago
Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction, and would land him in legal trouble as said by an CEO of a public company. Nevertheless, Musk lies.
Forbo 2y ago
Musk doesn't think about legal troubles because of things he says on Twitter. Remember "funding secured"?
peutetre 2y ago
> Before you retort with "Musk lies", this is a very specific claim and not a prediction Musk has spent years making very specific claims about full self-driving that turned out to be lies: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ In 2016 Tesla claimed that "as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory – including Model 3 – will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver": https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now... That was a lie.

TheAlchemist 2y ago

It may be a good time to remind people of this little gem: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now... It's from 2016 - almost a decade already. But fear not, FSD v12.5 is coming to the Cybertruck in ~2 weeks probably !

roynasser 2y ago
Over optimistic claims aren't at all exclusive to Tesla though... If anything we should take all claims with 10 grains of salt...
- TheAlchemist 2y ago
  No, it's not just optimistic. Optimistic means you say - we are working on it, it's 3-5 years away, but we think we can make it. Tesla and Musk, spent the past 10 years saying that many things they work on are <1 year away. For any sane person, that timeframe implies the product is ready, already tested and it's just a matter of figuring out the details. I've recently spoke with somebody who absolutely believed Tesla is going to automate all their US manufacturing and fire all the workers, thanks to Optimus, beginning next year !

ible 2y ago

I tried it and it was laughably bad. The auto park was worse than it was years ago, leaving me a foot out from the curb in an easy spot. Trying to use the self driving on city streets resulted in it stuttering and stopping immediately. The only thing that worked decently was highway driving, which it does without the self driving package anyway. Given its performance I wouldn't dare trust it with any of my daily driving even if it was free.

andrewmcwatters 2y ago

I’m so sad over the state of self-driving cars. Waymo appears to be the clear winner, but you’ll never own the tech for yourself. So you’ve got Tesla, which sells a stupidly priced ADAS system with or without a subscription that drives like a teenager. Comma, great price, but insists they’re solving self-driving cars and their engineering team scoffs at object detection and the unit basically can’t turn at intersections anymore. And Waymo. Great passenger experience, highly tuned longitudinal comfort, industry leading perception and sensor tech. But you can only use them as a taxi.

robertjpayne 2y ago
And we should strive to reduce a world where car ownership is a thing. The world would be a much better place if we didn't eat up so much damn space/resources/economic output for personal cars.

pnw 2y ago

I was a skeptic on FSD from 2016, along with Elon's unrealistic announcements about timeframes. But the latest v12 releases in the last month have made substantial progress, far beyond where it was even a year ago. I've gone from being a skeptic who had FSD disabled to someone who drives on FSD in heavy traffic every day and it feels like it has finally turned a corner after eight years. I'm not sure how or what Yipitdata measured (and I can't find a link to their data), but if was the older releases it makes perfect sense that very few people would buy it.

belter 2y ago

Waiting for Tesla FSD, is like waiting for a robot to make you breakfast when you already have a perfectly good toaster...

damon_c 2y ago

I know this is unpopular to say and people love to pile on, but I have been using it for the last few weeks and I am optimistic about it. I pay $100/month. Right now, it works just about flawlessly on the freeway. If you turn it on when you are on the on-ramp, and turn it off when it delivers you to that first traffic light after you exit, it actually is maybe better than actually driving. It passes slower cars, it is way safer than I am at checking my blind spots. It uses the HOV lane at appropriate times. I enjoy letting it perform the chore of getting across 5 lanes of traffic in time for an exit much more than doing that myself. For local driving, it is still not perfect enough. It WILL get you home safe... but it is more stressful having it drive than driving myself. It pauses awkwardly sometimes... it makes an occasional wrong turn. It handles traffic lights and stop signs reasonably well but overall it's like driving with someone who is just learning to drive. It's more stressful than I prefer my transportation to be. That being said, I think in a couple of years it will stand as an incredible achievement. The driving behavior it exhibits is incredibly lifelike at times and it is really so close... like all engineering projects the last few percent is sometimes the hardest, but I can see it getting there. Edge cases.

throw9474 2y ago
Neural networks are fundamentally bad at edge cases. It won't get better.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Driving is an AGI-complete task. It literally requires presumptive modelling of other human beings in order to be safe. This bullshit "uh let's just navigate as if every other car is on rails" approach will never produce the safety claimed by FSD proponents.
dawnerd 2y ago
Autopilot works better than FSD for me on the freeway. If I turn on FSD I get lots of phantom braking and pretty out of no where lane changes that I'd call pretty abrupt and dangerous. No where near worth 100 dollars a month.
2y ago

freediver 2y ago

I got to test it and actually it wasn't that bad. Did several short trips and it navigated them reasonably well, but under increased scrutiny from me. The problem is even 99.99% good is not 100% good and for something that has your life in its hands, it has to be 100%. Arguably a human driver is not 100% either, but at least they understand the world around them on a fundamental level, plus they have a pretty dramatic forcing-function ('do not die') that instills confidence. An AI has nothing to lose and this makes a 99% safe AI system less trustworthy than a 80% safe human driver.

chaosprint 2y ago

Location: Norway. I haven't tried FSD, but I've used autopilot and cruise control. They don't inspire confidence, so I definitely wouldn't trust FSD, at least not currently. When using autopilot on a single-lane road with a 60 km/h speed limit, it performed a phantom emergency brake because there was an oncoming car (which was driving normally in its own lane) on a curve. Maybe I shouldn't have used autopilot in that situation? But what's even worse is the cruise control. It's a basic feature, yet Tesla's cruise control suddenly changed the speed limit to 30 km/h when passing through a tunnel with no signals and performed an emergency brake in an 80 km/h zone. This is incomprehensible. Not to mention the issues with noisy brakes, distorted sound effects. However, I don't want to switch to another car. I've driven Polestar 2, Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Nio ET5T, and none surpass Tesla. The only cars that make me consider switching are Lucid and Taycan, but they are in a different price range. With Norway soon stopping the sale of all gasoline cars, Tesla is almost the only choice. I just hope they can improve on these basic issues.

jahnu 2y ago
What do the other manufacturers need to improve to match the Tesla for your needs?
- chaosprint 2y ago
  Good chassis, directional control, self-developed motor and battery life management. app experience and charging experience.
  - jahnu 2y ago
    Interesting, thanks!
jjtheblunt 2y ago
You didn't mention BMW.
- chaosprint 2y ago

ZiiS 2y ago

Isn't the trial all people who have just decided not to buy FSD; changing the minds of 2% of them seems a masive win?

yesimahuman 2y ago

Not surprised. I tried it and immediately disabled it as it pulled me over a double yellow divider lane into oncoming traffic and I had to take control. And then it slowed extremely aggressively from a 35 to 25 speed change that almost certainly would have caused a driver behind me to rear end or at least be very annoyed (thankfully, there was none), and it was just unpleasant to experience as a driver and passenger. I did not feel confident using it any more after that.

ManuelKiessling 2y ago
I‘m wondering how this (final?) barrier is supposed to be overcome: no matter how absolutely perfect the technology might one day become, how are we going to bridge the gap between “manufacturers cannot legally build a system that deliberately breaks the law” and “actual traffic in the real world only works if sometimes, drivers do not adhere to the law perfectly”?

k2xl 2y ago

2% conversion for an 8K purchase is actually incredibly high. Bought in 2018 and v12 has been absolutely amazing. Next version 12.4 will also remove the steering wheel nag.

shreezus 2y ago

Anecdotally I have been using one of the newer versions (12.3.6) and it seems to have improved significantly, however still does "strange" things like unnecessary lane changes or slowing down unnaturally to speed limits (which no driver in LA does). Autopark works well for the most part but takes twice as long as if I were just park the vehicle myself. Elon claims the next version (12.4 / 12.5) will be milestone improvements in terms of miles per disengagement, but only time will tell.

Rinzler89 2y ago
>Elon claims [...] Allow me to stop you right there,

delabay 2y ago

The user reports in this thread are split about 50/50 between "it's horrible" and "I use it every time I drive" Narrative violation

weezin 2y ago

Not entirely convinced the point was to convert the customers to the 8k price today. Seems like the data gained during the demo is the most valuable part long term. They can rinse and repeat offering a demo, gaining data, releasing a new version. As it gets better conversions will increase. All while moving toward their long term goal of fully autonomous driving.

dhosek 2y ago

The other 2 percent were killed by it.

yegle 2y ago

FSD doesn't seem to talk to the on-car navigation system. When navigation tells you to "keep left", FSD happily changed lane to the right. It makes more sense to just use FSD as a Lane Keep Assistant System on highway, with occasional surprises like switching to a faster lane mostly automated.

gwbas1c 2y ago

It's just not worth $8k to me. My Model Y is underwater on its loan because of all of Tesla's price drops. My Model 3 would require a hardware upgrade, and I don't think I'll keep it long enough to justify the upgrade. I really liked the FSD trial, (even though it was very glitchy,) but I'm just not spending more money on a car that's underwater on its loan. Even though FSD was glitchy, (entered a road without stopping, nearly got into an accident trying to take an exit,) I really enjoyed FSD. Specifically, I really enjoyed it on the freeway. I just don't see it as something that's worth an eye-watering amount of money, especially on a car that's underwater, or a car that I'll probably replace in 3-4 years. I really wish Tesla offered a deep discount on FSD as goodwill for those of us who bought the Model Y right before they dropped the price. It's really hard to justify spending that kind of money after the car's value dropped so quickly. $8k might be what Tesla needs to charge to break even, but as anyone involved in business knows, what something is worth is what someone is willing to pay, not what it costs to make.

Zigurd 2y ago

The real world experiences here are a good basis for predicting that the development emphasis on making a robotaxi later this year will be a dumpster fire. It's hard to believe it wasn't taken for self parody when Elon announced it on an earnings call. Just going from sitting in the driver's seat to sitting in the back seat would require that, by now, FSD would have to be reliably comfortable and the only issue with not using it would be price. There are safer-than-Uber, but still not flawless, robotaxis in limited areas. We know what it takes to get there. We also know it has to be done with great care and a huge amount of preparation. It isn't cheap or fast.