About to order a Model 3 AWD. Does FSD do enough now to justify the price? Owners with FSD, are you using it and how well is it working?
If you like giving zero interest loans with limited odds of ever receiving payback? My opinion is Tesla FSD will never be real Full Self Driving, in a number of years they may roll out more features on their A/P suite, however you have to decide of those buggy features are really worth your money. Many of the features are practically worthless in the real world unless they work in a ratio somewhere around two to the minus ninth. Looking at the other FSD players mainly Waymo, and Cruise Automation both of which have much larger design teams, more money, cars with way more sensors and redundancy, and they still do not have real Full Self Driving, they are both miles closer than Tesla, but its harder than just some machine learning algorithm, programming the cheap, low power computer Tesla designed. Do not get lost in the fact Elon Promised FSD cross country trip in 2016, and I still do not remember seeing that, then the timeline pushed, and pushed. There is no silver bullet to Full Self Driving, there is not one magic algorithm that is coming out next week that solves all the issues. This is hard, and Tesla will struggle (has been struggling) just like the others to perfect it. BTW, if you are going to order a Model 3, wait until mid August (at Least) to think about it as the July numbers are going to be terrible based on registrations so far in the USA and Europe, and I would guess further discounts are coming, especially on the AWD & P model as they have a higher margin. You do not want to be one of the fools who buys right before they go on sale.
My understanding is basic AutoPilot is part of the purchase. That is what I ordered as a separate line item. Since then, I've found it pretty good with a few, easily avoidable problems but not everyone sings the praises: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/how-much-do-you-trust-basic-autopilot.154099/#post-3695216 https://teslaownersonline.com Personally I'm an AutoPilot fan because I spend time replicating problems others report. This means I avoid the 'surprise' when something goes 'boink.' As for pre-ordering FSD, I have hardware 2.5 and your car will have hardware 3.0. I didn't order FSD and will wait until others have 'led the way.' If you need a referral code, we can both get some free SuperCharger miles. Bob Wilson
I'm not counting on true self driving, I think that could be as much as 10 years away. What I'm asking is FSD, as it exists today, useful. The basic AP package does less than the Volt I'll be trading in. The Volt has lane keep and self parking, those features are included in FSD on the Tesla not in AP. I'm also unclear as to how much collision avoidance AP has vs FSD, would someone care to enlighten me about that. BTW I haven't used the self parking feature on the Volt because I don't trust it and also the Volt is so small that I haven't needed it, in a world of F150s and Silverados it's really easy to park a car the size of the Volt into a space that was previously occupied by a monster truck. I have used lane keep on occasion but it only works under the best of circumstances and it's so limited that it doesn't really help. FSD has navigate on autopilot and it can, in theory, do much more than lane keep on the Volt because it can change lanes on it's own. What I would like to know is how well it does it, if it's like the Volt's lane keep, i.e. only working when the lines are bright and clear, then it wouldn't be worth it.
Basic AutoPilot save me and my wife when I had five 'micro-sleep' events a month after taking delivery. I've also found it useful in very heavy rain and poor visibility fog. There is a growing body of YouTube videos documenting what today's AutoPilot does to avoid or mitigate accidents. I've used the parallel parking only once when I accidentally got it into self-parking mode. We also have self-parking in our BMW i3-REx which works but it is a nimble, small car. There are degrees of lane keeping in discussion in the "Tesla Motors Club" and "Tesla Owners Online." Lane Keep Assist - holds the lane but tends to wander between the lines. My limited experience is OK but no show stopper. Basic AutoPilot - keeps the car between the lines which sometimes can be exciting when "one lane becomes two", "curb line disappears or curves off" (can steer for the forward-right curb.) If you don't practice with the car, you can be 'surprised' at the wrong time. Practice makes these events easily identifiable. But I drove 711 miles from Huntsville to Detroit solo using basic AutoPilot and it handled 99% of my highway miles and about 50% of my urban miles. The same on the way back, only 699 miles using a better route. Bob Wilson
Back when I was getting a new Model 3, I decided that I was not going to purchase FSD immediately due to price, but was hoping for Tesla to provide another sale at a greatly reduced price like they did earlier this year (March time frame). Hence, I was willing to spend 3k for it's current capabilities, but 6k seemed like too much and 8k after-the-fact was a definite no. I ended up purchasing a used Model 3 with FSD already; I was blessed. I use it daily to work (highway), but depending on traffic I may not use FSD on the way home since local roads are sometimes quicker. Auto lane change still works on local roads (passing slower traffic or if I turn on the signal) with autopilot engaged, but unfortunately autopilot doesn't work like FSD on the highway due to a +5 mph speed limit compared to posted speeds (if everyone is driving 55 mph in a 45, it stinks to be limited to 50). I had to put the lane change to "Mad Max" mode because the aggressive drivers in Texas made all other modes useless. I sometimes get weird looks from people if the car starts to change lanes, but the person behind comes up too quick or changes with me, and the car darts back into the original lane. Sometimes the car is not as aggressive as I would be, but it's super easy to take over and reinstate FSD I have yet to use auto-park, just looked up the speed limitations on that, I guess I drive to fast through parking lots or it never recognizes the opportunities. I'm looking forward to "enhanced" summon to show it off to people. It may become useful I'm looking forward to the system working on city streets and how it will handle intersections. Last weekend I shared a laugh with my wife. We were going out on a date, but I was taking the usual way I drive to work. My mind was on autopilot and I was driving to work without even thinking about it, even though we had the address of the place we were going to already punched into navigation. After making the mistake, I decided to enable FSD. 2 more times my wife tried correcting me and I told her the car knows where it's going it's following the blue line.
