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Comment by browningstreet | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone purchased or leased a Tesla lately, and could you share your decision on the FSD option?

My lease is up in a bit and I’m considering a Model Y or a Mach-e. Something could come out soon that’s a contender, but I can’t imagine what.

Can’t imagine opting in for FSD in 2021.

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I got a Model 3 on lease in 2019, and stumped up the extra for FSD. I switched jobs last year and had to return it. When I ordered another I didn't consider getting FSD for a moment. In the months that I had FSD, it rarely enabled navigate on autopilot. Even with this caution, it managed to do something that scared me almost every time it was enabled. e.g. pulling out in front of another car when overtaking, or taking a corner much too fast. Eventually it got to the point that I didn't dare enable it, and certainly not with anyone else in the car. Meanwhile, advanced summon was basically useless, only working when I was almost next to the car, and then only driving at about 3 mph, and once again taking dangerous routes. Self-parking was fun, but nothing that plenty of other cars don't have too. Regular summon is useful for tight spots, but that's about it. I think that's the only thing I miss, and even that's mostly a party trick.

The actually usable stuff - namely autopilot - is available without FSD. All this said, the car is great, even though FSD is a con.

I bought a Model Y without FSD back in August and I really, really like (love?) the car. Almost everything about it is forward looking/thinking and the only thing I would really change is the front hood latch.

I've been thinking about FSD for a while but I'm less and less likely to pony up $10k for it. I would like to get several other features that are bundled with it though. Things like Autopark, Auto Lane Change, (Smart) Summon, and Traffic & Stop Sign Control[0] would be super valuable to me and if they were available separately I would definitely be more inclined to purchase them. Maybe that's why they are not un-bundled though; no one would purchase FSD otherwise.

[0] https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot

Just bought 2021 Model 3 SR+. Did not opt for the FSD package because the features it delivers were no worth $10k to me. The included Autopilot is more than sufficient for my foreseeable needs.

For me, “foreseeable” also includes FSD actually becoming a real software package we can download for a fee. I expect that package along with Tesla Network would be worth somewhere around $US30k/year for the first couple of years until no more taxis are driven by humans.

I also expect that either FSD/TN will become available as a subscription option where I can send my car to take part in Tesla Network while I am not using it, or I will be able to finance the purchase of a new FSD capable vehicle and the car will earn me enough money to cover the cost of ownership and participation in TN ie: it will cover the cost of commercial registration and insurance, tyres, maintenance, and payments on the principal + interest loan used to purchase the vehicle. I don’t expect it to be printing money for me, but I do expect a better ROI than having my money in a term deposit or superannuation (somewhat like 401(k)) account.

IMHO once any vehicle hits the commercial market with fully autonomous capability, the concept of private ownership of passenger vehicles will be dead within ten years.

I fully expect this Model 3 to be the last car I buy for my own use. I anticipate robot taxis being reality within a decade, even for limited scenarios such as inside specific geofences covering the “safe” roads inside a city’s metropolitan limits, and the well maintained highways linking those geofences regions.

In the meantime I am enjoying the comfort of a car designed for long distance travel with pleasant seats, quiet interior (quieter than my Jazz), and reasonably attractive styling.

2019 M3 SR+ - payed for FSD, am somewhat disappointed. Although it is amazing, it’s nowhere near autonomous. I think it’s very hard to review because it’s a rare person who’s owned multiple brand new 2020-era cars to be able to have a reasonable view of the comparative difference. My wife -loves- it and I really only use it in traffic or late at night.

I like the feature but in its current state is not worth the money.

Unlike many many others here, I think self driving is closer than we think. Mostly because humans are horrific drivers, not because robots are great. Even a pretty bad robot is better than plenty of people on the road. If robots drove badly and made mistakes but didn’t, say, ever run a red light or pass on the right, they would probably be safer. Pragmatism over idealism. I think Tesla is certainly liable for their marketing claims - and I don’t mean this as a defense of Tesla whatsoever - but are we all going to pretend we believe marketing? McDonalds burgers don’t look like they do on TV and AI required careful supervision - that’s life.

Bought a Model Y last month. I did not opt for FSD.

If the rumors come true and they offer it as a monthly subscription service, I might buy it for a few months at a time for summer road trips. Navigate on Autopilot would make a long drive like that more comfortable.

But otherwise I made the decision on the feature set it has now, and I can’t justify spending 20% of the car’s price on that.

If they brought out the “enhanced autopilot” feature they offered in the EU for roughly equivalent to USD $4000 I’d jump on that in an instant.

2020 M3 SR+. Comes with "autopilot" which is fine and all but not FSD. I might buy whatever FSD turns out to be but I'm not paying for a promise...

Unfortunately there is a lot of bias that creeps in when you ask people whether their very expensive add-on is worth it or not. So it's not a particularly good idea to ask owners what they think.

The best thing is to be objective. Tesla's FSD implementation based on their videos suffers from one major fault: object detection. Why ? Because they rely on low resolution cameras and even the best algorithms we have today are very far from perfect. Without detecting objects 100% of the time you simply can't do full service driving.

That's why companies which have LiDAR i.e. Cruise and Waymo are so far ahead despite not having as much training data to work with nor the head start that Tesla had.

So my opinion would be by all means buy a Tesla but the facts are that FSD is not done and there is a good chance it will never be done without a hardware upgrade.

I bought a model Y with FSD a few months ago. It’s fantastic. “Navigate on autopilot” is game changing for highway driving. It’s 80% a useful as a completely self driving car.

Till it tries to kill you like going from a stop and go lane into the car pool lane moving at 60mph. Or it thinks concrete barrier is a lane. FSD is a joke on a Tesla. Smart summon has ran my car up on curbs and NoA has tried to kill me.

Here's one example of NoA trying to run me into a wall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRSbJ6uxGck

What is this showing? It just looks like its staying in the leftmost lane.

Went over the yellow line as it tried to change lanes into the concrete barrier before i yanked the wheel back. Most times it tries to change lanes into the barrier i disable it when the signal comes on for the impending lane change.

Dont get me started up on autopilot not detecting stalled cars in car pool lane.

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