I used it every day and it does almost all of my daily driving. If it never improves from where it is now, it will be worth the $6k I paid for it.
And yeah, you gotta watch it and pay attention.
And yeah, you gotta watch it and pay attention.
They never, ever are. We do not enforce good driving except after people die (or even then, vehicular homicide has low sentences).
Of course there are cases the system doesn't work at all and is not well suited for surface roads very well.
Its behavior is very predictable and easy to feel when its seeing something I'm not. (Slowing down to match speed 1:1 with the car in front of me when they let off the gas is a common example)
If something happens suddenly in that range, you might not be able to brake in time even if you were driving at just 20 mph.
You might actually mean a longer distance?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Safe-driving-distance-2-...
No such luck with this ridiculous software. An incoming train that any human (with normal sight) would have no problems to detect? The car drives right into it. You literally have to pay full attention during even the simplest of situations because there is no way to understand how this piece of software actually thinks, much less to predict how it will misbehave.
Today it's an incoming train that's painted white, tomorrow is a cricket on the road that causes it swerve onto oncoming traffic, or a small paint chip on a traffic sign that causes the OCR to read "speed limit 200" instead of 20.
To be fair, failing to yield to oncoming traffic when turning left is an extremely common mistake for human drivers to make as well.
In fact, earlier in the video, the car correctly yielded to an oncoming car, the human driver overrode it, then complained that the oncoming car "cut him off"! https://youtu.be/yxX4tDkSc_g?t=494
By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion.
And before i hear a "That's exclusionary", yes, excluding people unable to be safe while driving 2 tons of steel launched at high speeds is a good thing
I'm a private pilot though and what you're describing sounds a lot like the autopilots on small planes. It handles keeping course and altitude for you, so you can focus on the rest of the flight and it is indeed way less taxing than hand flying a longer distance. And like Tesla, a plane autopilot will occasionally do something weird so you can't entirely ignore it. I would think the difference though is that in a plane, nothing the autopilot does will be fatal or dangerous very quickly, so you have plenty of time to notice and correct it as long as you aren't sleeping or something. When you're driving a car though, a second of steering in the wrong direction can quickly turn into an accident, so you as the driver have to be constantly ready to immediately take over. Even in the chance is low, as long as it's often enough to be a factor, you still need that instant readiness.
I wonder if the value is more on longer drives, as you said, vs city driving. The fatigue factor driving between cities is a bigger issue, and the driving tasks are simpler with less opportunity for the car to do something crazy than in busy city driving.
Assuming you know its strengths and weaknesses. See next post, below.
I'm wondering if "reducing major components of normal driving behavior" is such a good idea?
What I'm getting at-- the delusion/illusion that the brain/mind is somehow separate from the body-- that learning can all be in the abstract without any connection to tangible reality.
How can you make throttle decisions if you don't have throttle control? Wouldn't having throttle control at all times mean you have more awareness of the machine you are controlling and can thus decide faster and act better? Because this control is already part of your thoughts?
As others have said, I cannot fathom how having to babysit an occasionally suicidal driving system is better than having no system at all. It seems perfectly balanced at the absolutely worst point of both being reliable enough that you stop paying attention, but unreliable enough that it catches you not paying attention.
If an FSD system really let me sit and watch a movie or read or book or something -- if it was that good -- then I 100% get it and would be signed up. But one that you have to babysit seems worse than pointless.
As someone who has driven a Tesla 10s of thousands of km now and was driving for decades before, I disagree. I can see why you'd think that, however it's like a muscle that's been tight for years. You're so used to it, you don't noticr it anymore. Once it loosens, you're surprised how much better it feels.
Once I let me guard down, was not paying attention, the road markings went missing annd the car almost ran straight into oncoming traffic.
It wasn't a Tesla but a similar thing.
Even if Tesla Autopilot was significantly safer than a human driver I know I would still struggle knowing a love one died because the AI in my car decide to make a really stupid (albeit unlikely) decision. Right or wrong, human error is something we've always tolerated in society. If you're using a power tool and injure yourself, so long as there is nothing that can be reasonably done to make that tool safer, it's on you. But if once in a blue moon the tool malfunctions and injures you, that is something we don't tolerate.
It seems Autopilot at the moment exists in this in-between place where the driver assumes full responsibility so all situations are considered human error even if the AI is clearly malfunctioning. The more advanced autopilot gets the more we're going to have to question whether it's reasonable for the driver to expect autopilot to malfunction and take full responsibility for their car's actions.
I am a MUCH safer driver with autopilot/FSD than without.
So, to your devil's advocate, I am sure I would blame myself if my family member died while driving my car no matter what the car was. But FSD in my car has prevented accidents for me and my family.
Edited to add: I don't want to pretend it is without risks. My biggest fear with FSD/autopilot is that it requires a constant understanding of who is in control. And that is the thing I stress to my friends/family. Your #1 job, and the thing that can kill you, is thinking that autopilot is engaged when it isn't and running a red light or driving off the road on an interstate exit.
Tesla gave me a loaner for a couple days while my car was in the shop. The loaner did not have FSD, and there were a couple of times I expected it to stop and it didn't. It was mentally tough b/c it was familiar like my car, but it wasn't my car.
You need to meditate on this. Hard. You're more right than even you realize. Your cars behavior will change on you overnight. Your access to charging infra, or even the capacity to access the full capabilities of your vehicle are locked away, and prone to change from day to day. You don't get to opt out. You don't get to say "No, this is fine exactly as is."
What you believe is your car, is by no means your car.
It seems dangerous to drive without doing that.
Look, there are some things I really like about your reply, and I applaud your approach to this.
My question is this: If you are the pilot, how do you communicate with the FSD to have it execute the maneuvers? What is the command interface? What is the level of "manouver" ("drive to the grocery store" vs "angle the front wheels 7 degrees to the left to initiate a left turn")
> "there were a couple of times I expected [the loaner] to stop and it didn't."
So these times, in your car, are circumstances where you expect the car to stop. Did you (as the pilot) tell the car to execute the stopping manouver?
> Your #1 job, and the thing that can kill you, is thinking that autopilot is engaged when it isn't and running a red light "
What if it is engaged and still decides to run a red light? Or to suddenly brake to a full stop on a highway so you get rear-ended?
The Teslas don't drive particularly aggressively, so you're quite aware ahead of time if it's not slowing down to stop for a red light.
> Or to suddenly brake to a full stop on a highway so you get rear-ended?
This is harder to deal with as, if it happened, it could be very sudden. That being said, if someone rear ends you for stopping, it's their fault (unless you braked in bad faith, like a brake check). Not that it would make you feel much better if you got injured or killed in such an incident.
On the other hand, many manufacturers have automatic emergency braking systems that occasionally incorrectly brake, and humans occasionally incorrectly emergency brake too. I have emergency braked due to a plastic bag blowing across the highway. Tesla on the whole seems to perform well compared to most vehicles AEB systems.
- turn signal to initiate a turn. - scroll up/down on the right steering wheel control to increase/decrease max speed - left/right on the right steering wheel control to increase/decrease follow distance - nudge the gas pedal to be a little more aggressive (starting from a stop sign, executing a turn that FSD has already started signaling, etc - and sometimes I just take control via brake or stalk. I generally don't disengage with the wheel since that keeps the speed on auto.
As for when the loaner didn't stop, it didn't have FSD. So while it looked like my car, it didn't have the same features as my car (just basic autopilot, not FSD).
I have not had situations where FSD was engaged and failed to stop or brake from highway speeds.
Stopping at stop signs / red lights is the biggest game changer. But all of the driving stuff is useful.
That's what I don't get. You say it's useful. That implies you're doing something you weren't able to before, or getting some extra utility out of it, yet, from my understanding, you legally speaking should be no less attentive in the operation of this vehicle than any other.
In fact, you let your family operate it in FSD? Are you really doing them any favors? Driving is hard enough without having to consciously override an additional source of errors. You may be unintentionally training them to operate Autopilot/FSD instead of driving safely in general.
A guy I know said the tech is so good you let your guard down.
He said there are days on 101 around 4:30 when he puts his sunglasses on and closes his eyes. He knows he taking a calculated risk. He's in bumper to bumper traffic.
He also said their were times he let the car drive home, with one eye open because he was tired.
With tech that good, I can see where drivers let their guard down compared to a guy in a old truck with a clutch. A vehicle he knows inside and out. A vehicle that needs his constant attention because of the sketchy alignment done years ago. Plus--he just can't afford a fender bender, or worse an ever increasing frantic fine. Hell--the stress of the old car might keep him more alert? Kinda like being in the woods when you know it's your wits, or a bear might tear you apart?
A vehicle he can drive as well and as effortlessly as a pro marathon runner can run. A vehicle that needs as little attention as his legs when walking. Because he knows it inside and out, he knows how the sketchy alignment affects handling at low speeds and at high speeds.
I was going to say "aw well as he can walk", but then I remembered that many American's are not good walkers.
nice that you brought up fender-benders, though. That old truck, probably doesn't matter if the fender bends a little more. VS cost to repair the tesla if it gets a ding...