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Comment by wazoox | Hacker News Reader

Tesla once looked futuristic, but now they're sorely lacking : automatic windscreen wipers still don't work properly (they work perfectly well on my 2005 Ford Focus, thank you), they now lack basic ergonomic features such as a turn signal lever, their "self driving" feature is horribly lagging behind most other makers (constant phantom braking still a recurring problem after years and years, no proper automatic overtaking, inferior speed control and speed limit enforcement, etc).

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I've not had phantom braking for a year or so, I used to have one per week. I'm happy with the speed control. I like the display of current speed limit and use the scroll wheel to control the delta against the current speed limit.

I have FSD, but don't use it, so I don't let the car dry to automatically overtake anyone.

There are apparently two things that particularly trigger phantom braking : bright sun and dark shadows on the road, for instance roads lined with trees are pretty bad; also flashing yellow traffic lights (normally means that you can simply proceed prudently, but apparently the Tesla system often interprets it as a "yellow about to turn red" signal and stops abruptly instead).

> their "self driving" feature is horribly lagging behind most other makers (constant phantom braking still a recurring problem after years and years, no proper automatic overtaking, inferior speed control and speed limit enforcement, etc)

Who are these makers that allegedly outclass Autopilot/FSD?

Haven't ridden in one, but I think Mercedes' Drive Pilot is supposed to be a contender:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892154/mercedes-benz-dr...

Drive Pilot just follows the car in front and has several limitations, it doesn't even have overtaking, so I would be surprised since the parent poster says lack of automatic overtaking is a limitation.

Drive Pilot:

Works only when behind another car, it just follows that car

Cannot change lanes

Works only under 40MPH

Works only in daylight, does not work at night

Does not work in rain

Works only in traffic jams and heavy traffic

Works only on a few pre-approved roads

How is the world is FSD "severely lagging behind" this tech when FSD has none of these limitations?

Something weird about how the Mercedes tech is hyped up in message forums.

Yes, it does have a lot of limitations, though I suppose one argument would be that if Mercedes isn't willing to do autonomy without a lot of caveats that's because they're risk averse (or at least their lawyers are).

Haven’t used it myself but every auto journalist YouTube video I’ve seen on SuperCruise says it’s the best in the class. I had the model 3 FSD thirty day trial, it was ok, but not $7000 ok.

As for Autopilot.. almost everybody has good lane keeping/radar cruise tech now. My 18 Acura was as good as Autopilot, and maybe better than “post LiDAR” autopilot.

From all the tests I've made recently, BMW, Mercedes, BYD and Renault all do better than Tesla. Push the left turn signal, the car switches lane, accelerates and overtakes by itself. In the EU at least Teslas can't seem to get this right.

Also Teslas are among the lasts (with X-Peng) in their price range lacking a capacitive steering wheel (doesn't require moving the wheel, a light touch from time to time is enough to keep cruise control on).

And none of them suffers from the dangerous "phantom braking" defect, which occurs almost certainly at least once for any one-hour long trip.

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