Their website now prominently states “supervised” since they got into so much hot water overselling the capabilities.
Tesla FSD is really in a pointless middle ground where the steep $99/month they ask for it is just not worth it.
It does basically nothing for you on the highway to alleviate fatigue above and beyond a standard adaptive cruise control system you can find in a Volkswagen Jetta.
The FSD on city streets is not autonomous enough to take away supervision so for the 10-20 minutes people typically spend driving in city traffic situations before reaching their destination it’s not saving a whole lot of effort to just…drive yourself.
I would think if I owned a car that wasn’t an old ass beater like I have I would mainly benefit from adaptive cruise control on long trips and perhaps some convenience stuff like automatic parking.
There’s diminishing returns to luxuries like this. You’ve found it to be worth it personally, but my point isn’t that a single individual won’t like it, my point is that most drivers don’t really need it and shouldn’t go out of their way to compromise on other aspects of the vehicle to get it.
I would compare this to a niche luxury feature like cooled or massaged seats. The people who seek out those features swear by them but it’s not good advice to tell an average person to spend the money on them, and they aren’t universally praised by people who try them.
I like watching my wealth grow in investments rather than investing in depreciating assets like vehicles. My attention at the wheel in my paid off 12 year old Mazda is free, and I’m still safer than any automated system for the time being (Tesla has the worst fatal accident rate of any brand [1] so I assume that FSD can’t be all that safe)
I also like reducing how much I drive wherever I can rather than band-aiding the problem of driving fatigue with driving automation. Driving less is a solution to driving fatigue. Taking public transit is a solution to driving fatigue. The $30k it costs to buy a gently used Tesla would be better invested in a down payment on an appreciating house or condo in a less car-dependent neighborhood. Hell, moving to the Netherlands and buying a bicycle doesn’t even cost $30k.
That means only 18% of Tesla vehicles sold are subscribed. That also means, to your point, a non-zero amount of customers don’t use the feature and forgot to unsubscribe.
For a feature billed as “transformative” that’s not a very good number.
Tesla FSD is really in a pointless middle ground where the steep $99/month they ask for it is just not worth it.
It does basically nothing for you on the highway to alleviate fatigue above and beyond a standard adaptive cruise control system you can find in a Volkswagen Jetta.
The FSD on city streets is not autonomous enough to take away supervision so for the 10-20 minutes people typically spend driving in city traffic situations before reaching their destination it’s not saving a whole lot of effort to just…drive yourself.
I would think if I owned a car that wasn’t an old ass beater like I have I would mainly benefit from adaptive cruise control on long trips and perhaps some convenience stuff like automatic parking.