FSD for a month
I purchased “advanced autopilot” for my 2023 TeslaModel Y and have been happy with the purchase so far, but was disappointed when some of the functionality wasn’t there day 1.
It’s now April 2024 and the latest update gave me autopark for both parallel and general parking spots. I’ve tested both of those and they work well.
The other cool thing that came out a few days ago was free FSD for a month. I was really excited to try this out to see if in town driving could be enhanced in some way. It’s now been three days and here is my verdict right now.
- Acceleration and turning with Theo (my dog) in the car is too fast
- Does not drive well on side streets so I’m constantly intervening
- Does not drive naturally on arterials so I end up disengaging FSD there as well
- On the highways/freeways it does as well as my advanced autopilot does
I went to pick up a sandwich for lunch and since I wasn’t bringing my dog (Theo) it made sense to give it another try. The first 1/2 mile went fairly well, but at an intersection it got confused by some orange cones due to road construction so I intervened and took over. I then let it take over again and within a few hundred feet intervened again due to how slowly and hesitantly it was driving in an area where there wasn’t anything to be hesitant about. I drove the rest of the way myself to my destination and back.
Will continue to try and provide feedback when I’m able, but won’t impact the flow of traffic or cause my dog to be flung about in the back.
Update: May 30, 2024
The improvements to FSD in the past month have made using it much more enjoyable. I still do not use it in town with Theo in the car.
I used it to drive from Spokane to the Oregon Coast (Gleneden, OR) and on the interstates it worked extremely well. I did turn off auto lane changes as we got closer to large cities like Portland, but other than that it worked very well for the almost 800 miles there and back.
I spent about $60 round trip which includes the amount to charge the car at home to 100% before leaving and then two stops on the way there and three on the way home. The longest stop was around 15 minutes, but Theo needed to walk and relieve himself so the car was done far before we were ready to continue driving.
Update: Sep 15, 2024
FSD 12.x.x is still great on the Interstates, but still has occasional problems with city driving. This is why it’s called “supervised” FSD and I wish more people would remember this. Too many news reports of people who just let the car be on its own.