Counter-counterpoint: I’ve been using it since 2019. I think you’re exaggerating.
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It aggressively tries to center itself, always. If you’re in a lane and it merges with a second lane, the car will swerve sharply to the right as it attempts to go back to the middle of the lane.
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It doesn’t allow space for cars to merge until the cars are already merging. It doesn’t work with traffic; it does its own thing and is discourteous to other drivers. It doesn’t read turn signals; it only reacts to drivers getting over.
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If a motorcycle is lane-splitting, it doesn’t move out of the way for the motorcycle. In fact, it assumes anything between lanes isn’t an issue. If something is partially blocking a lane but the system doesn’t recognize it as fully “your lane”, the default is to ignore it. The number of times I’ve had to disengage to dodge a wide load or a camper straddling two lanes is crazy.
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With the removal of radar, phantom braking has become far, far worse. Any kind of weather condition causes issues. Even if you drive at sunset, the sun can dazzle the cameras and they don’t detect things that they should be able to - or worse, they detect problems which aren’t there.
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It doesn’t understand road hazards. It will happily hit a pothole at 70 MPH. It will ignore road flares and traffic cones. When the lanes aren’t clearly marked (because the paint has worn away or because of construction), it can have dramatic behavior.
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It waits so long to brake, and when it brakes it brakes hard. It accelerates just as suddenly, leading to a very jerky ride that makes my passengers carsick.
The only time I trust FSD is when it’s stop-and-go traffic. Beyond that I have to pay so much attention to the thing that I might as well just drive myself. The “worst thing it can do” isn’t just detour; it’s “smash into the thing that it thought wasn’t an issue”.
I have only been driving a Tesla for a few days in 2022, but i fully agree with you, i wanted to specifically test the FSD and i had so many incidents where it tried to get into an appearing turning lane, even tough it should go straight, just straight up slowed to 10kph in a Tunnel where speed limit was 50, and there were blind corners because of “bad vision conditions” even the cruise control was annoying, it felt like my steering input was basically just a “suggestion” that i sometimes really had to force through against the will of the car because otherwise bad shit would’ve happened… Sports mode steering made that only slightly better in the dual motor Model Y
Overall I enjoyed driving the ID3 more actually… at least that had solid and responsive steering that felt - compared to the Tesla - like driving a sports car… and i’ve driven the ID3 directly after the Tesla.
Only good thing about the Tesla was acceleration.
It doesn’t read turn signals
It does in the FSD beta (somewhat). It even brakes and allows them in if it detects that they have a signal on. It doesn’t understand merges as well, but it’s still better than regular autopilot. All your other points are pretty valid. I am constantly taking it out of AP Ana putting it back in during a city drive, even though I have “FSD”.
