Experience after driving a Model X with FSD

[swhme]

I’m in ATX this weekend and rented a 2021 MX P100D with FSD Beta on Turo. I had autopilot on my ‘15 Model S (which still had radar in addition to cameras) and we subscribed to FSD for a month last summer on my wife’s ‘21 Model Y.

A few impressions:

1. I can’t believe that FSD is publicly available. I’ve driven 150 miles so far, and twice have had to take over to prevent an accident. One time, it pulled up to a stop light, stopped fully, then accelerated hard into the intersection while cross traffic was whizzing across at 50mph.
2. 90% of the time, it’s pretty amazing. 10% of the time it drives like a drunk 15 year old.
3. It’s SUPER aggressive, even in the middle setting for aggressiveness. It’ll try to pass a car on the highway that’s going 2mph slower than my set speed when we’re half a mile from our exit.
4. My favorite thing about the Model X is the drivers door, which opens when you walk up to it. No more juggling to open the door when your hands are full. I would LOVE to see this on the R1 in the future, would be a nice luxury feature to move the R1 up-market when the R2 comes out. (Soft-close doors, too, rather than the R1’s slammers)

But this experience has really solidified what I want from Driver+:

• Lane changing. I’m fine if I have to manually trigger this with my blinker, but it should be able to change lanes on its own.
• Traffic light recognition. Ding when the light changes. Love this.
• Any road activation. Let me turn on Driver+ on a congested 6-lane road with traffic lights, and have it start/stop as needed. It does NOT need to be able to make turns for me. I can take over when it’s time to turn onto a different road. Also, let me turn on Driver+ on a rural 2-lane highway.
• Bonus points for being able to navigate highway interchanges— I would rather have that than surface street navigation.

Alright, that’s all for my opinion nobody asked for and nobody cares about ?

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[COdogman]

You must be mistaken or work for a Tesla competitor... FSD is perfect and so is Elon.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

EAP works great on the highway. FSDB is very stressful on off highway situations.

I would like driver + to be able to change lanes and also no try to exit the highway on turns. Other than that it works great.

 

[CGM55082]

I would just like Driver+ to work without randomly notifying me to take over because the interstate I'm on isn't fully mapped. We're talking the 101 in California and it's not fully mapped. I think that's more dangerous than anything, because it literally just stops working after giving you a very short warning.

 

[PBRAZ]

All these self driving features are completely useless and as evident by this and other plenty of other threads, extremely dangerous. Here's a novel concept: drive the damn car yourself. Every time you engage it you're not only endangering the lives of you and your passengers, but the lives of others around you. I have a wife and kids...certainly don't need some prick who thinks it's cool for a car to drive itself to cause an accident. The technology isn't there yet and won't be for a long time. Until then, stop being a selfish ***hole and keep your hands on the wheel and foot on the pedals.

 

[jwanderson88]

Rivian's driver assist is very useful in slow and go traffic. It speeds up the truck and slows down along with the traffic. This frees you from a nerve-wracking task. I use it a lot where I can. I've noticed there is a lot of variation in how long it will let you take your hand off for some reason. Sometimes it's like every five seconds. I agree with the suggestions the OP made. I think it's very dependable. I wonder if anyone has had the car leave the lane when using drive assist. I disagree with the last post that it is dangerous.

 

[jebinc]

I have FSDb (beta) in my Plaid. It’s junk. On TMC forum, FSDb is referred to as FSDj, where “j” stands for “junk”.

 

[SactownD]

Driver + is hugely disappointing in my 1 week old R1S. On a straight highway it’s fine. On the way from Sacramento to Tahoe, on the 80, it drifts around in its lane around corners and sometimes out of its lane. When big rigs are present I have to take control to avoid a collision. The adaptive cruise control also disengages on a regular basis when a vehicle is present in the adjacent lane while cornering: it doesn’t seem to be able to determine that although the car is directly in line of site of the vehicle it is in a different lane. When it happens the vehicle suddenly decelerates which is concerning for any passengers and anyone that may be following behind me. This technology has a very long way to go.

 

[Golfer04]

Rivian's driver assist is very useful in slow and go traffic. It speeds up the truck and slows down along with the traffic. This frees you from a nerve-wracking task. I use it a lot where I can. I've noticed there is a lot of variation in how long it will let you take your hand off for some reason. Sometimes it's like every five seconds. I agree with the suggestions the OP made. I think it's very dependable. I wonder if anyone has had the car leave the lane when using drive assist. I disagree with the last post that it is dangerous.

Public acceptance of this technology will be interesting. It won't be perfect, but it also won't be long before it is better than human driving. I'm not currently a fan and prefer to control the wheel myself, but what happens when there are fewer accidents when vehicles are using this stuff than when a person is driving? Recognizing that the technology won't be perfect, but that doesn't mean it won't be better than a person.

 

[Joe Hoffman]

There's not many of us that are old enough to remember when power steering and cruise control technology started to show up in 'upscale' cars. It was also criticized by many due to safety concerns. "Power steering... I don't want some hydraulic pump taking over my steering wheel...". And "Cruise control... some computer deciding to accelerate? You gotta be kidding". Eventually these became standard features in every car and damn few of us would buy a car without them. Self Driving will get there, but of course it's much more complex so it will also take a while.

What I can't wait for is the AI in my vehicle to decide that I'm the safety risk and refuse to go forward unless I get out of the vehicle. Labeled "unpredictable", "emotional", and "32% of the time wrong". Oh that will be a fun day...

 

[JonW716]

All these self driving features are completely useless and as evident by this and other plenty of other threads, extremely dangerous. Here's a novel concept: drive the damn car yourself. Every time you engage it you're not only endangering the lives of you and your passengers, but the lives of others around you. I have a wife and kids...certainly don't need some prick who thinks it's cool for a car to drive itself to cause an accident. The technology isn't there yet and won't be for a long time. Until then, stop being a selfish ***hole and keep your hands on the wheel and foot on the pedals.

Your point is completely valid but the technology will never improve without testing and feedback, nor will the bugs be discovered. You have to hold the wheel or else it will slam on the brakes on the third notification to put your hands on the wheel. If and when you use it make sure you pay attention and be ready to intervene if the need arises. The people who don't fall into the category you so elegantly portrayed in the last sentence of your post.

 

[KBabione]

I use Driver+ every time I take a trip on a road where it's enabled. I like how it "yells" at me if I'm not constantly gripping the steering wheel - it's a great reminder that it's "assisting" me, not "driving" for me. I've definitely had it turn off as I encourage it to move a little further away from a semi, but then I'm able to re-engage without a problem.

I also love the adaptive cruise control any time I'm in traffic. This weekend I was in a NJ shore town (Beach Haven on LBI) and it's 6 miles of traffic lights that turn green and red in groups of four during the summer season (in the off season they are just blinking yellow). It's always bumper-to-bumper and the cruise control is perfect to just follow the car in front of you. It's also great on the beloved (/S) Schuylkill Expressway going into Philly.

I thought the lane change update a couple of months ago is great and works exactly as advertised. Would I love to have FSD? Probably...I've always used cruise control on all of our cars that have had it and Driver+ is just an extension of that. FSD, when it's ready, will be the next evolution.

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