Posted by CharlesW 1 hour ago
Back when Autopilot launched, in consumer cars, it was pretty unique. But the market has moved on significantly, and basic Steering Assist/Full-Speed-Range Automatic Cruise Control, are pretty universal features today.
My only complaint is that there's an over-eager PID loop with lane keeping. If I want to pass a transport truck and want to kind of edge to the left of my lane when doing so, it will keep trying to compensate, which I can feel in the wheel, so I compensate for as well. And if I let go of the wheel and let it win, it suddenly flings me towards the right side of the lane.
I suspect this is because it isn't programmed to think that I'm making adjustments, it probably just thinks there's some weirdness in the vehicle dynamics/road characteristics that requires extra compensation.
It's essentially that Subaru's lane system actually has two levels: it has lane keeping where it's just trying to keep you inside the lines, and then on top of that it also has lane centering which is pretty much what it says.
Just a note for you or anyone reading who has a recent Subaru and doesn't know already: if you find the centering really bothersome, you should be able to be able to go into the settings on the instrument cluster display (up/down arrows at the lower left behind the wheel, toggle it until you get to the "hold for settings" option), find the Eyesight settings, and turn off lane centering. It will still try to keep you inside the lane markers but won't try to park you right in the center of the lane. In that mode, it's more like the Honda Sensing system I had on my 2016 Civic.
I go back and forth a bit on it but mostly keep it in lane centering mode now - I've gotten used to how it positions the car in the lane, and it lets me focus more on what's going on around me than micromanaging lane position and such.
But there was one thing that was quite bad, similar to yours. While passing a semi I pulled it to the left side and it actually yanked us right so hard and then over-corrected once again. Super scary moment, the only issue of the whole trip, but basically never passed with it on again.
I don't want 'nap in the backseat while it drives me places', I want this. A bit of a personality keeping me on track and tidy. I'll keep my hands on the wheel but yeah, my attention is spared to watch for idiots, and I think that's good.
It's absolutely true that the rest of the industry is rolling out new features. But people are fooling themselves if they genuinely think it's catching up. Tesla is way, way ahead here among consumer auto vendors, and frankly at parity with Waymo in the autonomy space.
They've also made an inexplicably poor pricing decision in this case that is worth talking about. But no, your Subaru isn't a meaningful competitor.
This is a pretty boneheaded business decision on Tesla's part. But their technology remains clearly superior.
Previously you got the Corolla feature set included with your vehicle purchase, Enhanced Autopilot for a fee which was a step above that, and then FSD subscription which was a step-up again.
Now Tesla has downgraded the base experience to include no Steering Assist at all, and no longer offers Enhanced Autopilot. So you get two choices: No Steering Assist or FSD.
By the way, FSD ("full self-driving") is just as inaccurately named as Autopilot. I don't know why Tesla can't call their technology, like, CyberDrive or something else that isn't glaringly inaccurate.
People had a feature for free, now they don’t, because Tesla wants money.
“But it’s better…” only if you pay. If you don’t, still gone.
What else matters?
I see nothing wrong with them offering a cheap(er) FSD option. I object to them removing existing features to force adoption.
2. Elon's Trillion Dollar Payout is tied to a certain number of FSD Subscriptions.
3. Some consumers were sold that they would get hardware upgrades for FSD. I'm pretty sure Tesla would like to minimize that, and I expect incentives for those people to purchase new vehicle without FSD.
4. Subscriptions drive our economy, I don't know the details but it seems like every company wants subscriptions over one time purchases.
I honestly don't think they want a lot of people with lifetime FSD, it's disappearing without a lot of news.
That explains things.
In theory, subscriptions are cheaper for users as well when done right and it works better with how people are compensated. But as usual, greed consumes all and if everything is a bill, that's more ways to eat at your long term wealth.
In other words: you will own nothing and like it.
Every person I know wants a subscription, too. Who wouldn’t want a nest egg throwing off passive income?
Anything you can do to operationalize cash flows is a huge boon to continuity of business operations
You mean consumer? I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would buy a car or a bed or a fridge that requires a subscription. That's beyond me.
I do understand why companies want to screw consumers, obviously.
The price is high, but it's not unique to Tesla. Ford has Blue Cruise, which is about $500/year.
People can, however, opt for openpilot/comma (https://comma.ai/openpilot), which random Youtubers tested and say it's about as good as Tesla's FSD, but has a simple one time fee of $1K But whether you want to trust open source is up to you.
And like you said other targets are quite something as well
So you don't get even that in a Tesla without (now) ponying up $$? Something that's a standard feature in my non cloud connected (or connectable!) "so last century" fossil fuel vehicle?
This last week they had a guy who had completely passed out in his car and was fast asleep at the wheel. A state trooper pulled up alongside it and could see the guy slumped over his wheel. Apparently the car was essentially weaving back and forth between the lane lines because the car had LKAS enabled, effectively keeping the car from driving off the road.
The state trooper followed the car for several miles trying to decide what he should do. He tried several times by running his lights and sirens, honking, etc to no avail. He finally found a safe spot and successfully pitted the car to a stop. During the pit, the man suddenly woke up - for obvious reasons.
They later found out he had been working 22 hours straight and then was driving to his GF's house several hours away for the weekend and was just exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel.
No such thing as a safe spot to PIT someone, ever, let alone while they're asleep at the wheel. This is a great example of why people hate all cops, anyone with two brain cells to rub together would get in front of the car and gradually slow to a stop.
As for the safety feature. I inherited (literally) a second car that's 10 years older than the primary one. You get used to LKAS. I was driving a long distance in the older one while somewhat overtired and had several rumble strip excursions that would not have happened in the LKAS-equipped car. And for the asleep guy in the parent post, it may have made the difference between still being alive and dead in head-on collision or rollover.
With a car on lane keeping / cruise control you could slow down in front of it all the way to a stop and it will gladly stop behind you.
Blue Cruise, and I assume Tesla's FSD as well, will simply change the lane and go around you.
If the guy had a simple LKAS and adaptive cruise control on, then yes, you're right.
> What a total idiot in the police car.
It's important to make sure we have all the context before making a judgement like this. My rule of thumb is that if I think something is obviously stupid, I'm probably missing something.
I’ve been paying the monthly for a while. Very worth it to me.
IMO adaptive crude control that works down to 0MPH is still the sweet spot.
But for driving in slow traffic with no passing lane for the next half hour (Highway 7 between Perth and Marmora, for Ontarians) it's a godsend. Just let it handle it and chill.
Second, I have a 2025 Model 3, and even with the latest v14.2.2 FSD I had an intervention rate of roughly every ten miles in Washington DC/VA suburbs. I shudder to think what it would do if I didn't pay attention, so I don't think it's an improvement over me driving myself.
- Is it unsupervised?
- Has legal liability shifted as a result of the system being the driver?
Because I feel like the answer needs to be "yes" for this claim to be accurate. If the answer isn't "yes," then you're still meant to be fully engaged with driving and are liable for any accidents that occur.
I believe you, but occasionally it will try to kill you.
I have a 2014 car that's connectable but no driver assistance; I had a 2017 (delivered mid 2016) with lane keeping and emergency braking which seemed pretty new and exciting, and it's connectable, all I would need to do is pay a big annual fee and also setup a 3g CDMA network. Couldn't do much with either if it's connected; I pulled the 3g modem from the 2014 when it was convenient cause I was worried it was using power while off.
Not that lane keeping needs a connection, just that I'm surprised they put it on a car without a modem.
I used it a couple of times, but then I stopped; for me, as a driver/passenger, it has very little value. Yes, maybe I can lower my attention from 100% to 95%, but it does not make much difference: I need to keep my hands on the wheel, it disengages at random (for me) times.
True autopilot is very different.
Heck, a cheap base model Maza 3 I rented had lane keep assist.
Tesla only stands to lose by gatekeeping what's now a basic feature behind a paywall.
I miss having a dumb cruise control.
I daily a 30 year old car. There exists a sweet spot of reliability, safety, and comfort (probably the early-mid 2000s) that in theory, you should never have to buy a vehicle outside of, newer or older. There will always be clean old cars in good shape you can buy, you don't need a new vehicle.
Unless you can't buy gasoline anymore. But that's still quite a long ways away imo.
Screw the subscriptions. I don't care how much the shareholders want them.
Agreed. The investor requirements of any company mean nothing to me as the consumer.
It's a silly example, but you can think of it as buying a house and the ceiling lights requiring a subscription to turn on.
As an aside, I wonder how long this can keep up before it begins affecting laws around theft and property damage if the person operating, storing, insuring, and maintaining the physical objects don't contractually own them. Is Mercedes a victim if the LKAS camera gets damaged or stolen, rather than you?
Are you sure they bought the ML Models?
The Hardware is inside because it's required for the emergency lane keeping, but I wouldn't be surprised if the OEMs would have a deal with the supplier where they are paid more if this feature gets enabled
Every young adult I know uses a subscription for everything I used to buy. Even though they own the device on which they consume it.
Spotify for cd's, Netflix-Disney-Amazon for vhs and dvd's, Udemy-Masterclass for books.
Waymo on the other hand, I trust it with my life on a weekly basis and have never had cause for concern (fingers crossed I didn't just jinx it).
The specs are pretty good but then you don’t really own it, you get limitations on what you can use it for, you get rent seeking and walled gardens everywhere. Even if you’re paying you get ads and get tracked. Updates make products worse more often than not.
What are you excited about? AI slop?
We don't use FSD, we don't use Autopilot either.
But I'll be goddamed if he tries to take away something I paid for.