I admit that I have a Tesla. Overall I’ve been happy with it, but there are things that I definitely don’t like either. Unless there are major changes in the next 5-10 years, which I don’t anticipate as long as Musk is running things, then I definitely will not be buying another one.
Some recent developments have also made me wonder how Tesla’s finances are holding up. There was an article recently stating that Elon had issued an edict that new owners could not get their cars unless an employee gave them a test drive to demonstrate the Full Self Driving system. Clearly it’s an attempt by Musk to try to convince new owners to shell out an additional $12k for the feature (or a monthly subscription).
Just the other day I received an unsolicited email from Tesla that I’ve been given a free Full Self Driving trial for the entire month of April, clearly with the same intention in mind.
Personally I won’t try FSD at all and have zero desire to be in a car that uses it. I’ve had enough issues with Autopilot (their terribly named adaptive cruise control) and other things that rely on the cars camera system that I just don’t trust FSD to operate properly. I’ll often get alerts that a camera is blocked/blinded by bright sun, road grime, etc. And the cameras have a hard enough time operating things like the automatic windshield wipers (they can turn on in bright sun on a clear day) and automatic high beams (nothing like blinding oncoming cars at night) that I find it hard to trust them. If the car can’t handle those simple tasks then how can I trust it with more complex ones like FSD?
My next car will probably still be an EV. It just likely won’t be a Tesla. By the time I’m in the market for a new one there should be a lot more good options available.
We’re in exactly the same place. My M3 at least has radar, but I have had an incident with autopilot when it slammed on the breaks thinking a merging truck was coming into my lane (it wasn’t) and I mean it really braked hard. Thankfully it was midday, not rush hour, and no one was behind me for a bit. I didn’t like relinquishing control in the first place, but now I’ve sworn it off and I only use the cruise control without the lane assist, when I use it at all.
How are they allowed to call it that? It's even more egregious than Autopilot. Wherein neither are actually self-driving, just driving assists. That's clearly fraud. Insurance carriers should be denying Teslas coverage as that's a pretty good case to suggest the driver of a Tesla wasn't at fault, or not 100% at fault if the FSD was engaged.
If a software is able to work the controls in any capacity you would have to prove it was not responsible for an accident. Accidents which are other people's fault will have to be fought in court if they discover some open source software is able to control the other party's car in any capacity whatsoever. "They were using an untested software and it veered into my right-of-way." IDK. Call your insurer and LMK what they say.
On the issue of high beams. Where I live there are now quite a few teslas, and they are the culprit in like 90% of cases when i get blinded at night. Is that due to the particularly irritating colour temp of their headlights, or the automatic high beam is the reason?