I activated FSD on Tuesday last and set navigation to the Auto Museum in downtown Reno, where I volunteer three days a week. A 15 mile, 25 min trip including several miles of freeway. The experience was utterly amazing, but as others have observed, there were as expected, a few issues. On a 40mph, 4 lane with a grass divider, I was in the right lane approaching a stopped fire truck that had all its lights flashing. The truck was off the driving lanes and I would have slowed and moved to the left lane. There were no cars to my left but my M3 continued at the speed limit and didn’t change lanes. I believe NV requires a lane change.
I’ll skip over all the other routine miles driven, since again, the system is by and large super impressive and operates intuitively.
Another difficult issue yesterday, requiring disengagement and a feedback report. I wanted to turn left from a two lane city street onto a very busy four lane with a center turning lane. I travel there often and find it challenging to make the turn myself. The M3 crept out over the crosswalk and while I saw several opportunities to make a move into the center turning lane, even with traffic approaching from the right, the car, perhaps wisely, waited…and waited, and waited for a clear path in both directions to make the turn. After about 90 seconds, I disengaged and made a report. As I noted, this was a very difficult situation.
Yesterday, we made a 40 mile trip to see friends down the interstate and FSD functioned impressively. It’s obviously fussy about speed limits, but I found I could use the scroll wheel to bump up 5 mph, as I often do with autopilot. Regarding speed, in heavy traffic on the interstate, the car did speed up some and alerted me that it was “increasing speed for traffic flow”. That was before I discovered I could still use the scroll wheel. Also on the interstate, it changed lanes to overtake other vehicles, and stayed in the passing lane till faster traffic approached from behind then moved back to the right. Cool.
On the way home, in the dark, it began snowing heavily and a notice appeared notifying me “system performance may be degraded” or words to that effect, but even with the “light speed” view of snow through the windshield, FSD did everything right, overtaking, changing lanes and slowing to the limit in a construction zone. Nearly back home, and snow conditions got really heavy for the last mile and I upped my supervision
to 11. The road became snow covered, and wanting to see what the system would do, and being in a residential area with no traffic, I pressed on, and so did FSD! No lane markings and the car slowed and piloted as well as I would. Finally, I disengaged when it became disoriented when having to move left to turn left while approaching a stop on a two lane. The car slowed dramatically and I disengaged and reported. Another very difficult edge case and perhaps I should have waited to see what would have transpired.
I would mention the several other intelligent moves the system made this week, but I’ve gone on too long already.
In summary, I was very positively impressed with FSD, as was my observer wife during the snow experience, but bottom line, I believe the future potential lies with robotaxies and for folks who find FSD adds value. It’s not something I’m willing to pay for.
Looking forward to maximizing my use for of FSD the rest of the freebie (thanks Elon!) and helping to improve the system with feedback.