Is autopilot worth it?

[willow_hiller]

I am not sure if I replied to this topic or not, as so many new topics have been created on this, but I will reiterate again - Autopilot is worth every penny and more. I paid $5k when I bought my M3 last year and for me it is worth much more. It is the best stress reliever that has been made since they invented automatic transmission. And increases safety too in rush hour traffic. I hate it when I drive a car with no AP.

Honestly I'm amazed whenever someone says they tried the trial and didn't like it. Maybe the performance varies dramatically given different highway conditions? Or maybe people are trying it on their local roads and expecting it to work like it does on the highway?

Personally, I had about 37 days of a trial, and the day after it went away I really noticed it. Humans just aren't capable of keeping a car as smoothly centered in a lane as AP can. It was a real "How have I driven without this before??" moment. Saving up for AP and waiting for a sale as we speak...

 

[Arizona Willie]

I am not sure if I replied to this topic or not, as so many new topics have been created on this, but I will reiterate again - Autopilot is worth every penny and more. I paid $5k when I bought my M3 last year and for me it is worth much more. It is the best stress reliever that has been made since they invented automatic transmission. And increases safety too in rush hour traffic. I hate it when I drive a car with no AP.

==============
I can understand where you are coming from.
Everyone has a different situation.
I'm retired and don't commute so I don't face that --- any more.

I would give them $1000 for the AutoPilot but that's about it. It's nice on the freeway but I don't do that near as much anymore. For around town, to me, it isn't worth $3000 or even $2000.

BUT THAT'S ME

I love my car and I love my wife but neither one is perfect.

 

[ammulder]

So I ordered without AP, but it became free before I took delivery, so I got it. And, I have to say, I'm glad I did. I had some incorrect impressions from reading about it beforehand (including some misleading content in the manual), and I use it more than I would have thought I could.

That said, I don't consider it a game-changer. For instance, the majority of my drive to work is one surface road and one highway.

The surface road frequently goes more than 5mph over the speed limit, in which case I drive. Any time it doesn't, though, I'm happy to let AP take over and save me the frustration of matching speeds with slow people. (Except in a handful of spots where the lane sprouts a big space on the right preceding the entry to a development, and autosteer re-centers across that space without realizing the extra space will go away all at once when you pass the entrance. When you get there autosteer suddenly jerks back to the left, which feels unpleasant and looks stupid.) I also have to pay close attention for trucks coming the other direction and creeping over the center line. And there's not entirely infrequent road repair and tree trimming. So I use it more than I expected, but far from even "mostly."

The highway involves a decent amount of lane-changing, just due to overly slow people in the right lane and overly fast people in the left lane, with sizable gaps in between. If AP would execute the lane change for me when I put on the blinker, that could elevate it to game-changer. But I don't think it's worth $6,000 to me to upgrade to FSD just for that.

We can talk about FSD again "later this year" when the upcoming features are released.

 

[kingjones94]

In my onion it is, I rarely "drive" anymore

 

[kingtizzy007]

I went ahead and ordered AP; really missed having it once I sold my MS. Having said that, I’d have to see something incredible to drop $6k on FSD.

 

[EVINNH]

As I wait patiently for my car, I initially declined autopilot a time of order, mainly due to cost.

My question is, is autopilot worth the price? Just wondering if I should add it to my order.

Thanks in advance.


Model 3/SR+/black/white/RWD

I use it for the commute and LOVE it. I actually didn’t even think so wanted it, but it now I can’t imagine life without it. I don’t use it outside of the commute, but I also live in NH.

 

[raptor5244]

I went ahead and ordered AP; really missed having it once I sold my MS. Having said that, I’d have to see something incredible to drop $6k on FSD.

Same here. If FSD is really FSD and you can trust and depend on it then it is worth every penny, otherwise it pretty much a large donation to help fund the development effort.

By the way, I am still scratching my head as to how this car will eventually “full self-drive” when it doesn’t even have basic rear cross traffic alert. How will it safely back out of a parking spot without me helping? Do we think they will add the ability for the rear camera to recognize moving objects from behind the car?

 

[Knightshade]

By the way, I am still scratching my head as to how this car will eventually “full self-drive” when it doesn’t even have basic rear cross traffic alert. How will it safely back out of a parking spot without me helping

It won't.

The car backs into parking spots

Which is the safer way to park (for humans as well)

It already does this today using auto-park.

So it will never need to "back out" of a spot on self-driving.

 

[raptor5244]

It won't.

The car backs into parking spots

Which is the safer way to park (for humans as well)

It already does this today using auto-park.

So it will never need to "back out" of a spot on self-driving.

Gotcha. Keep in mind there are some locations where it is not permitted to back into parking spots. For example, many college campuses require front in parking as the security folks check licenses plates and decals for permits. Also, consider parking lots with angled parking spaces, not legal to back in to them either.

Furthermore, how does it deal with with backing into a spot when of course you have that individual behind your car that thinks you passed the busy parking spot that you are attempting to back into and now they are too close for the car to back in? Humans, start signaling that they are backing into the spot or they make a decision to move forward and look for another spot but would a FSD car just sit there until some pre-programmed timeout period is reached and start moving forward again? Will the car have a feature where it defends itself as all the other drivers are cursing at it?

This is the kind of stuff that makes me think FSD is still very, very early in development. Maybe it is just the marketing terminology. To me they are just driver assistant features not "Full Self Driving". It makes more sense to have an a la carte menu of these features listed in all our Tesla accounts and we pick and choose the ones you want for a monthly subscription fee rather than charging $5-8k for something that may never come to fruition during the ownership period of the car. If they let owners subscribe monthly per feature it should encourage the developers to release useful driving enhancements that can be realized immediately and folks would gladly pay.

 

[Electroman]

I actually didn’t even think so wanted it, but it now I can’t imagine life without it

+100