I do about 35-40k miles a year and have put ~200,000 miles on autopilot-equipped Teslas.
I don’t see how anyone can claim that Navigate on Autopilot or FSD is a stress reducer in any way. It requires such a level of vigilance and heightened awareness at all times because you’re always guessing what the car is going to do next and if it’s rational and/or safe.
Autosteer and TACC? Wonderful. Stay in the lane I put you in and follow the car in front. Major stress reducer. Automatically changing lanes when I ask it to? Nice to have for sure.
Trying to do it on its own? Stressful nightmare. If you can relax and de-stress while the car is calling the shots then you’re braver and far more trusting than me.
So, I see your comment and raise the bid
.
If you put me back before early 4th Quarter 2023 and earlier, with respect to FSD, I'd completely agree with you about FSD's dangers. Just half-kidding, now: I have minor forms of PTSD (my apologies to all real PTSD sufferers) when thinking about the crazy things FSD-b did on a regular basis. Not just the jerky wheel movements, but running red lights, trying to change lanes
straight into cars in the adjacent lane, trying to hit Jersey Barriers on the end, and it goes on and on. That stuff really was Beta and no argument. On local streets.. no fun at all, and I did it only because I thought it would help move Tesla forward to coming up with a better product that wasn't Beta. Early on in that experience, on local roads in particular, I was doing anywhere between five and ten interventions, on average, per mile. And one to three interventions per 10 miles on much simpler interstates.
Having said that: like all complex machines, one tends to get an idea about where FSD-b is going to fail. Dodging into on-coming on-ramps because the car suddenly thinks that there's, suddenly, an extra lane-width that it has to be in the middle of? Very reliable, that, in the beginning. Running a
particular red light, but no others? After the second time, One Is Prepared. Flubbing a particular off-ramp? You bet. Swerving right on left turns? Still does it, a little, but not as bad. Going straight down a road with lines on both sides? Nary a problem.
So, even with the Horribles of Old, one gets a handle on when things are going to go bad.. one stays alert because there was always something new, but shaking in one's boots is not what was happening. In fact, if there was one odd thing throughout all these beta testing, is that there was, seemingly, always, plenty of time (not seconds, but well within human reaction time) to prevent the car from immolating itself in a traffic flaw.
That was then, this is now. First off: Interventions have dropped, with FSD-b, by a factor of 20 or so, if not more. Are there still intersections that give it the fits? Sure, a couple.. but outside of those, it works pretty blamed well. And with interstates, I can typically go 100, 150 miles before I intervene for some reason. And when that happens, it's usually personal preference.
Now, over on the 11.x threads where people talk about this all the time, there are posters who, for whatever reason, seem to live in a minefield of intervention land. Even with the most recent releases these posters have Trouble. (And most of it seems to be in California, which I don't get.) And then there's those of us who don't complain much. Because we don't have much to complain about. To my mind, FSD-b is still a beta and Not Quite Ready for Ma and Pa Sixpack; it still requires constant, but not crazed attention.
So, the bit, above, where posters suggest trying it out is, I think, the right thing to do. When one gets a $200/month shot at FSD-b, one can set it to Standard Autopilot, EAP, or FSD: They've got a three-button sequence, with FSD-b on the far right. On a not-too-busy day, the OP should get the thing, find some quiet drives, and try them, one at a time. If all is sweetness and light, the OP can decide or not what level of automation the OP likes, then argue with the household how much money, when, the OP would like to spend.
A month's subscription and a half-dozen drives should do the trick.