If you already have EAP, it's "only" $99 per month to add FSD. It's like, hey, I'll gladly pay that to have an inexperienced teen driver with three of his friends take the wheel of my car and drive it all over town with me riding up front and hoping we don't all die, what a great idea!
Y'know, it's really like we've been invaded by TeslaQ, the maniacal, "We lie and short anybody for money!" types around here.
I've been one of the many testers, suffering through the 9.x and 10.x branches starting early in 2022. And, yeah, with an average of three to four interventions per mile on city streets, weird behavior on the interstates, and all that, sure. Idiot teen drivers was a good way to think about it, although real teens learn a lot faster than
that.
But the current incarnations of 11.4.x are lots better than that. While there's the occasional intersection that the software always gets wrong, or near wrong, it's quite possible to go ten or fifteen miles at a whack without a single intervention: Local roads to an interstate, back off the interstate to local roads, major roads, and so on.
Went to meet the gang at a restaurant mid last week for lunch. Put the location in Nav, backed out of the driveway, and let it rip: Handled the back alley, then a right onto a local, non-lined road; right again onto a six-lane local road with heavy traffic, and navigated onto an on ramp to an eight-lane (4 each direction) interstate. From there to an off-ramp, right turn at a right-on-red at the off-ramp exit, then up a couple of streets, right turn from there onto a local road, left at a fork, over the railroad tracks, then moved to the right lane (correct) on a four-lane highway, since the left lane was turning into only-left-at-the-light; continued on, stopped at the next light; then forward at the light, merged correctly, left at the next light, then little squiggly roads for the next five miles until reaching another major, 4-lane (2 each direction) road; right on red, then up five miles, then correctly navigated the blame parking lot, stopping in front of the eatery.
About the only thing I was actively doing was cranking up the speed limit on the local roads to keep up with traffic. Y'know, setting it to 40 on a 35 mph road, and so on. The rest was the car.
There are some spots where the car could be better. If one is on a nominal single lane that's wide and there's a car in front of one turning left, the car won't go around to the right. Likewise, on a road like that, if the car is supposed to be turning left, it still tends to swing wide right before the turn, blocking cars behind one. It has problems with extra-short on-ramps in heavy traffic.
It's still a
little jerky on turns; but, on 11.4.4 it's tons better than the 11.3.x variants which would give one neck snaps.
On interstates: I drive back and forth between New Jersey and Boston. The interventions are
rare. Like, once in a hundred miles, if that. And we're talking about it switching lanes to dodge traffic, moving out of the passing lanes, and so forth.
Now, admittedly, I got FSD-b for cheaps back in 2020, so I'm not looking at a $12k bill or whatever it looks like now. But it's.. good these days. And downright useful.
Not quite ready for Ma and Pa Sixpack: One does have to pay attention, not read books or play with one's cell phone. But, on a long drive, it's actually kind of restful: The minutia of staying in lane, staying with traffic, stopping and starting at lights is all done for one; in the meantime, one can spend serious time looking out for other drivers doing crazy things. On a long trip, I arrive at the destination a lot less beat up.
In terms of bang for the buck, I suppose EAP is better, at least for long road trips. But it's not quite as refined as FSD on interstates and, of course, EAP doesn't do turns and such on city streets.
I'm looking forward for Version 12.