This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.
I subscribed to the Tesla FSD in July, since I had a couple trips planned where I’d be driving longer distances on the highways. I wanted to see how well it worked and what value there was from the subscription.
Cost-wise, this is a good way to try things out. The FSD cost is US$12,000. If I subscribe, it is US$199. Worth a month to test this out and see what it gets me. The additional items for FSD (and Enhanced Autopilot) are:
- Navigate on autopilot
- Auto lane change
- Auto park
- Summon
- Smart Summon
- Traffic Control and Stop Sign Control
Note: This isn’t the beta version of FSD that everyone is writing about. This is production, which is less capable. I could have opted into the beta, but decided not to.
Subscription was easy. I clicked a few buttons on the app and within minutes, I had new options in my Autopilot screen. I clicked on a few and set up some confirmations and enabled options.
I then tried it on some shorter trips. Overall, I appreciated the ability for the car to stop at stop lights and stop signs, though the confirmation from me wasn’t great. However, I don’t completely trust the car, so I liked it.
I also did like the lane change on the highway. Often when I’ve used Autosteer, I get behind a slow person at some point and I’d like to be able to change lanes. It did work well when I confirmed a lane change and waited for other cars that were close to pass (or fall back) before the car moved lanes. I could not initiate these changes, however. I had to wait for the car to ask if it could change lanes.
There still is some phantom breaking and some weird speed changes at times, so it’s not anywhere close to perfect, but I liked the feature.
I don’t think this is worth US$200 a month for these features, but maybe at $100 I’d use it I drove more. I just don’t go on enough longer rides to use this very often.
I’ll write a few posts and shoot video of a couple of the features.
