Tesla Became Popular Selling the Fun of Driving, Now Selling Cars to Not Be Driven

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It is quite ironic: Tesla became such a popular company, sold millions of vehicles, and became profitable by selling people on the fun of electric driving. The instant torque, all of the YouTube videos of drivers stepping down on the pedal and passengers getting pushed back into their seats and laughing, “Insane Mode” & “Ludicrous Mode” & “Plaid.” Yet, now, all of the hype from the company and its fans is about not driving. It’s all about sitting back and letting the car drive itself.

Naturally, many early Tesla buyers bought the cars to help stop global heating and climate catastrophe, but that’s not what made the brand a social media sensation and got countless people waiting in lines to reserve a Model 3. It was largely about the fun of a Tesla.

But when do Elon Musk or Tesla fans ever talk about the acceleration of the vehicles and the fun of driving them anymore. The constant chatter is about how far people have gone without touching the wheel, how little they drive their cars anymore.

The irony of that just struck me today, and that was all this article was going to be about. However, there are actually other opinions out there among current Tesla owners about the company’s self-driving options.

I saw a reddit post titled “I’m curious how many of you purchased FSD at $15k, and what your thoughts are on the lack of HW3 updates…” earlier today and I was curious to see what the responses were, especially since I forgot the cost of FSD had gotten as high as $15,000. So, I opened up the post and started reading the comments. Then I noticed something I didn’t expect — people complaining about annoying quirks with FSD. Here are some examples:

• “I honestly just want the Minimal Lane Change feature back. I literally turned off FSD because they removed it. Went from a relaxing highway commute to constant unnecessary lane changes I needed to pay attention for and to.”
  • “I report about shitty lane changes every time i drive”
    • “I too report things daily, I’m wondering if it just goes into the void though since they’re already on v14 and I’m still on v12.”
  • “Same. Once I couldn’t say Minimize Lane Changes and also when I stopped being able to control the cruise speed of the car with the Modes, I went back to autopilot. Now with autopilot apparently not in new cars, there’s a zero percent chance I’ll buy another Tesla.”
    • “I’ve been a Tesla die hard for a decade. This broke me.”
    • “Agreed. I have paid-for FSD on HW4($3k on a HW3 vehicle transferred for free) and I want to be able to adjust follow distance and maximum speed or at least modify the profiles they provide. I was using the Hurry profile last week on a highway(because standard is usually only +5) and it kept creeping up the speed until it hit 77mph in a 55 which will get you pulled over in these parts so I backed it off to standard. That’s 22mph over the limit and will get you a serious ticket in a small town, maybe not in California but I don’t want to get a fucking ticket because of FSD’s shitty behavior.”
  • “God I want that back. Current lane changing is so annoying and unnecessary. Oh yeah let’s leave the exit lane in a highway when the exit is in .4 miles but not actually go significantly faster than the car you are trying to pass”
  • “[I]n my neighborhood FSD is fully unsafe on HW3. It drives down the middle of the road and the speed is all over the place. It also has decided there is a stop sign in a random location there isn’t one. It’s unusable. I fully do not understand how people have used it for road trips. I guess they have a better experience just freeway driving?”

These experiences match up very well with ones I’ve had. Several times when I’ve decided I’d give FSD a try again, its desire to change lanes when I don’t want to has made me disengage it rather quickly. So has the car driving too closely behind other cars or going too far over the speed limit. So has the fact that it doesn’t slow down in school zones. I’ve also disengaged recently because of things in the road I didn’t want to drive over and because of the car pumping the brakes a few times for a flashing yellow light on a busy, fast highway. I’ve even had my car start driving down the middle of two lanes, straddling the two lanes, a couple of times, as one person above said happened to them. It seems like every time I turn it on to give it a shot again, something makes me disengage and I am reminded that I prefer to just drive the car myself. To put it simply, it’s more enjoyable and relaxing for me to just drive like normal than having to monitor the car driving itself and making all kinds of annoying decisions and errors. I do wonder how many people are in my boat versus the boats of other people I know who love to use FSD almost all the time.

Anyway, are you supposed to enjoy driving a Tesla and having fun with the instant torque and handling, or are you supposed to enjoy not driving it and sitting behind the wheel like a passenger? It seems the company’s messaging around that has shifted dramatically in recent years, and so have the common talking points of company fans.