I’ve owned my Tesla Model 3 since February of this year and it’s one of the best purchases I ever made. Driving it has been a joy whether it be locally, in the city or going on road trips, and every day it still impresses me with how everything just works without me thinking about it.
Everything that I thought I knew about my Model 3 went out of the window late last week when I got early access to FSD (Full Self-Driving) Supervised which is world’s apart from the previously available AutoPilot. To most people these two things would sound the same, with AutoPilot able to stay within the lines and stay at the current speed limit whilst recognising traffic in front, but FSD (Supervised) is literally as if you put a brain inside the car and let it drive you around making decisions in real time.
That’s exactly what FSD is. The second it’s activated (it’s available for $10,000 with a 30 day trial and will also be available as am monthly subscription when it launches here) and from the second it’s switched on, all you have to do is set a destination, or be driving towards a destination and press the big blue button on the screen or the right scroll wheel on your Model 3/Model Y (HW 4 edition once it launches).
From this moment, your car will take off, reversing out of your driveway (as it does for me) or indicating off the side of the road to take off exactly as you would if you were driving. It can then recognise parked cars on the road, staying as close to the curb whilst avoiding them, it can recognise traffic lights and stop lights, slow down for pedestrian crossings, turn onto the highway, drive on the highway, go around roundabouts, or literally do anything that you can do as a driver, and often better.
This is the thing that has surprised me most across my 10+ drives so far that have been around Melbourne’s Western suburbs, and a few drives near the city as well. Only one time have I had to take control of the wheel and it was when I was turning right onto a highway followed by a left and the car couldn’t get into the left lane in time, but I would have also struggled to be fair.
This is FSD Supervised as you need to be aware from the second it takes off. This involves looking forward at the road, and if the inside camera detects you starting at anything else for too long it’ll beep you, and same for you picking up a phone where it’ll instantly beep you, and I believe if you trigger this enough times you’ll get increasing warnings until you’re banned from using it.
I understand that it is quite the scary concept given your car is literally driving you, but you’re able to take control of the wheel or accelerate or break at any time just as you would if you were driving, but honestly, it felt safer than me driving a lot of the time, often seeing cars or things on the road that I haven’t yet witnessed, and taking corners with absolute smoothness or slowing down for every speed bump.
The only slight struggle in the end to end driving process (and it’s a massive first-world problem) is that it can’t really go into my driveway, or deep into parking garages to find a park, often just safely pulling onto the side of the road as close as possible, but again all you have to do it take over and park where you’d like. There was one particularly instance where I had it drive me to a station and it automatically parked at the closest street park, so I’d love to see this improved upon.
The exciting thing is that this is just the beginning. This software technically hasn’t even launched yet locally and will only get better as more Tesla drivers use it and understand the roads, but for now, it absolutely does not feel like it’s in its infancy as it hasn’t missed a beat no matter where I take it.