I've done three 500 mile trips with it this year, and on one of these trips I challenged myself to never disengage, except when within just a few meters of the superchargers, home, or the destination. It did it. And the other two, I probably disengaged only a couple times on the other trips, mostly for stylistic reasons ("I wouldn't drive in the left lane here, that's a bit aggressive" kind of stuff). All in all I have ~6,000 FSD miles this year I'd estimate. Day-to-day, every once in a while if the lane markers are faded or something it might take the wrong lane across intersections, but its supremely good at making mistakes safely and recovering.
Its so good that its boring now. I show it to people and they're amazed for the first ten minutes, then they forget about it. "Wait, you weren't driving? That was the car?" It just works. I've literally fallen asleep, accidentally, for a very short time (it has attention monitoring, but its not good). There's an initial moment of panic when I woke up & realized that happened, but then I was like... why? That panic felt like a trauma relic my mind has held on to from driving other cars. In this car, there was zero risk. It was no different than the 500 mile zero-interaction journey I had done the month before. It doesn't need me in the drivers seat.
The only thing it struggles with is when there's debris on the road, or potholes. It'll usually just hit it. But even this is improving; yesterday I noticed a squirrel running across the road, and the car very subtly applied the brakes, before the squirrel cleared the other side, and the car continued at its normal speed. It was exactly what I would have done; maybe the squirrel doubles-back, so you need to prep your speed to be in a place where you can brake. It might have, if the squirrel had decided to do this. I have no doubt they will iron these problems out, because a year ago the list of "situations it struggles with" would have been this entire post.
But if you're not interacting with this technology every day, you have no idea. The future is here, its just not evenly distributed. But, these things have a way of happening slowly, then all at once.
Tesla has a fundamental leadership problem. Few CEOs spend so much time enthusiastically enraging and attacking their potential customer base. (Not to mention politicians, unions, etc.) I’ll be in the market for an electric vehicle soon but there is no fucking way I’m spending money on anything Musk-related ever again, and I’m hardly an abberation. It will be a massive albatross around the company’s neck until Musk is no longer associated with them.
On the other hand, nobody hates Waymo. In fact, people largely love Waymo. When it comes to consumer technology, this is a massive differentiator.
Fire sale from expiring EV credits. Sales massively down in Europe and China. It’s almost inevitable that BYD and ilk will eventually eat Tesla’s lunch: the cars are cheaper, better, sexier, and have comparatively little political baggage.
Anecdotally, in my circles, Tesla isn’t even part of the conversation anymore when it comes to cars. No sign of any reversal of sentiment.
(With that said, I have no desire to bet against a meme stock.)
Large Asian companies tend to have their fingers in lots of different pies.
I haven't been to Asia in a while, but at one time, Hyundai made both computer chips and bulldozers.
Mitsubishi once made computer chips, and had a bank, and an art museum.
There are companies that own both department stores and subway systems.
America used to have a fair amount of this, but it was more common during the Industrial Revolution. Companies that owned both railroads and summer resorts. Oil wells and banks.
Even as recently as the 1990's there were companies that owned both pipelines and fiber optic networks. Toasters and television networks.
Other perspective: It's more like you reopen a public place where people were known to publicly harm copyright owners and you provide technical help so they can do it again.
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