A reality check on Tesla Full Self-Driving: What it is and how to get it
Car Tech
Speaker 1: Tesla full. Self-driving sorry. It's not what the name says. I wanna explain it now. Not for the auto geek or the person who's deep into Tesla, but for the average person who's saying, huh? That Tesla looks like a pretty good electric car and it's got amazing. Self-driving let's go get one, hold your horses while I explain what there's self-driving really does how to get it and what it costs.
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Now, Tesla calls their technology full self-driving as a trade name. And that's pretty cheeky right on its face. I mean, there's no ambiguity there, full self driving. I know what that tells me, but I also know what it is and isn't, and it's not full self-driving. Now as of this July 21 taping, when I'm in front of you now Tesla's full self-driving. It's far from it. It's level two driver assistance. [00:01:00] That's on scale of zero to five levels to tell you where it sits. Those levels are defined by the SAE. It's the global consortium of automotive engineering. And they are the holder of the standards of many of the technologies that go into cars. Now, level two means you've got several systems working together in the Tesla case. One that maintains speed with acceleration and breaking one that it maintains distance to the car ahead or detects a pedestrian and makes sure it doesn't hit that individual or car.
Speaker 1: Another one that keeps you in your lane and gradually [00:01:30] steers around them on the freeway. And another one that lets you signal a turn signal, and that will tell the car to make a lane change. These are all impressive, but they're not singular to Tesla. General motors has offered this on super crews before Tesla and has kept pace with the Tesla innovations and refinements. So those two are very competitive. I just want you to realize that Tesla full self driving is not this thing that is apart from the rest of the industry in its abilities. It's just not the case. It's only part in the cheekiness [00:02:00] of the name. Level two requires you maintain full mental awareness and attention on driving. That's critical. There's a bright line there, and that's a critical thing to know. Today's driver automation. Technology can only save you muscle effort, not mental effort. At least if you're using it properly.
Speaker 1: I focus on this because Tesla's use of the term full self-driving, [00:02:30] reminds us that words matter words really matter here. That phrase is potent and it sets up something in between a vast over promise and dangerous innuendo in a field of automotive technology where being sober and accurate is exceedingly important. If we want car buyers, insurers, and regulators, all to embrace, sign off and support this technology, which I believe is essential, vast societal benefits, accrue to the development and adoption of true autonomy down [00:03:00] the road. But I think you slow that progress, not advance it by over promising and over marketing what we have available today. Okay? So let me come off my soapbox and sit down with you at the kitchen table. And let's talk about how you get this in the Tesla. You're thinking of buying used to be, you paid a $10,000 fee.
Speaker 1: If your car have this activated already, and that would unlock the full self driving, using hardware already in the car, it's kind of like a software unlock. You know, you might buy a basic version of a program. And then if you want the pro version, [00:03:30] you pay a fee and it unlocks features. They're already on your machine. It just, wasn't allowing you to use that code. In this case, you're accessing code and hardware in the car you just had to pay to do so 10 thousand's a lot of money. So instead Tesla says, if you didn't already option full self-driving and don't have 10,000 laying around, you can now lease the feature 1 99 per month. That works out well until you crossed the four year and two month line. And now you're paying more than if you'd paid it as a lump sum. But [00:04:00] a lot of folks aren't gonna keep a Tesla more than four years, EVs are advancing rapidly.
Speaker 1: They tend to be flipped by a lot of folks and a relatively short number of years. The other hitch here is that Tesla also rather quietly announced that even though they said every Tesla, since 2016 or 17 was going to be shipped, we with the full self-driving hardware standard, apparently that's not quite the case. There is a hardware upgrade that many owners of current models are going to have to pony up for [00:04:30] at 1500 additional dollars to get the full self driving unlock to work. Now, this applies to folks who already have a Tesla. If you were to buy one today and going forward, I assume the hardware is gonna be all in there, but it's kind of a gotcha for a lot of people who bought a car and said the hardware is all there for full self-driving later on. We'll unlock it. No, the hardware is not entirely there.
Speaker 1: It turns out. And it's just one of those things where the optics aren't great, but that's how Tesla rolls sometimes. Okay, let's wrap it up. Now. [00:05:00] Bottom line Tesla, the full self-driving is not, it is level two automation and it's very much in common with a few other automaker. Who've got similarly ambitious systems. Just know that $10,000 one time fee or $200 a month to access it on your car. And you may have to pay $1,500 one time on top of that to add some additional hardware, depending on the model year of your Tesla and the configuration when it was shipped and how you optioned it. Now, look, I'm no hater or massive doubter of vehicle automation. To me, it's the [00:05:30] way things should be. We shouldn't be running around driving our cars with our minds, distracted smacking, looking at phones, being humanly fallible and screwing up all the time. The future of personal vehicles will have some of the professional optimized, efficient operation of public transit combined with the flexibility of personal transportation that is always ready to solve my needs at a moment's notice. That's the Nirvana tomorrow to get there. We do need automation, whether it's ever level five, I don't know, but I can tell [00:06:00] you this. It's not coming soon at that level. Focus on level two and know what it really is regardless of what a car maker may call it.
