Never Forget to Thank The Airplane
I'm no longer officially involved in aviation. My company discontinued our Argus moving map displays over a decade ago, and I sold my old, slow airplane around the same time. But I still subscribe to a variety of aviation publications and try to keep up with the field. Recently I received a (not new, not original, not atypical) list of admonitions that are popular with pilots. The usual advice such as keeping the number of landings equal to the number of takeoffs, keeping the blue side up, etc. The final one I had never seen before and, not being unduly superstitious, never heeded on my own. It was "Never forget to thank the airplane." While I resist anthropomorphizing possessions—they hate that, you know—I make two exceptions in this blogitem. The first: a belated Thank you Mr. Cessna. The second is the title of this blogitem.
Tesla "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" Review
Four years ago I wrote this review about FSD. This was around the time Tesla offered a $199/month subscription to that feature, and I found it interesting, somewhat useful, somewhat dangerous, and definitely not worth the money. Things have changed.
I've been driving more, the monthly price has come down to $99/month, and it has become so much better that I have now been subscribing for many months. I'd write a longer review but there isn't as much to say as you might think.
- It drives better than I do.* This is not just my unbiased opinion; my wife is more comfortable when Mr. Tesla is driving.
- It doesn't do stupid stuff. It's very sensible about speed and speed limits without slavishly following them.
- The traffic-light issue and other flaws noted in my previous review are now absent. I have yet to find a driving situation that it doesn't arguably handle perfectly.
- It's somewhat less courteous than I am; I'm better about moving to the right lane if some maniac is trying to pass me.
- It's somewhat more courteous than I am about following too closely, but we're both pretty reasonable.
- It's no longer necessary to keep one's hands on the steering wheel. It uses a cockpit camera, allegedly with AI, to chastise me if I look away from the road too long.
- It parks MUCH better than I do. I'm still not used to manually parking a largish car.
Enough with the bullet points. Incredibly, my summary is this: I trust it. For many trips now, I push the "button" on the display that starts the self driving, and about 100 miles later it stops in my driveway. Before exiting, I pet the center display, say "Thank you Mr. Tesla," and exit the vehicle. It's that drama-free.
Is Full Self Driving (Supervised) good enough to be approved for full human-driver inattention? Maybe. It has already saved me from a possible minor accident when a driver changing lanes next to me overshot into my lane and Mr. Tesla dodged by swerving away by just enough to avoid him. Would I have noticed and avoided the car myself? Maybe. On the other tire, it sometimes swerves to avoid "hazards" that are simply road marking defects or clearly benign debris. Perhaps improved cameras or more discriminating object detection would prevent most of these incidents which in any event have never posed any danger beyond surprising me.
Of course, if the human "driver" has to pay constant attention the vehicle is not truly autonomous. I am happy to pay $100 month for what I believe is the great convenience of FSD to the extent it's already been implemented. But if I could recapture the hours that are otherwise wasted watching the road, I'd be willing to pay more, and I'm sure many others would be as well. Tesla plans to discontinue selling cars with FSD and making it available only by subscription. I suspect that with a few incremental improvements, those hours will eventually be returned to me. And I further suspect that Tesla will be charging more when that eventuates.
Tesla Customer Communication Review
I'll keep this very short. In fact, I'm tempted to leave the "review" full of empty, since there is essentially no customer communication at all. But it's really worse than that. In addition to driving a Tesla car, I've been a satisfied Tesla Powerwall user since 2018. So satisfied, in fact that I decided to enhance my installation with further additional Powerwalls. I made a mistake with my original order which was believing that three of them would be the appropriate quantity. At the time I ordered them—three years before they finally arrived—the worksheet on the Tesla web site recommended that three would be appropriate for my living configuration. But we have electric heat and prefer not to freeze during power failures. Although thus far freezing hasn't been a problem—I still type with a full complement of fingers—years of experience with the Powerwalls suggested that I should increase my configuration to at least six and maybe to nine. I put in my "order" on their web site, made a token deposit, and waited.
Unlike the three-year wait for my initial installation, the process moved expeditiously. Tesla sent someone to do a site assessment, which ended uneventfully (so far as I'm aware). I was missing at the time, so I tried to get in touch with the assessor to find out details.
NO RESPONSE
A few days later, I received an email from Tesla explaining that there were some electrical issues at the house that had to be resolved by a local electrician. I duly called our electrician and had him commune with Tesla. Several days later, I received from Tesla, without any explanation, a note canceling my order. Of course I immediately wrote back requesting an explanation.
NO RESPONSE
Two days later I wrote again with the same question.
NO RESPONSE
Nine days later I wrote again saying THIRD REQUEST! reminding them I still had no idea why my order was canceled.
NO RESPONSE
Three days later I wrote again: FOURTH REQUEST and added a plea not to force me to use the telephone.
NO RESPONSE
Yes, I do understand futility, and eventually I may overcome my distaste for using the telephone in a final attempt. But before then, I will have written this portion of my otherwise complimentary blogitem. Sigh.
* OK, I'm not that great a driver. Lot's of miles, maybe not the best reflexes. Although everyone is "better than average," I settle for average. I can't be truly horrible because I haven't had a ticket in decades nor any significant accidents.
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