Electric Vehicles - Models Discussion

[DayDreaming]

+1. I'm impressed as well, though it's still not perfect. V12 is a little better than V11 in some ways, unchanged in others, but presumably V12 is learning day by day.

At least based on my 3+ months experience, I have no doubt FSD V12 can safely take you from any location to another at least 99% of the time no matter what the circumstances.

The only clear areas for improvement to me are:

• While it handles traffic signals perfectly, including right turn on red, FSD is still just too cautious at stop signs. It stops on the line no matter what, then very slowly creeps forward, and waits for an excessively large gap to enter - at least on unprotected left turns. I am by no means an aggressive driver, FSD is more cautious with stop signs than any human, especially on unprotected left turns.
• It's overly cautious with pedestrians. Even a person standing next to the road who is clearly not going to cross gets a wide berth from FSD. A human driver can more easily tell when to be cautious around pedestrians.
• FSD is more conservative with yellow lights than humans.
• FSD is very good at reading and adjusting to speed limit changes, but it will get it wrong occasionally. It's a simple matter to override with the right scroll wheel, and I assume it will get better.

[...]
Again if you stop and think about all the decisions FSD has to make, and knowing that road signs and markings aren't always as they should be, it's amazing how far Tesla FSD has come. I still don't know how they will handle night, pouring rain, snow or iced over roads (surely they have plans), but I don't doubt FSD will be at least 99% capable in fair weather.

FSD v12 is my first try at FSD, with the free 1 month trial.
I agree with everything you said. It's absolutely amazing what it can do, it hasn't done anything too wrong or scary even once so far. But it's so conservative at making turns and proceeding at stop signs, I'll take it out of FSD is someone is behind me, or else they'd get very annoyed.

One thing that really bothers me is that it puts the turn signal on far too early. For example, I was making a turn 1 block past an intersection with a traffic light, and it put the left turn signal on before the traffic light. Other times I could tell that other drivers thought I was going to turn into some store parking lot when I was really turning at the next intersection a good distance ahead.

I've driven in some rainy weather, nothing too terrible, and FSD gives me a warning that "FSD may be degraded. Poor weather detected" and it sometimes lowers the speed below the speed limit.

 

[Koolau]

Feds investigating inadvertent emergency braking on Honda cars.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/0...to-hondas-automatic-emergency-braking-system/

This sounds almost more scary than the so-called "possessed" cars that accelerate on their own. Hitting the brake or turning the car off defeats such an incident. What do you do if your car suddenly brakes? You can't override it with the accelerator or turn it off as far as I understand it.

Heh, heh, the more we make our cars drive for us, the less control we may actually have when we need it. Just a thought as I am NOT against the march of automotive progress. YMMV

 

[audreyh1]

FSD v12 is my first try at FSD, with the free 1 month trial.
I agree with everything you said. It's absolutely amazing what it can do, it hasn't done anything too wrong or scary even once so far. But it's so conservative at making turns and proceeding at stop signs, I'll take it out of FSD is someone is behind me, or else they'd get very annoyed.

One thing that really bothers me is that it puts the turn signal on far too early. For example, I was making a turn 1 block past an intersection with a traffic light, and it put the left turn signal on before the traffic light. Other times I could tell that other drivers thought I was going to turn into some store parking lot when I was really turning at the next intersection a good distance ahead.

Funny, my car puts the turn signal on quite late and rarely uses it for merges or roundabouts.

I find that if the car is unreasonably hesitating the slightest pressure on the accelerator smarts it right up! That’s actually good enough for me.

 

[perinova]

getting the federal rebate

www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax2023.shtml

Anybody had any luck finding a dealership that accepts rebate transfers?
I am cosidering buying a used Chevy Bolt to get the rebate but since last year my taxes are ~$0 so I won't get the credit if I apply with the tax return.

* So far I can't find any dealer that sells used or new Bolt and accepts to process the rebate.
* I may have the other option to do a Roth conversion up to appropriate tax amount.

 

[Zathras]

www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tax2023.shtml

Anybody had any luck finding a dealership that accepts rebate transfers?
I am cosidering buying a used Chevy Bolt to get the rebate but since last year my taxes are ~$0 so I won't get the credit if I apply with the tax return.

* So far I can't find any dealer that sells used or new Bolt and accepts to process the rebate.
* I may have the other option to do a Roth conversion up to appropriate tax amount.

Rebates, as of this year, can be taken at the dealer. I don’t believe you need any tax liability to get the discount off the price.
Used vehicles only qualify if the sale price is under $25k (I would expect any used Bolt would be).

 

[Midpack]

Funny, my car puts the turn signal on quite late and rarely uses it for merges or roundabouts.

I find that if the car is unreasonably hesitating the slightest pressure on the accelerator smarts it right up! That’s actually good enough for me.

+1. IME the turn signal comes on later than I would do myself. Might be a reflection on me though...

 

[RetMD21]

FSD reminds me of when I was riding along as my children were practicing driving before taking their tests. This week it slammed on the brakes at a yellow light and after pausing tried to turn right illegally. It properly moved into the right lane on the highway but failed to account for the long line of cars merging.

 

[folivier]

Since most people don't use turn signals maybe it's a sign of the times?

 

[perinova]

Rebates, as of this year, can be taken at the dealer. I don’t believe you need any tax liability to get the discount off the price.
Used vehicles only qualify if the sale price is under $25k (I would expect any used Bolt would be).

That is correct, supposedly there are ~9000 dealers that can process the rebate but I don't seem to locate any Chevy dealer doing so. I also can't find any directory of accepting dealers.

 

[Zathras]

That is correct, supposedly there are ~9000 dealers that can process the rebate but I don't seem to locate any Chevy dealer doing so. I also can't find any directory of accepting dealers.

I don’t know about an official list. The two times I was at a dealer this year, both knew about it.
A good source of info for you may be your states EV owners club. These are present in many states.

The one in Minnesota has a presence on facebook as well as a web site.

http://pluginamerica.org is another good resource and may be able to point you to a local club.

Good luck!

 

[explanade]

There are suppose to be all kinds of bargains available now, including some lease deals.

Unfortunately, my lease runs until January.

Will see if those deals are still around. But new EVs to come, including the Volvo EX30, which has sold well in Europe.

 

[yakers]

If you are buying, not leasing, the next one you could buy a bit early, if its a real good deal. Can even sell a lease although I have no problem with an extra car. Some years back we leased a Miata for a year because we were not sure how it would work (we had a young son) loved it, found a great deal on exactly the color/details we wanted and for 3 months we had two Miatas.

 

[Dranoel]

We are enjoying the self-driving in our 2021 Model 3. I find it amazingly good but, still requiring some supervision.

 

[Midpack]

My FSD free trial expires in 3 days and I will miss it, but not enough to pay for it. IME it has taken me from anywhere to anywhere I’ve asked it without any intervention almost every time - but I have to be patient as FSD is more conservative than most humans in some situations. In 4 months it has never done anything unsafe, it’s just been (way) more hesitant at stop signs, around pedestrians and some unprotected left turns.

A few days ago I drove from my house to a golf course 12 miles away, highways and secondary roads. Flawless including roundabouts and it even slowed for speed bumps much to my surprise! Tesla FSD is getting really good.

 

[audreyh1]

+1. IME the turn signal comes on later than I would do myself. Might be a reflection on me though...

I don’t think it’s a reflection on you. I used to signal way in advance.

Since most people don't use turn signals maybe it's a sign of the times?

The car just does it differently. It does signal at critical moments though and never changes lanes (in a non-merge situation) without signaling.

 

[audreyh1]

FSD reminds me of when I was riding along as my children were practicing driving before taking their tests. This week it slammed on the brakes at a yellow light and after pausing tried to turn right illegally. It properly moved into the right lane on the highway but failed to account for the long line of cars merging.

I think the brake slamming “feature” at yellow lights has already been fixed. It can slow rapidly still to stop at a just yellow light, but without that hard end bit.

 

[audreyh1]

My FSD free trial expires in 3 days and I will miss it, but not enough to pay for it. IME it has taken me from anywhere to anywhere I’ve asked it without any intervention almost every time - but I have to be patient as FSD is more conservative than most humans in some situations. In 4 months it has never done anything unsafe, it’s just been (way) more hesitant at stop signs, around pedestrians and some unprotected left turns.

A few days ago I drove from my house to a golf course 12 miles away, highways and secondary roads. Flawless including roundabouts and it even slowed for speed bumps much to my surprise! Tesla FSD is getting really good.

I have been pleased at the conservativeness. We’ve been in several national parks with tons of people milling about on roadsides and the Tesla has been just excellent around people, especially crosswalks noticing intent even. I’ve been very impressed and felt much calmer driving these crazy busy areas. The car is simply way more aware at any given instant of everything going on around you because it’s looking everywhere all at once, all the time.

We plan to subscribe at least one more month as our trip is not yet over .

We are enjoying the self-driving in our 2021 Model 3. I find it amazingly good but, still requiring some supervision.

Yes, really terrific. I expect to supervise and do so carefully although I rarely intervene. Non-supervision is years away from as I would expect because that’s still a massive leap in technology even though the car already drives so very well.

 

[audreyh1]

Oh boy yesterday was a long one as an explosive train derailment occurred near I-40 at the NM AZ border shortly before we were headed there. So many eighteen wheelers that traffic just crept for miles as they got us off the interstate which they were just shutting down. Extra 4 hours to get off and detour.

So we ended up night driving with FSD. It did great. I was able to watch extra for potholes and other hazards such as trucks pulled over and meridian jumpers.* FSD took care of most and we watched out for exceptions.

* At night eastbound to ABQ we passed several west bound I-40 groups that had been stopped preparing to divert them off of I-40, very long lines of 18-wheelers plus cars. Well in some areas passenger vehicles were driving across the divide U-turning into eastbound lanes so we really had to watch for them. Also lots of trucks pulled over to the side at night. It was pretty crazy.

 

[joesxm3]

Wow. Did you use up all your battery and have to get towed?

 

[audreyh1]

Wow. Did you use up all your battery and have to get towed?

Tongue in cheek? Ha ha

Of course not. The car used only about 1% extra with all the waiting and we arrived at our charger only a few percent lower than originally predicted in spite of the 30+ mile detour, probably because of all the slow speeds involved. We arrived at the charger with 22% so we had a lot of room. I had already recalculated the route with the detour and knew we could easily make it. Otherwise we would have backtracked if necessary.

 

[Midpack]

Much to my surprise, for the first time in 4 months, FSD would have missed two exits on my drive yesterday. It was an Interstate interchange that was recently completed after years in construction. On the way up the map showed I-99west (correct) but the car hugged the right lane (eastward) - I gave it as much time as I could before taking control - it was going to take me east? On the way home, it would have missed the exit to I-88 south altogether - again waited until the last second but no indication it was going to correct. It’s been almost flawless IME but it lost the script yesterday - could have been a Google, MapBox or FSD issue…

 

[JoeWras]

Oh boy yesterday was a long one as an explosive train derailment occurred near I-40 at the NM AZ border shortly before we were headed there. So many eighteen wheelers that traffic just crept for miles as they got us off the interstate which they were just shutting down. Extra 4 hours to get off and detour.

So we ended up night driving with FSD. It did great. I was able to watch extra for potholes and other hazards such as trucks pulled over and meridian jumpers.* FSD took care of most and we watched out for exceptions.

* At night eastbound to ABQ we passed several west bound I-40 groups that had been stopped preparing to divert them off of I-40, very long lines of 18-wheelers plus cars. Well in some areas passenger vehicles were driving across the divide U-turning into eastbound lanes so we really had to watch for them. Also lots of trucks pulled over to the side at night. It was pretty crazy.

Not a comment on EVs FSD, but I thought I'd add interesting context to above situation. If you can stomach a jump off to reddit, here's a pointer to a post of a truck's dashcam that passes this explosion exactly as it happens. It some of the more impressive dashcam video I've ever seen. The fireball ignites just as the truck is passing by the derailment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashcams/comments/1cgyflr/train_derailment

EDIT: looks like the new modern board software plays this automatically. Nice! (At least it works on my computer)