this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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As the parent commenter who actually drives the Tesla, this is absolute bullshit. It does not take me any 40 seconds to reestablish control. FSD is not push the button and take a nap. If it was, it might take me 40 seconds to wake up, take a sip of coffee, stretch and yawn, tilt my chair back up, and then look around the car. But that is not the case.
FSD requires driver attention to the road. Even if the computer is driving, I am still paying attention to what is going on and if anything maintaining a higher level of situational awareness because I can spread my attention around the car without having to focus on staying in the lane. If I want to take over I literally just do it, apply any control input and I'm back in control. Turn the wheel, hit the gas, hit the brake, the car responds immediately.
Driving on residential streets I will often go in and out of FSD frequently, the version I have is not as good with complex intersections and knowing when it is our turn for example. So I'll let it drive along and stay in the lane, then when we get to the intersection I'll take over, then when we get to the other side I'll go back on FSD. There is no 40 second delay anywhere.
I would strongly encourage you to go test drive the car. I'm not saying buy one, I'm saying just so that you can understand what exactly the system does and does not do. Don't take that knowledge from what you read online, much of it written by people with an agenda either pro-Tesla or anti-Tesla. Go experience it for yourself and decide for yourself based on first hand knowledge If it's a dangerous piece of shit or a useful tool.
Maybe it has changed since the last time I tried on a rental (about a year ago), but it felt too gimmicky to be useful. It constantly wanted me to jerk the wheel, and would randomly turn itself off otherwise. Despite the fact I still had both my hands on the wheel, and the camera sensor should have noticed I was constantly looking at the road.
And then the few times it stayed active for a longer period, I was even more bored than usual with driving, and I didn't feel much safer. Especially with country roads, it was constantly doing the speed limit instead of slightly slowing down in the few areas without fences (wildlife running into the road), and it was also happy to drive through a long and deep visible pool of water on the highway at like 110km/hr.
It'd be different if Tesla had LiDAR, but nah, it's not for me. I'm glad you like it though.
Lidar wouldn't have solved any of the issues you described. It also doesn't solve the issues waymo frequenly has, where you'd say wtf didn't lidar stop that? People are putting too much faith on lidar being a magic bullet. All these l2/AVs still need much better capabilities to process visual queues that lidar won't help with.
Like a waymo literally drove into a telephone pole, WITH lidar. They all need better brains.
For the average person to reassume the cognitive load of driving and awareness of what's around then moving at highway speeds? I don't think 40 seconds is a stretch at all.
Also, the smug self-assurance of a Tesla owner does little more than reveal just why people feel the way they do about this kind of person. So certain in the technology and other Tesla owners that concerns over the bicycle rider or the pedestrian become little more than background noise.
You really have no idea what your talking about thinking it takes 40s.
Parent comment described it accurately.
Sure and you have no reason to lie to yourself about the reality of your purchase. Why can no one can devise a well run study to split the difference? Oh well, guess we'll just have to stick to our base assumptions.