Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought FSD wasn’t available in Europe until basically last month, and even then it’s still pending some regulatory hurdles. So you’re comparing VW’s lane keeping tech to Tesla’s most basic TACC (autopilot) right?
That’s possible, I’m comparing what I know.
By the way, VW hasn’t just a lane keeping tech, the car is able to drive autonomous in standard situations. Our VW (build 2022) was far better than our Tesla (build 2023) in lane detecting, lane keeping, reading traffic signs (dven in the Netherlands), navigation, detecting city and village boundaries, detecting crossroads, keeping distance and following lanes in curves – the tesla tends to ignore the law of physics and to go to fast. Tesla is far better at detecting waste bins though. It detects every single wastebin there is anywhere within 3 m of the road. VW lacks autonomous overtaking, and it slows for traffic lights but does not stop for them when they are red, that’s two points for the Tesla. Though Tesla slows for traffic lights even when they are green.
The VW was able to drive home from work almost autonomous – there were two crossings, one traffic light and one roundabout it needed my assistance. The Tesla would crash multiple times.
The most annoying thing with the Tesla is that it does not cooperate with the driver. VW has a genuine assistant – the car drives, and when I correct it, the VW just smoothly accepts the correction and carries on. The Tesla just stops working anytime the driver intervenes.
Mine drove me from my driveway, through my neighborhood, through stop signs, railroad crossings, stop lights, interchanges, highways, on and off ramps, 85 miles an hour and down to a crawl in heavy and light traffic, in rain and on clear days, almost 200 miles round trip once a week for a year. But I’m in the U.S. with access to the FSD stack. I’ve driven rentals with advanced TACC tech, and they have failed to impress ( with the exception of Blue Cruise, I haven’t had a chance to try that yet). If you get a chance to drive a Tesla enrolled in “FSD (Supervised)” as they call it now, I highly recommend it. It will get mad at you if you aren’t looking straight ahead though, and the “keep your hands on the wheel” nags generally only happen if conditions get shitty or you play with the screen/stop paying attention to the road.
That’s fascinating. Especially the rain part, because our Tesla’s driving assistant just does not work in bad weather. I cannot imagine how it is technical possible to get a camera-based system to work reliably in bad weather without some mechanism to keep the cameras clean. Our rear camera is basically unusable during winter unless we get out of the car and clean it every single time we need it.
Thank you for your advise!
