I bought full self driving for my model 3 back in early 2020 but do i regret it and would i buy it
again and obviously the big question is it worth it in 2021 my model 3 is going to be a robo taxi
so whilst i'm at work it's going to be out there earning mean income being part of the tesla ride
sharing fleet well that's the future that we've been promised but the question is when is the
future going to become the present because a lot of tesla owners invested in that idea and bought
full self-driving for their model s x and 3 are now in a situation where they've got an aging car
want to upgrade to the latest tech but haven't really reaped the benefits of
the full self-driving package am i going to be in that situation in a few years time or do you
think full self driving will finally materialize or maybe what you get already for the package
is worth paying out for lots of questions to answer in this video and also i'll go through
what full self driving currently looks like and how close we are to that truly autonomous vehicle
so you know i love tesla and for that reason if you're interested in anything to do tesla or
electric cars you need to click that subscribe button straight away because i aim to publish
videos weekly on that very topic i'll also post a picture of my model 3 weekly on instagram so
don't forget to follow on there now on that note of loving tesla i must warn you i'm going to say
some things that die hard Elon Musk fans might not be happy to hear i'm not dissing the guy because
at the end of the day he's trying to teach a car to do things that a lot of human drivers struggle
to do with on a daily basis but he is renowned for breaking promises and missing deadlines all the
time but that's probably because of the complexity of the problem he's trying to teach computer
to drive a car i mean that's mind-blowing but regardless of how complex the problem is he has
promised full self-driving would be ready by the end of several years now and those deadlines have
come and gone and i think if you're investing in anything to do with tesla based on future products
or features you have to go into it with the mindset of any deadlines given are probably going
to be missed if you do that you'll probably end up not too disappointed if they don't deliver on time
that's definitely the approach i took when i invested in full self driving and you'll notice
there i said investment not purchase which i'll explain in a bit so for anyone not familiar with
tesla you can currently buy the full self-driving package for 6 800 pounds either at the time of
buying the car or you can add it later through an in-app purchase the most expensive in-app
purchase you're ever going to make in your life i imagine now from time to time tesla makes up their
pricing policy so for example there's currently something called enhanced autopilot which enables
you to benefit from some of the full self-driving features just not all of them for three thousand
four hundred pounds but that package won't get upgraded over time whereas the full self-driving
package will now something you should know that is if you invest in the full self-driving package
you don't get a full self-driving car confused well what you're buying into is
the fact that you'll get full self driving in the future it's just not clear precisely when
but whatever price you buy full self driving at now is the maximum you're going to pay
for it and all the future updates and features will get added automatically at no extra cost
so what you found is those early adopters that bought fell full self-driving when there wasn't
much functionality it cost them a lot less and they're going to get all these extra benefits
at way cheaper price different countries have different regulations so for example in the us
it's way more relaxed full self driving has more functions and features therefore it costs 10 000
now currently in the uk we're still under eu regulation but now that we've left the eu there's
every chance that we're going to get more features added therefore we could see a massive price jump
in full self driving in the near future so should you be buying it now before that anticipated price
rise so what do you get for your money well no matter what tesla you get you get autopilot
standard which is basically like an automatic lane keeping system you get to put on lots of
other vehicles just that little bit better full self driving adds to this on dual carriageways
and motorways if you've got a destination set you can engage something called navigate on autopilot
which is like autopilot it will keep you in lane it will keep your set distance behind the vehicle
in front or maintain your speed but if it detects a slow vehicle in front of you like we've got here
it will give you the option to overtake now it's just identified that there's a car there that's
on my blind spot so it's not going to initiate the maneuver even if i indicate i'm not going to
confuse the cars behind me but once those cars are clear this line will no longer be red which
means i can actually instigate the maneuver you still need to hold the steering wheel but
it will control your speed and actually maneuver you out so now we're clear if we flick that on
you'll see i'm not steering this this is taking us out of lane
and then we've maneuvered out now what would normally happen here is we'd overtake the
vehicle in front and once we're clear it would indicate to pull back in and then you have to
confirm that every time by flicking the indicator on in the us you have the option to turn the lane
change confirmation off which means the model 3 will do those maneuvers completely on their own
you just have an option to cancel it if you're not happy with it at all but regs in the uk here mean
we can't do that unfortunately you also don't have to wait for the model 3 to make those decisions so
like here if i wanted to pull out into the faster lane i could indicate it's clear it tells the car
it's going to initiate the maneuver and then it'll pull back out but as i don't want to block the
third lane i'm just going to pull back in so again the model 3 is going to do this in time
maneuver here it does freak out with lorries though we'll see oh that's got a bit better
sometimes it doesn't like our narrow lanes and will freak out when you're trying to get into a
lane even though that lorry isn't actually in there it's just quite a relaxing way to drive
because if you're not quite paying attention and you're sat out in a lane when you don't need to be
it will prompt you to get over equally if you don't realize and you sat behind a much slower car
again it will prompt you to overtake and then go round that vehicle so it just removes some of that
cognitive load you still have to be completely aware of your surroundings and ready to intervene
at any time which is fair enough but then that's kind of what an autopilot would do on an aircraft
i imagine now you can see we're coming up to the exit we're 0.9 miles away and it's now indicating
a little line here saying i need to get over at some point so we'll go for it now because there's
lots of lorries and there's a little bit of a tricky maneuver for it but it's slotted in there
quite nicely so we're now 0.3 miles away from the junction and what it should do at this point is
indicate and take us off of the junction when it notices the slip road is there you'll notice my
hand is clear of the indicator stalk as we're approaching it obviously the audi in front is
indicating it likes to indicate very early but in a second we should see the car just take the exit
there you go with no input from me and you might have seen the indicator just flashing a second
and once you come off at your slip road we're on navigating autopilot indicated by that solid
solid blue line in the middle now we're on standard autopilot and it'll start to slow me
because this car is slowing down in front now the other full self driving feature that you
get is the fact that your model 3 will stop for traffic lights stop signs and junctions
just not roundabouts so don't try and use it on that now this feature was added in 2020 but
again it still requires a driver input so if we engage autopilot now it will see some traffic
lights coming up and unless i interact now by pressing down the gear stick or the accelerator
you'll see in a second that line is red if i push down on the gear stick it then changes it to green
now in you countries where you've got relaxed regulations you can actually choose the model 3 in
some circumstances to choose to go through a green light but it will always stop a red light so here
we go we've got some more traffic lights coming up now again there's nothing behind me so if i
didn't interact here we come to a stop but i will press to go and then it changes green and it'll
accelerate through the green light and that's kind of it for full self driving around the place
i'll come on to full self driving in city streets in a moment because that's the next
thing that's promised in the uk don't worry you do get more than just that for the 6 800 pounds
but not a lot and i have to say i don't really use any of the features so what else do you get well
you get something called summon which basically turns your tesla into a massive remote control car
from the app you get the option to move the model 3 forwards or reverse with no one in the driver's
seat it's aimed at getting your model 3 in or out of tight spaces where you wouldn't be able
to get in right out the door normally so basically really tight parking spaces my use case scenario
was going to be using it to get in and out of the garage the problem is in the uk garages are
so small and tight that it hesitates so much it's just way quicker for me to get in and do it myself
now tesla do still say this is in the beta phase so fingers crossed that will improve over time
i do seem to have an issue maintaining connection as well from what i've seen on comments on other
videos and on tesla forums this isn't unique to me i did reach out to tesla on this and
they gave a bit of a corporate response saying lots of environmental factors can influence how
well someone works so it's a cool party trick but that's about it the feature i'm interested in the
most is something called smart summon which again because of eu regulation is pretty much crippled
at the moment in the uk but the idea is fantastic so if you were at the cinema you came out the
cinema your car was part somewhere in the car park and it was raining you could press smart summon it
summons the car to wherever you're located it will pull out of its parking space and come over to you
now the problem in the uk is because of regulation you have to be within a certain radius of the car
which means basically you might as well just get in it but in the u.s there's lots and lots of
videos of this working awesomely online people getting out puddles driving across the entire
car park so i can't wait till we actually get that feature this was one of the actual differentiating
features from the prices difference between the two different countries so i imagine when we get
this we'll probably see a price jump in the full self-driving package elon's also hinted
at something called reverse summon coming in the near future which is where you get out your car
it then goes off to the car park and finds a parking space on itself in its current form i
would not trust that to do its job properly but again something to look forward to in the future
talking of parking the other feature you get at the full self driving package is auto park which
is where it will scan and identify parking spaces you put it into reverse press the start button and
then you can let go and the model 3 is going to park itself now i've used this feature a few times
it is pretty cool but to be honest because i'm a confident parker i find it quicker to do myself
i've had a few occasions where it identifies parking spots that aren't actually present
and it will still let you try and park itself so it's handy for someone that struggles to park but
in a busy car park doing perpendicular parking can take a little bit of time and probably will get a
little bit frustrating for people but you can see we've got reasonably close to the curb there and
it's not done too bad a job there's also a cool function which is a combination of like auto park
and summon which is where you can double check on the drive stick and then get out the car and it's
going to park itself but i don't trust it enough to be able to let it to do that on its own those
with double garages though i imagine this feature might be useful especially if you've got no other
cars in there that you're gonna risk damaging and that's it navigate in autopilot auto lane
change summon smart summon auto parking and the fact it can stop for traffic light stop signs and
junctions in the us full self driving is currently in beta stage to actually do full cell driving on
city streets and it looks ridiculous but it's only been released to about a thousand drivers so far
and that was way back in october with no news ever being released to the wider us population
or beta testing starting in different countries there's pictures of model 3s online doing u-turns
navigating around parked cars and taking left turns which are obviously more complex in the us
it looks amazing but there are still flaws and so in answer to the original question is full self
driving worth it in 2021 well 6 800 pounds is a lot of money for a car that is effectively going
to park itself change lanes when you indicate and stop at traffic lights you buy it knowing
what's promised around the corner and how amazing it could really be as it stands at the minute
full self driving is not worth it but locking in that price before any potential price increases
and having that potential income as an automatic uber driver might be worth paying for now it's
a gamble and that's why i called it an investment when i mentioned it earlier rather than a purchase
i bought it for five thousand eight hundred pounds before the one thousand pound price increase
and i'm anticipating it worth over 10 000 pounds in the future so it's gonna add value to my model
three either by the fact that the resale value will be increased because it's got a package on
it worth several thousand pounds or i just buy a brand new tesla and send this one off driving
around town all day as a shiny blue taxi i'm not anticipating full self driving be available till
early 2022 and even then that's probably wishful thinking you've got regulation that's going to
have to catch up as well so would i buy it again knowing what i know now and surprisingly the
answer is yes i would even though i don't use any of the functions and i don't think it's currently
worth it i'm buying it based on the future value which i know i might end up like those 2015 tesla
owners that will promise full self-driving in 2018 and now are left with a five-year-old aging tesla
they're trying to get rid of i'd love to know your thoughts on this topic because i honestly don't
know what is the correct answer my gut instinct is that tesla will crack this problem sooner
rather than later and definitely way ahead of the competition that's all for this week thanks for
watching don't forget to like share and subscribe for more content like this i will see you soon