My One Month Review of Tesla FSD: The Good, The Bad, and The Quirky
date
Feb 24, 2025
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month-tesla-fsd-review
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Published
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Tech
summary
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) is impressive, handling my daily commute hands-free 95% of the time, but it still has quirks—like occasional lane selection mistakes, red light hesitation, and aggressive yellow light behavior. Despite its flaws, I love the convenience, though my wife remains skeptical.
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Post
I've been using Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) for about a month now, and I’ve taken every possible opportunity to test it out. Overall, I really like it—I'd say it does what it needs to do about 95% of the time. But, of course, the devil is in the details.
So let’s break this down into three parts: the good, the bad, and the things that make me go "huh?"
🚀 The Good: It’s (Mostly) Like Magic
The best way I can describe FSD right now is that it’s good enough to use daily without much hesitation. For instance, I can drive from my home in San Jose to my office in San Mateo—a commute that ranges from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours—without touching the steering wheel 95% of the time.
That’s the key part: "hands-off 95% of the time." It’s not perfect, but it's really, really close.
Using FSD is simple:
- Get in the car.
- Set your destination.
- Hold down the FSD button.
- Let it drive.
Tesla offers three driving modes:
- Chill Mode – Supposed to be the smoothest and most relaxed.
- Standard Mode – A balance between caution and efficiency.
- Hurry Mode – More aggressive, takes tighter gaps, follows cars more closely.
I mostly use Hurry Mode, occasionally switching to Standard if it feels too reckless. I haven't really tried Chill Mode much, but maybe I should.
🤔 The Bad: When It Just Doesn’t Get It
While FSD is impressive, it still has some "what the heck was that?" moments. Here are the biggest issues I’ve run into:
1️⃣ Lane Selection Mistakes
One of the more common mistakes happens near my office. When turning right onto a street with multiple lanes, FSD sometimes picks the wrong one—choosing the rightmost lane, even when it’s a right-turn-only lane. Since I actually need to go straight, I have to take over at that moment. Not a huge deal, but annoying.
2️⃣ The Time It Almost Ran a Red Light
This happened once, but it was unsettling. I was waiting to turn left at a red arrow, and before the light changed, the car started creeping forward like it wanted to go. I had to hit the brakes.
It hasn’t happened again, but this is exactly why you still have to pay attention. You never really know when FSD might do something unexpected.
3️⃣ It Doesn’t See Objects Super Close to the Car
This is an issue when parking. My driveway has a curb and a slope leading to the street. The car doesn’t recognize the curb because it’s too close to the front cameras, so if I start FSD from a parked position, it will just drive straight over the curb.
Now, I always manually drive over the slope first, then enable FSD.
4️⃣ Yellow Light Aggression
Sometimes FSD is a little too eager to beat a yellow light instead of stopping. I suspect this is because I usually have it on Hurry Mode, but even when I switch to Standard, it still tries to push through more often than I’d like.
5️⃣ Randomly Driving in the Express Lane
Even when I don’t want to use the express lane (because, you know, tolls), FSD sometimes moves into it anyway. Switching to Standard Mode usually makes it return to a normal lane, but not always. When it refuses to leave the express lane, I have to take over and manually correct it.
🧐 The Quirks: Tesla’s Attempts to Keep You Engaged
Tesla really wants you to pay attention when using FSD, and I’ve tested the limits of how it enforces this.
1️⃣ Video Calls? Nope.
I once tried to take a work video call while driving, and Tesla immediately knew I was looking at my phone. It gave me two or three warnings, then disabled FSD completely until I parked the car and restarted it. Lesson learned.
2️⃣ Closing My Eyes
I wanted to see if the car could tell if I wasn’t paying attention, so I tried closing my eyes while my wife watched the road. Surprisingly, it didn’t immediately freak out. I didn’t time it, but I could close my eyes for a little while before it started demanding attention.
3️⃣ Sunglasses Trick
Wearing sunglasses seems to confuse the system a bit. Since the car can’t track my eyes, it doesn’t warn me about inattention as much. Instead, it compensates by periodically asking me to wiggle the steering wheel.
So theoretically—not saying you should do this—but if someone wanted to watch a video while using FSD, they could wear sunglasses and just shake the wheel when prompted. (Again, I am not recommending this. Just… you know… as an engineer, I was curious.)
🎯 Final Thoughts: Worth It?
Despite its flaws, I love Tesla’s FSD. It has exceeded my expectations, and I plan to keep paying for it.
My wife? Not convinced. She doesn’t fully trust it, and given the occasional weird behavior, I can’t blame her. But for me, FSD makes commuting effortless. I don’t worry about directions, I don’t stress over traffic—I just turn it on, play a podcast or audiobook, and relax.
It genuinely feels like living in the future. And I’m here for it.