PB to Lightning

[Porpoise Hork]

Regarding Tesla- I think many folks, like Porpoise Hork, are mis-guided in judging Tesla’s 2014 quality versus today. They are light years apart- and I think his conclusions- if limited to those first 5 years or so (it’s obviously a sliding scale) would probably be valid. I would have NEVER purchased one back then. I read a lot of those same complaints- and I had a few friends that still loved their early model Tesla’s- but I felt they chose to do so in spite of the numerous shortcomings (poor maintenance support, short range, inferior warranty coverage, expensive batteries, immature charging network, embarrassing fit and finish and body construction- and probably a few more if I think about it longer).

In MY opinion-owning 2 later model versions- a ‘22 and ‘25- all those complaints above are virtually non-existent today- and we don’t even have the refreshed model 3 or Y (our 2025 Y was purchased in October of last year because of the $7,500 credit that I feared was disappearing- and Tesla’s 0% financing for 60 months). I believe the Highland and Juniper are even better versions of both based on everything I’ve read and seen.

I won’t accuse Porpoise Hork, but there are also many deranged political simpletons who hate Trump and Musk so much- they wouldn’t drive a Tesla if it was objectively the best car in the world. This group can be safely, and completely ignored, I think. They usually aren’t too hard to pick out- as there isn’t a single one of them who has ever driven a Tesla without hating it for reasons that have nothing to do with the car itself. Get past that, and I think you’ll see that most find they are extremely hard to beat- providing your daily commute can get you to work and back to top up in your garage. I will admit that in cases where that isn’t true- they make less sense; Supercharging is quick, easy and convenient (although still admittedly less so than a gas station)- but it’s not cheap.

Many people may by jaded on Tesla quality but to say I'm misguided on the build quality for Tesla's is patently incorrect. Both vehicles I cited are mid-2024 year models, not early versions. Both owners have had nothing but problems with them. That's all. Yes, many don't have issues with their Tesla's, but others do. A former co-worker of mine had an early Model 3 and he never had any issues with it during the several years he owned it, nor did he complain about the build quality.

I stand by my original suggestion to OP

Depends on how much truck stuff you do vs just driving around town with it. If you do a lot of truck stuff and like the 600+ mile range then keep the PB. If having at best a 250 range on is not an issue, don't do a lot of truck stuff and have a L2 charger already installed then get the Lightning.

As for the political crap all I'll say is I'm not going to get into as it only leads to arguments.

Elon on the other hand... Well he is completely full of it. The man has built a well-earned reputation for massively over promising and vastly under-delivering. There's a reason why he's known as "The boy who cried FSD... Next year..."

Do I let my personal opinions of this fool impact my buying decisions? No.

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[Tigmd99]

Many people may by jaded on Tesla quality but to say I'm misguided on the build quality for Tesla's is patently incorrect. Both vehicles I cited are mid-2024 year models, not early versions. Both owners have had nothing but problems with them. That's all. Yes, many don't have issues with their Tesla's, but others do. A former co-worker of mine had an early Model 3 and he never had any issues with it during the several years he owned it, nor did he complain about the build quality.

I stand by my original suggestion to OP




As for the political crap all I'll say is I'm not going to get into as it only leads to arguments.

Elon on the other hand... Well he is completely full of it. The man has built a well-earned reputation for massively over promising and vastly under-delivering. There's a reason why he's known as "The boy who cried FSD... Next year..."

Do I let my personal opinions of this fool impact my buying decisions? No.

FSD is here…literally. Go test drive a new Tesla. Simple as that.

 

[Vulnox]

FSD is here…literally. Go test drive a new Tesla. Simple as that.

It absolutely is not. Just have to look at the many, many issues with the Robotaxi launch, which is on bleeding edge FSD.



FSD is certainly impressive, generally, but as long as Tesla sticks to this dumb camera system only approach, which still has issues with Phantom braking, something I haven't experienced in even a Ford vehicle since our 2019 F-150, they are going to find their lead diminishing every month as everyone else catches up and does so more reliably.

While I also do not like Elon, I am not a Tesla hater. I want to see Tesla succeed overall because they have a tech stack that is pretty much setting the curve, even if their actual vehicle production quality capabilities are a bit lacking.

I do wish they would give us an actual instrument cluster in the MY/M3. It was a non-starter for us between two test drives of the MY. We test drove one before we got our 2022 Mach-e, and for fun test drove the Juniper refresh before we got the 2025 Mach-e. I like the infotainment system in the MY quite a bit, but everything else feels better in the Mach-e, so we decided to stay with it. It doesn't help that our Juniper test drive ALSO had phantom braking in our short highway jaunt. I haven't once had that happen in our MME or Lightning.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

FSD is here…literally. Go test drive a new Tesla. Simple as that.

Elon Musk has publicly promised that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) would achieve full autonomy—meaning no human intervention required at least 20 times. As of today it's listed as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to clarify that the system still requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous.

2013: Predicted 90% autonomous miles by 2016.
2015: Claimed full autonomy was three years away.
2016: Promised a coast-to-coast autonomous drive by the end of 2017.
2018–2025: Repeatedly stated that FSD would be feature-complete or safer than a human driver within the following year, including high-profile statements in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

 

[Tigmd99]

It absolutely is not. Just have to look at the many, many issues with the Robotaxi launch, which is on bleeding edge FSD.



FSD is certainly impressive, generally, but as long as Tesla sticks to this dumb camera system only approach, which still has issues with Phantom braking, something I haven't experienced in even a Ford vehicle since our 2019 F-150, they are going to find their lead diminishing every month as everyone else catches up and does so more reliably.

While I also do not like Elon, I am not a Tesla hater. I want to see Tesla succeed overall because they have a tech stack that is pretty much setting the curve, even if their actual vehicle production quality capabilities are a bit lacking.

I do wish they would give us an actual instrument cluster in the MY/M3. It was a non-starter for us between two test drives of the MY. We test drove one before we got our 2022 Mach-e, and for fun test drove the Juniper refresh before we got the 2025 Mach-e. I like the infotainment system in the MY quite a bit, but everything else feels better in the Mach-e, so we decided to stay with it. It doesn't help that our Juniper test drive ALSO had phantom braking in our short highway jaunt. I haven't once had that happen in our MME or Lightning.

No phantom braking? I have Blue Cruise 1.4. It sucks. Badly. And yes, it phantom brakes occasionally as well. And crosses lanes!

If you think that LIDAR is the answer…then see Waymo doing stupid stuff on Youtube.

 

[Tigmd99]

Elon Musk has publicly promised that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) would achieve full autonomy—meaning no human intervention required at least 20 times. As of today it's listed as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to clarify that the system still requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous.

2013: Predicted 90% autonomous miles by 2016.
2015: Claimed full autonomy was three years away.
2016: Promised a coast-to-coast autonomous drive by the end of 2017.
2018–2025: Repeatedly stated that FSD would be feature-complete or safer than a human driver within the following year, including high-profile statements in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Sure…but FSD is hard to develop. Test drive one. I double dare you.

 

[HammaMan]

Elon Musk has publicly promised that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) would achieve full autonomy—meaning no human intervention required at least 20 times. As of today it's listed as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to clarify that the system still requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous.

2013: Predicted 90% autonomous miles by 2016.
2015: Claimed full autonomy was three years away.
2016: Promised a coast-to-coast autonomous drive by the end of 2017.
2018–2025: Repeatedly stated that FSD would be feature-complete or safer than a human driver within the following year, including high-profile statements in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Teslas on autopilot are safer than humans, that's just a fact. All modern vehicles with ADAS accident prevention features have reduced accidents. There's been at least a dozen people here openly admit that one of the features prevented an accident. Teslas will dodge a vehicle coming at it if it has the room and its engaged. They're the ONLY one that will.

I can't speak for him regarding his timelines. His vehicles are the most advanced on the road and that's because their systems are wholly inhouse. They have a lot of compute in the vehicles because they worked with AMD to literally put PC hardware in it. Teslas are powered by water cooled PCs with silicon they had tailored to their use case. Not some repurposed cell phone SOC.

Before he got into vehicles, he tried to buy ICBMs from russia and then decided to just build his own. He's the reason we're not hitching rides to the ISS from the russians at $150mil a seat. They've launched the only 2 private space flights including the first crewed polar orbit and the highest manned mission since apollo. He put the most advanced satcom system into orbit, and for just $10/mo any cell phone can sign up for texting that can work literally anywhere with direct-to-sat phone communication. It's a system so advanced that the US govt has paid him to build their own constellation of birds under the name of starshield. They're specialized starlink birds with additional 'hardware' on them with the goal of having global persistent surveillance and jam-proof super high bandwidth communications for our warfighters, including facetime home to their families onboard ships, aircraft, and on the ground.

Cumulative is even larger than this, this is 2024's launch figures.

Timelines aside, ~90% of global space launches are the result of but 1 US company and Elon heads it up. "Timelines" --

 

[nomarhits400]

Many people may by jaded on Tesla quality but to say I'm misguided on the build quality for Tesla's is patently incorrect. Both vehicles I cited are mid-2024 year models, not early versions. Both owners have had nothing but problems with them. That's all. Yes, many don't have issues with their Tesla's, but others do. A former co-worker of mine had an early Model 3 and he never had any issues with it during the several years he owned it, nor did he complain about the build quality.

I stand by my original suggestion to OP




As for the political crap all I'll say is I'm not going to get into as it only leads to arguments.

Elon on the other hand... Well he is completely full of it. The man has built a well-earned reputation for massively over promising and vastly under-delivering. There's a reason why he's known as "The boy who cried FSD... Next year..."

Do I let my personal opinions of this fool impact my buying decisions? No.

Elon Musk has publicly promised that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) would achieve full autonomy—meaning no human intervention required at least 20 times. As of today it's listed as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to clarify that the system still requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous.

2013: Predicted 90% autonomous miles by 2016.
2015: Claimed full autonomy was three years away.
2016: Promised a coast-to-coast autonomous drive by the end of 2017.
2018–2025: Repeatedly stated that FSD would be feature-complete or safer than a human driver within the following year, including high-profile statements in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

You are absolutely right- Musk can be a snake oil salesman at times- and he has over promised and underdelivered as well. Unfortunate, but true. There isn't a corporate CEO who hasn't; you're just too disingenuous to admit you don't like him so it should count more. Ridiculous. It doesn't take away one iota from what he's ACTUALLY accomplished. Tesla, SpaceX and StarLink are all multi BILLON dollar, technology leading companies. Inarguable. You can rant all you want (and it is ranting) about Tesla inferiority and unreliability but the Model Y was the best selling car in the WORLD in 2024 for the 2nd straight year. But keep telling me how those 2.4 million people have all been duped by Musk the gypsy because they aren't as smart as you. You literally called him a "fool" in the same sentence you informed us you "don't let personal opinions impact (your) buying decisions". Newsflash brother: EVERYONE lets personal opinions effect their buying decision. It's YOUR decision-so its ALWAYS personal.
There are RoboTaxi's as we speak running as a clear new benchmark for the technology whether you admit it or not. It IS going to replace everything that came before it (Uber, Waymo, etc.). Whether that happens in 2026 or 2036 isn't even the point- it's an evolutionary process that continually improves. Bet against him if you like- but I can't even count on one hand the people I know who don't like him whose disdain isn't rooted in their personal distaste for him- whatever they may say. It's childish, unprofessional and it is clearly the new normal in today's culture.

 

[Vulnox]

No phantom braking? I have Blue Cruise 1.4. It sucks. Badly. And yes, it phantom brakes occasionally as well. And crosses lanes!

If you think that LIDAR is the answer…then see Waymo doing stupid stuff on Youtube.

Correct, none. It doesn't always do exactly what I want in every situation, but Ford also intelligently calls it driver assistance and not FULL SELF DRIVING. It definitely doesn't suck either. I have put hundreds of miles on BC over the years and while not flawless, it's very, very good.

Also, your defense can't be "BUT WAYMO!", I am not selling Waymo. You are selling FSD as being ready, today, and it clearly isn't. Pointing to someone else's issues doesn't make FSD fully operational.

The thing is, all these systems have issues. Which is why they should be driver assistance or extremely heavily supervised by someone. But either situation is not Full Self Driving. Waymo's issues aren't because of LIDAR or whatever either, not even able to begin to parse what you are thinking there.

 

[Tigmd99]

Correct, none. It doesn't always do exactly what I want in every situation, but Ford also intelligently calls it driver assistance and not FULL SELF DRIVING. It definitely doesn't suck either. I have put hundreds of miles on BC over the years and while not flawless, it's very, very good.

Also, your defense can't be "BUT WAYMO!", I am not selling Waymo. You are selling FSD as being ready, today, and it clearly isn't. Pointing to someone else's issues doesn't make FSD fully operational.

The thing is, all these systems have issues. Which is why they should be driver assistance or extremely heavily supervised by someone. But either situation is not Full Self Driving. Waymo's issues aren't because of LIDAR or whatever either, not even able to begin to parse what you are thinking there.

I too have been using BC…probably LONGER than you. Just saying. BC 1.4 sucks on the highway. It changes lane…sure…but then if a car approaches too fast or car in front slows down, it disengages AND loud beep that can wake up a dead person! Next time, drive into the sun…BC1.4 will sweve into other lanes randomly or brakes. LOL

My father has 2026 Model Y since March 2025. In close to 4 months, he has NOT touch the steering wheel OR brakes. NEVER. Only times…as stated above…to park into parking space at supermarket and when he gets home at gate. That’s it. ZERO intervention thru city and highway driving. Traffic and not. NOT ONCE did he feel that it did anything wrong.

(NOTE: I have NEVER owned a tesla. But sitting in my father’s and seeing it work changed my tune!)

 

[Vulnox]

I too have been using BC…probably LONGER than you. Just saying. BC 1.4 sucks on the highway. It changes lane…sure…but then if a car approaches too fast or car in front slows down, it disengages AND loud beep that can wake up a dead person! Next time, drive into the sun…BC1.4 will sweve into other lanes randomly or brakes. LOL

My father has 2026 Model Y since March 2025. In close to 4 months, he has NOT touch the steering wheel OR brakes. NEVER. Only times…as stated above…to park into parking space at supermarket and when he gets home at gate. That’s it. ZERO intervention thru city and highway driving. Traffic and not.

(NOTE: I have NEVER owned a tesla. But sitting in my father’s and seeing it work changed my tune!)

Ha, definitely not longer than me on BC, and definitely not in as many vehicles. But whatever.

I think you need to have your calibration checked by the dealer. I don't have those issues as far as cars approaching. I think I know what you are referring to on the braking, but you should try not having it follow people at F1 distances. The braking beep is typically because it's engaging the automatic emergency braking and it wants to be sure you're paying attention and able to take over like if you have to swerve. I think I have had that happen maybe a handful of times, and wasn't while on BlueCruise.

None of this really has to do with OPs issue anyway, and you seem to just be looking to move goal posts all the time. Your response was now all about BC, a system that isn't full self driving and doesn't claim to be, and nothing more about you making the claim that FSD is here today.

I don't really care what your dad or your cousin in Canada thinks about FSD either. I have driven a recent MY and had issues with it in a short window, and even youtube hosts that are pretty Tesla friendly, like OutofSpec Motoring, who own a few Tesla's and often praise them, says that FSD is far from... FSD.

But this derailing to talk about Tesla is pointless. You won't admit that your claim is nonsense, even though we could bring up video after video of evidence that shows FSD isn't fully baked. So I will just move on. If OP wants to keep discussing Lightnings and PBs, that is at least worth doing.

 

[HammaMan]

There are RoboTaxi's as we speak running as a clear new benchmark for the technology whether you admit it or not. It IS going to replace everything that came before it (Uber, Waymo, etc.). Whether that happens in 2026 or 2036 isn't even the point- it's an evolutionary process that continually improves. Bet against him if you like- but I can't even count on one hand the people I know who don't like him whose disdain isn't rooted in their personal distaste for him- whatever they may say. It's childish, unprofessional and it is clearly the new normal in today's culture.

The robotaxis are HW4 (version of their ADAS hardware). Once the software is deemed good to go, there's currently 1 million teslas in the US running that hardware that could have that software added to them. Software can be everywhere, all at once. People aren't able to fully grasp just how dramatic of a change is coming with ai. Companies worth many trillions of $ are full speed ahead in the sector and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

I've watched the evolution of FSD's v13 stack and it's learning very fast. Current ai systems utilize insane amounts of data for their training and they're continually evolving. V13's software has come a long way. The fact they're deploying it in a geofenced area now is a pretty big deal. That's a lot of liability to assume, but at the same time it's learning that much more. Bluecruise doesn't learn, its discrete code that gets updated by more discrete code. It's not an end-to-end model. The Comma 3x takes the same approach as tesla.

I hope they nail it. I'll happily get a new tesla beater and allow to go do taxi things when I'm not using it.

 

[Tigmd99]

Ha, definitely not longer than me on BC, and definitely not in as many vehicles. But whatever.

I think you need to have your calibration checked by the dealer. I don't have those issues as far as cars approaching. I think I know what you are referring to on the braking, but you should try not having it follow people at F1 distances. The braking beep is typically because it's engaging the automatic emergency braking and it wants to be sure you're paying attention and able to take over like if you have to swerve. I think I have had that happen maybe a handful of times, and wasn't while on BlueCruise.

None of this really has to do with OPs issue anyway, and you seem to just be looking to move goal posts all the time. Your response was now all about BC, a system that isn't full self driving and doesn't claim to be, and nothing more about you making the claim that FSD is here today.

I don't really care what your dad or your cousin in Canada thinks about FSD either. I have driven a recent MY and had issues with it in a short window, and even youtube hosts that are pretty Tesla friendly, like OutofSpec Motoring, who own a few Tesla's and often praise them, says that FSD is far from... FSD.

But this derailing to talk about Tesla is pointless. You won't admit that your claim is nonsense, even though we could bring up video after video of evidence that shows FSD isn't fully baked. So I will just move on. If OP wants to keep discussing Lightnings and PBs, that is at least worth doing.

FYI. My BC1.4 is set at 2 bars. My point is that when it changes lane and the car in front of the lane that i am changing to slows down, BC goes bananas! Disengage everything, beeps the hell out of me! Scares me so much that i have to scan the front dash for anything about to explode!

Out of spec…of all the YTubers out there…you mention that dude. Ok. Like i said, i have no horse in the race other than owning a Ford since 2023 and using BC every day on a commute that is 50 miles each way all highway. So, Yeah, i know BC really well. My 2023 Ford F150 PB has 58k miles. I would say that 80-85% of that is on BC.

 

[nomarhits400]

The robotaxis are HW4 (version of their ADAS hardware). Once the software is deemed good to go, there's currently 1 million teslas in the US running that hardware that could have that software added to them. Software can be everywhere, all at once. People aren't able to fully grasp just how dramatic of a change is coming with ai. Companies worth many trillions of $ are full speed ahead in the sector and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

I've watched the evolution of FSD's v13 stack and it's learning very fast. Current ai systems utilize insane amounts of data for their training and they're continually evolving. V13's software has come a long way. The fact they're deploying it in a geofenced area now is a pretty big deal. That's a lot of liability to assume, but at the same time it's learning that much more. Bluecruise doesn't learn, its discrete code that gets updated by more discrete code. It's not an end-to-end model. The Comma 3x takes the same approach as tesla.

I hope they nail it. I'll happily get a new tesla beater and allow to go do taxi things when I'm not using it.

Exactly. That Tesla are willing to assume that risk (nannies in the passenger seat or not) should signal to folks where the technology is - yet Elon's detractors would rather rage against the machine than acknowledge the obvious.

Ha, definitely not longer than me on BC, and definitely not in as many vehicles. But whatever.

I think you need to have your calibration checked by the dealer. I don't have those issues as far as cars approaching. I think I know what you are referring to on the braking, but you should try not having it follow people at F1 distances. The braking beep is typically because it's engaging the automatic emergency braking and it wants to be sure you're paying attention and able to take over like if you have to swerve. I think I have had that happen maybe a handful of times, and wasn't while on BlueCruise.

None of this really has to do with OPs issue anyway, and you seem to just be looking to move goal posts all the time. Your response was now all about BC, a system that isn't full self driving and doesn't claim to be, and nothing more about you making the claim that FSD is here today.

I don't really care what your dad or your cousin in Canada thinks about FSD either. I have driven a recent MY and had issues with it in a short window, and even youtube hosts that are pretty Tesla friendly, like OutofSpec Motoring, who own a few Tesla's and often praise them, says that FSD is far from... FSD.

But this derailing to talk about Tesla is pointless. You won't admit that your claim is nonsense, even though we could bring up video after video of evidence that shows FSD isn't fully baked. So I will just move on. If OP wants to keep discussing Lightnings and PBs, that is at least worth doing.

I agree with you: FSD when I have used it wasn't ready - but its not the data point that's important- it's the slope of the line and I respectfully submit you're missing the point (it's literally improving weekly) but to each their own. And if one thing is for sure- I have added to hijacking this thread enough....Back to more discussion about the awesome Powerboost and Lightning!

 

[Tigmd99]

The robotaxis are HW4 (version of their ADAS hardware). Once the software is deemed good to go, there's currently 1 million teslas in the US running that hardware that could have that software added to them. Software can be everywhere, all at once. People aren't able to fully grasp just how dramatic of a change is coming with ai. Companies worth many trillions of $ are full speed ahead in the sector and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

I've watched the evolution of FSD's v13 stack and it's learning very fast. Current ai systems utilize insane amounts of data for their training and they're continually evolving. V13's software has come a long way. The fact they're deploying it in a geofenced area now is a pretty big deal. That's a lot of liability to assume, but at the same time it's learning that much more. Bluecruise doesn't learn, its discrete code that gets updated by more discrete code. It's not an end-to-end model. The Comma 3x takes the same approach as tesla.

I hope they nail it. I'll happily get a new tesla beater and allow to go do taxi things when I'm not using it.

Exactly. Tesla AI is literally learning every second of the day with tons of data being poured in from every Tesla.

In fact, Tesla in China is learning how to drive super aggressively by watching other drivers!

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