Featured Tesla discontinues autopilot, subscription-only FSD from now on

MB certainly has the capability to make a very efficient car, but seldom do they choose to so emphasize. Rather than good cheap fast, the emphasis is more like expensive, heavy, & (GLA 250 gets ~24 city) thirsty.
Just to get lidar? Pass

 

The dealer is open today so I’ll stop by this afternoon. But as per the Mercedes announcement, “later this year.”

So did you test drive it in China?

Bob Wilson

 

So you are recommending self driving products:

• 40 mph or less
• Unobtainium today

Last week, January 21-22, I drove over 600 miles hands free except about half of the five parking lots with SuperChargers. I had to manually select auto park for the specific chargers.

Perhaps the Mercedes dealers are more credible?

Bob Wilson

 

Naw, I prefer what works. I’ve seen enough ‘PowerPoint engineering’ to know the difference.

Bob Wilson

 

Doubtful that folks are laying down cash - so they can drive through parking lots on autopilot

.

 

right - if you are a complete imbecile that can't see somebody walking to their car one or two isles away.

 

Source: Daily Automotive News

USED EVs HAVE LOWEST OWNERSHIP COSTS
A study from the University of Michigan shows that three-year-old used EVs now offer the lowest lifetime cost of ownership across nearly every vehicle class—beating out new and used gasoline, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid models. The main reason? Depreciation. Because EVs tend to lose value faster than their ICE counterparts in the first few years, second owners are reaping the rewards. And we think the numbers are stunning. A three-year-old midsize electric SUV can save an owner roughly $13,000 over its remaining life compared to buying its ICE equivalent, with a lot of the savings coming from charging at home. More than 300,000 EVs are coming off lease this year in the U.S. And who knows? They could become the hottest commodities on used-car lots.​

So I have a 2019 Model 3 Standard Range Plus, 172,708 miles. Edmunds claims it is only worth "$5,000" making the $6,000 Full Self Driving the most valuable part of the car. But I can't afford to let this car go as it gets ~4.3-4.5 miles/kWh and charges for free from my solar roof.

As for Full Self Driving, I have to manually drive on the driveway and about half of the parking lots. The parking lots with "cute" islands are not mapped so it is faster if I manually drive around those hazards. But once on public streets, even those not on the navigation map, it is hands free unless I want to do take a short cut or different route from what the navigation routing wants to use. As someone else pointed out, I did not buy FSD to have it handle my driveway nor "cute" parking lots.

Selecting a lane is easy including whether it tries to be a left lane speeder or right lane cruiser or the 'standard' which selects lanes as needed for the target speed. Meanwhile, we can wait for whatever "cooperative steering" means as it may not be available in the Huntsville AL dealer inventory. I have FSD in hand which is more useful than "Powerpoint" optimism.

Bob Wilson