# Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) 268 Hacker News commenters recommended Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) and 618 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 3 years (32 owners). **Verdict:** Owners say recent versions handle most driving, especially highways, with few interventions; critics cite years of overpromised marketing and the continued need for supervision, especially in cities. ## Why people recommend it - Drives whole trips without interventions (8 comments): "Right now they are the only brand where you can buy a car and have it do basically 90% (or sometimes 100%) of your daily driving." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092300)) "The fact that you can pay the average price for a car, and get a car that fully drives itself today, is mind boggling." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49878362)) "FSD can go from parked in the driveway to parked in a parking spot at your destination without any human intervention." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48021706)) - Big leaps in recent versions (5 comments): "it's gone from "good at highway driving, not very good at navigating city streets and it might try to kill me" to "nearly perfect at everything"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49182707)) "an incredibly impressive system that is leaps ahead of where it was just six months ago and by far the best available to purchase worldwide" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435487)) "v12 was certainly better than v11 in all those regards. But there are still issues with the car making dumb lane choices in v12." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938315)) - Safer than the average driver (5 comments): "Multiple people I know have bought Teslas because they don't trust themselves or their spouses to drive safely, and want them to use FSD." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48152307)) "the latest version of FSD I can certainly believe is seven times less likely to get into an accident than the average driver" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938205)) "If a human operator + FSD is twice safer than human operator alone, then FSD is still a large safety improvement." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46812718)) - Excellent on highways (3 comments): "FSD is unmatched. Auto lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control don't provide the reactivity that FSD does even for straight highway driving." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49148750)) "Recent FSD, generally, does not hang out in the left lane and is very good at recognizing when vehicles approach from the rear." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835580)) "For Highway/interstate driving, it's pretty flawless now. For city driving, I'm definitely a lot more on guard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47839482)) ## What people warn about - Overpromised and misleading marketing (7 comments): "That's good enough for me to subscribe during roadtrips, but Musk and his legion of supporters is overselling capabilities" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47811759)) "Right now, from what I've been seeing, I think the product is roughly the level the Paint It Black video misrepresented the tech as having already reached in 2016." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49321094)) "It was never advertised as that, and all the subsequent "clarifications" or "scoping" of FSD have been because Tesla has been dragged kicking and screaming" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001364)) - Mistakes in city driving (5 comments): "v12 was certainly better than v11 in all those regards. But there are still issues with the car making dumb lane choices in v12." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938315)) "For Highway/interstate driving, it's pretty flawless now. For city driving, I'm definitely a lot more on guard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47839482)) "the car puts the blinker on and then acts super-duper nervous, almost as if it were driving for the first time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416565)) - Still requires constant human supervision (3 comments): "vehicles using Tesla FSD require human supervision almost everywhere and Tesla is aggressive about getting drivers in autopilot-related crashes to sign NDAs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49176021)) "You were paying first for the hardware and then to conduct training supervision for the AI while taking full responsibility if something goes wrong." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46737750)) "Tesla actually needs millions of miles without critical intervention before they can confidently let these things en masse out on the streets." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45938950)) - Doubts about camera-only approach (2 comments): "Systems built from cameras that are only nearly as capable as human eyes and software that is only nearly as capable as the human brain will fall short overall." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47446926)) "Cutting costs by only using cameras and then claiming "well humans can do it so why not us" is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447008)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Tesla FSD](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tesla-fsd.md): 73 recommend - [comma.ai openpilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openpilot.md): 34 recommend - [Tesla Autopilot](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tesla-autopilot.md): 27 recommend - [comma.ai comma device](https://hackerapproved.com/p/comma-ai.md): 24 recommend - [Comma Four](https://hackerapproved.com/p/comma-four.md): 12 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.tesla.com/fsd) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/tesla-full-self-driving/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).