FSD owner’s log: real notes from 20,000+ miles. First-hand takes on each build, what the car does well, and where it still loses me.
UPDATED AUG 11, 2026I’m on 14.3.6 now. There’s talk going around that the stabby braking is back, and I’ve been watching mine to see whether I agree. What I can tell you is that for me…
I’ve got 19,743 miles on this car now and about 98% of them on FSD. Day one I sat there with my hands hovering over the wheel and my foot hovering over the brake…
Parking is still not very desirable, and I keep hoping every build is going to be the one that fixes it. 14.3.5 isn’t it either, I guess. So I told it to drive me…
This windshield is what a southern interstate does to a car in the summer. Every one of those specks used to be airborne, and the front cameras live behind that…
Somewhere in the Missouri bootheel on the way home this came up on the screen. Telemetry from your vehicle indicates improper use of Full Self-Driving. Four more of…
Same morning as the strikeout warning, same screen, and here’s the detail I didn’t write about the first time. Look at the top corner: 17%. Now look under the car…
This is the plate after the last leg. Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, and then the whole way back up through the middle of the country, and I’m fairly sure every bug…
Nobody buys one of these for the trunk under the hood, and then you take one long trip and it turns into the thing you end up telling people about. I filled it with…
A while back I wrote that I’d probably never have a streak, because I take over too often for one to ever run. Turns out I was wrong twice in two weeks. Heading…
This is the Winn-Dixie down on the coast, and look where it put me. Same story as the Verizon store back home, and the same story it would pull on me at Total Wine…
Before I left for Alabama I put the destination in and let the car do the math. It came back with 505.7 miles, a little under nine hours, and three Supercharger…
First stop out of Kansas City was the Buc-ee’s outside Springfield. Here’s the thing about charging on a road trip that I don’t think gets said enough: you were…
I’m always experimenting with the speed profiles. That’s half the fun of a car that keeps changing under you, and over the year I’ve run everything at one point or…
I was on 152 today, exiting the highway in a turning lane, and the car did something I still can’t quite explain. It stuttered. A quick brake and a little wobble in…
Parking has been hit or miss for the last couple of versions and 14.3.4 hasn’t fully fixed it. Sometimes it wants to park way too far from the building. Sometimes…
Tesla added a streak counter. It tracks how far you go without taking over and it’ll throw confetti at you at the big milestones. I thought I’d try to let one ride.…
FSD still misreads speed limits, mostly in construction zones, and I’ve found a way to live with it. The trick, if you want to call it that, is the speed profile.…
Kansas City is one long construction season, so this one matters to me more than most. Even on 14.3.4 the car still doesn’t seem to want to slow down through the…
Here’s a reality check I caught on my own screen. I had the car plugged into a standard 110-volt wall outlet, the same kind you charge a phone on, and it was…
The attention nagging has dropped way down. I think it started easing off around 14.3.2, and it’s been getting quieter ever since I first picked the car up. At this…
I’ve never had FSD run a stop sign on me. What I have seen, and it’s worse this time of year, is the car not spotting a sign until it’s right up on it, because the…
There’s a lot of talk online about brake stabs, the car jabbing the brakes for no good reason. I keep hearing about it and honestly, I don’t run into it. Maybe it’s…
Dirty Tesla says 14.3 will commit to an unprotected left the instant the blinker comes on, and he’s right, I’ve seen it do exactly that. The car is very comfortable…
AI DRIVR said Tesla’s 20% faster reaction time claim was an understatement, and I think he’s onto something. I can’t put an exact number on it. The situations vary…
There’s a small Tesla logo inside the charge port door, and it turns out it’s also a status light. Blue means the port is awake and ready, waiting on you or talking…
Two small co-pilots ride on my dash, Jesus and Mary, and they’ve been aboard almost as long as I have. I won’t claim they’re part of the redundancy stack. But I’ll…
Somewhere in a software update my car got a TRON theme. The real one, licensed, TRON: ARES, with the Light Cycle parked in the middle of my screen and the…
Before the plate said FSD247, it said JUNPR-Y. Juniper Y, for the refreshed Model Y generation this car belongs to, and I thought that was pretty clever at the…
Buying a new Model 3, Model Y, or Cybertruck? Apply my referral at order time and Tesla gives you three months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) free.
Use my Tesla referral →Not buying anything today? The same link books a demo drive, so you can go drive FSD yourself first.
Schedule a demo drive →