That said, I still don't "trust" FSD to the point where I could comfortably be in the backseat taking a nap just yet. 99% is not "good enough" for something as critical as driving.
You should only trust it after Tesla accepts full liability when FSD is enabled.
Knowing how prone to exaggeration Elon is, my bar was low. But it blew me away honestly. After nearly 30 years working in software and with some background in machine learning and computer vision and generally just trying to make software that works reliably, it's a pretty jaw dropping experience.
Would I take a nap in the back seat and let it drive? No. But does it allow me to sit there focused on a technical podcast or an audiobook so I feel like I'm getting back an hour or two a day instead of worrying about driving? Absolutely.
It reeks of manual fitting. Tesla surveys an area and makes manual adjustments that keep the system from misbehaving for a while until something changes and then it’s back to shit.
And in the 12 months I've had the car, it has gotten noticeably better maybe 2 times. Once last year, and then once in February. After the iteration last year, it drove fairly well, but I still had to intervene once or twice per trip. Now I make it through half of my trips without intervening, and when I do intervene it tends to be to avoid embarrassment vs safety (not committing, wrong lane for an upcoming turn, etc).
Given how ai is advancing, I am pretty confident they will get this working fully autonomously with just vision, it's just a question of when.
But when the usual outcome is death, i suppose a coma is an improvement.
This year for sure, guys, for real this time!
-- Elon