These days, social media is the de facto way for customers to give direct feedback to corporations. The best way to get a response is to air your grievances in a public forum. Or for customers who have had a positive experience, your post could get a wider reach if the company’s social media team retweets your glowing review.
So with Elon Musk being the CEO of Tesla, there isn’t a better place to register a complaint than on the Musk-owned social media platform X. Self-described “$TSLA nerd” Gali tweeted at Tesla and Musk to request additional options for Full Self-Driving (FSD) users.
In his personal opinion, the current implementation of FSD is too aggressive, with rapid acceleration, sudden lane changes and jerky turns. While he does not necessarily believe the car is driving in an unsafe manner, it is too aggressive for his personal taste even in the least aggressive drive mode. So he asks that a new "Turtle" mode be implemented for cautious drivers like himself.
The current iteration of FSD has three driving profiles: Chill, Average and Assertive. In theory, these should represent a broad spectrum of driving styles. But Gali feels that Chill is not nearly chill enough for him to feel comfortable.
Several X users have commented on his tweet in agreement, saying there isn’t much difference between Chill and Assertive. Many say the Chill mode's driving style is inconsistent. One day it is a relaxed and even overly careful driver. The next day it is aggressively accelerating, darting between lanes on busy city streets.
Not every user shares this opinion of course. Many want the car to be more aggressive. Some users ridiculed the very idea of anything slower or less aggressive by calling it “Grandma mode” or “everyone else is honking because you’re in the way” mode.
Elon Musk seems to fall into the latter camp. In his response to Gali’s original tweet, he did not acknowledge the request for a slower mode at all. Instead, he seems to have announced a new mode called Hurry.
Even though Gali did not get the answer he wanted, he saluted Elon for his response and committed to chill mode.
It is unclear what exactly the difference would be between the current Assertive mode and a potential Hurry mode. It’s possible that this is just a rebranding of the most aggressive driving mode. Musk has a history of changing humdrum product names into ones he finds more amusing. Just look at his recent plans to rebrand Smart Summon (SS) as Actually Smart Summon (ASS).
We will just have to see if anything actually comes of this new FSD profile. If you have access to the current iteration of FSD, what are your thoughts on the current drive modes? While you may personally want something more aggressive, do you think there is room for an even more cautious driver profile? Let us know in the comments below.
