Tesla pushed out another over-the-air update this week, and the internet did what the internet does: it split into two screaming camps within about nine minutes.
One side says the new FSD build is a genuine leap.
The other side posted dashcam clips of a Model Y trying to merge into a shopping cart corral.
Only one of them is filming from the passenger seat with both hands in the air.
Here's the part nobody wants to hear at Thanksgiving: "Full Self-Driving" has never meant the car drives itself.
It's a Level 2 driver-assistance suite, which is a fancy way of saying you are still the responsible adult.
Tesla's own manual says keep your hands on the wheel and stay ready to take over.
The fine print is a liability waiver wearing a trench coat.
The new build reportedly smooths out some of the herky-jerky lane changes and does a better job nosing into intersections.
Owners on the forums are calling it "noticeably less drunk." That's real progress, and it's also the most damning praise imaginable for a system with that name.
The NHTSA has been poking at Autopilot and FSD for years, and every new recall notice reads like a group chat where nobody wants to admit whose turn it was to watch the road.
Tesla's fix is usually another software update, which is genuinely convenient and also a little unsettling if you think about it for more than four seconds.
What's wild is how fast this stuff became normal.
Five years ago, a car steering itself on the highway felt like science fiction.
Now people treat it like cruise control with an attitude problem and get annoyed when it hesitates at a four-way stop.
We've collectively moved the goalposts from "impossible" to "why is it so bad at this" without ever agreeing on what we actually bought.
And that's the real story here, underneath the update notes and the Twitter fights.
Tesla sold a promise, delivered a beta, and charged a premium for the privilege of being the test pilot.
Most are somewhere in the middle, one hand hovering near the wheel, pretending that counts as relaxing.
If you're thinking about paying for FSD, do the boring thing first.
Ask yourself whether you want to supervise a computer that occasionally hallucinates a lane.
If the answer is still yes, go for it, but keep your hands where the manual says, because the car is not your chauffeur.
Final Thoughts
It's your intern with a learner's permit and way too much confidence.