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A Long Drive with Tesla’s Mind: My 10-Hour Journey from El Paso to San Antonio
When I left El Paso around 4 p.m., I wasn’t sure whether I trusted my car.
The plan was simple: drive to McDonald’s myself, get food for the family, and then let Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) take over for the long haul. But simple plans feel different when you’re about to hand control of two tons of metal to a neural network.
First Miles: Apprehension
The city stretch was a test of nerves. I kept waiting for FSD to misread the chaos—cones, medians, impatient drivers cutting in, merge lanes that appear and vanish. But it didn’t. It glided through the noise of El Paso’s evening traffic like a cautious but confident human, obeying lanes and reacting fluidly to other cars. Each correct decision chipped away at my anxiety.
Out of the City: The Machine Finds Its Rhythm
Once we hit open highway, the system seemed to breathe easier. It sped up smoothly, kept a steady distance, and even overtook lumbering trucks with the same subtle confidence you’d expect from a seasoned driver.
Then came nightfall. I thought the darkness would confuse it—headlights, reflections, shadows—but it handled the curves and the glow of oncoming traffic like it could see in the dark. FSD moved aside for faster cars, keeping the flow natural. Somewhere along that stretch, I realized I’d stopped second-guessing it. My hands hovered less. My eyes roamed more. The car was driving, and I was supervising.
Charging: The Modern Pit Stop
At the first Supercharger station, FSD hesitated—it stopped in the middle of the lane, unsure where to park. A quick scroll-wheel selection fixed it, and it reversed perfectly into a stall.
That small handoff captured the current state of AI driving: brilliant at motion, still learning intention.
Charging was a breeze. In 29 minutes, the car juiced up enough for the next leg while my kids and I grabbed food and stretched. We repeated the ritual at three more stations. The costs were light—about $10–20 each stop, roughly $200 total for the round trip. A gas car would have burned far more.
Arrival and Reflection
From El Paso to San Antonio—and onward to Webster, near Houston, for Great Wolf Lodge—FSD carried us the whole way.
Ten hours behind the wheel, yet I wasn’t tired. The mental load of driving had dissolved. I didn’t talk to the car; it didn’t talk to me. Trust grew silently, through performance.
By the end, it wasn’t about technology anymore. It was about coexistence: when to let go, when to watch, and how human trust evolves one correct decision at a time.
What the Drive Taught Me
FSD today is both extraordinary and ordinary—it doesn’t feel futuristic once it works; it feels natural. The only time I felt “AI” was when it hesitated at the charger. The rest was a smooth dialogue between human patience and machine precision.
If I learned one thing, it’s that the future won’t arrive with a jolt. It’ll slide in quietly, mile by mile, until one day we realize we’ve been sharing control all along.
