Tesla D vs Tesla Autopilot — The Results Are In

November 3rd, 2014 by Zachary Shahan

A few weeks ago, I published a poll on which was a bigger deal — Tesla D or Tesla’s new autopilot features. For the first time ever, I didn’t look at the results as they were coming in. Looking at the results just now, I was quite surprised to see that autopilot won out by a large margin.

I did argue for autopilot in my article introducing the poll, but I also tried to provide the counterarguments. Furthermore, counterarguments were made in the comments on the CleanTechnica article, where I’m quite sure most of the respondents found the poll. But some commenters argued that Tesla D was a bigger deal, and I thought they had quite convincing arguments, so I thought the result would lean towards the D. Obviously, it didn’t, as you’ll see below.

Over 6,000 people viewed the articles on CleanTechnica, and others on Planetsave as well. Unfortunately, only 683 people responded, but that’s still a pretty good sample size. Here are the results:

In numbers, Tesla D got 182 votes (26.65%) and Tesla’s new autopilot features got 501 votes (73.35%). Counter to what some people have argued, that makes me think that most people don’t love driving and prefer doing other things when they can, and that Tesla’s new autopilot features mean much more to the masses than blistering acceleration. But this was of course a very simple survey, so no broad conclusions on those matters can actually be made. Just a little more data to throw into your head.

If you didn’t respond the first time, feel free to throw in your 2 cents. I might come back to this in the future. Read my article and the comments underneath it on CleanTechnica and Planetsave for some careful consideration of the pros of each beforehand.

Thanks to everyone who responded to the survey!

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Tags: Tesla, Tesla autopilot, Tesla D

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Patrick James Bayham

acceleration is there so the autopilot can use that power in nanoseconds to get you out of the way of slow thinking human operated,accident-prone farty pop pop ICE machines.
Tom G.

Hi Zach:

I am not surprised by the results. For many years I owned a Jeep Grand Cherokee AWD vehicle. NIce on and off-highway vehicle and we spent many fun hours in our local desert. But as you might guess, fuel economy was NOT great, LOL. However, I often wondered as I drove down a nicely paved highways just how much of a penalty I was paying for driving those other 2 wheels.

Another aspect which might have lead to the results are many peoples desire for less complexity in their lives. That Jeep I once owned required two repairs to the FRONT drive train over my years of ownership. If it were not an all wheel drive vehicle then those repairs would not have been necessary.

Now certainly that Jeep was not in the same class of vehicle as a Tesla but it did have a significant impact on my future thinking. I do not ever intend to own another AWD vehicle in the future unless it is specifically designed for off-highway use. I guess the main reason for this is that where I live and where I drive I haven’t been on a dirt road in years. When I go to purchase my Electric Vehicle it will most likely be a 2 wheel drive model UNLESS of course it uses wheel motors on all 4 wheels. Less complexity, less cost, fewer potential breakdowns and better fuel efficiency. Those things matter to me.

Does any of this make any sense to anyone else? Have a great day.
timbuck93

Whoever gets this right first has my money — can’t see / hold attention span either quite well enough to even trust my own self to drive a vehicle. So whenever they can drive themselves safely I’m all in!
Steve Grinwis

Apparently, Cleantechnica readers are a poor group to find gear heads in…
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Ha, might be right. But perhaps 27% gearheads…?
- Offgridman
  
  But even those of us that consider ourselves to be “gearheads” (or former ones anyways), and enjoy high speed driving in a quality vehicle can hate having to deal with all the people on the highways that don’t know how to do it right, or do so while playing on their phones or applying makeup.
  Even semi autonomous vehicles could make a big difference in the degree of safety that I feel when driving into the city or on our several trips a year out of state.
  I have no problem trusting my driving at high speeds and have had some instruction and many years of practice doing so. It’s just all of the others around me on the highways doing it and doing it quite poorly, that scare me.
  - Steve Grinwis
    
    Sure. I consider semi-autonomous vehicles pretty cool.
    
    But dat acceleration….
    - Offgridman
      
      “But dat acceleration….”
      Yes the very best part of the improvements and if buying a Tesla right now and it was a choice between that or the autonomous driving for my own car that would be the choice.
      But the constant close calls that I have almost every time I go for a drive due to other people made me have to vote for the autonomous driving being the most important.
      Thankfully Tesla encorporated both and hopefully soon the other manufacturers will also.
      - Steve Grinwis
        
        Then we need a definition for ‘important’.
        
        From the societal point of view, I agree, the autopilot features are more important than my ability to get to 60 a few seconds faster.
        
        But from an ‘Important to me’ point of view, the acceleration wins, hands down.
      - Offgridman
        
        I agree that it does matter the perspective of important to whom. The original survey just asked which is a bigger deal, so I took it as an in general question (societal) rather than a personal opinion (important to me).
        But either way, both are included in the Sport 85D, so it is the best of both worlds.
      - timbuck93
        
        Well when we have a zombie Apocalypse, then the super fast acceleration would be much more important!
      - Offgridman
        
        “Well when we have a zombie Apocalypse”
        Well….. when we do check back with me and I may have changed my opinion, but the autonomous driving might still seem just as important to me so that I can catch a nap while attempting to outrun those unsleeeping dead.
      - Dragon
        
        Ah, but in that scenario, Elon Musk would surely introduce a new model with a zombie avoidance system, eliminating the advantage of fast acceleration. Of course, it’s also hard to imagine electricity being as easy to get as gas during a zombie apocalypse, so Tesla’s sales might actually falter… at least until more homes have solar panels or personal wind turbines.
      - Alan James
        
        Surely a zombie COLLISION GUARANTEE system is what’s needed in these (admittedly non-everyday) conditions…
      - juxx0r
        
        You guys are missing the step change that is 4wd is now more efficient than 2wd. 100 years of history just went bye bye’s.
      - Steve Grinwis
        
        Efficiency on an electric car is only of consequence, in that it impacts range.
        
        And the change in range is pretty minor, but in the right direction. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool and all. But… dat acceleration….
  - Bob_Wallace
    
    Drove back from SF yesterday. At one point while I was watching to see if the oncoming cars were going to stay on their side of the line a deer decided to enter from the shoulder.
    
    I saw it in time but it would be nice to be driving a vehicle which could watch all directions at once.
    
    I also had someone come across the center line, forcing me onto the shoulder. They certainly needed a self-driving car.
    
    Frankly most of today’s driving is a bore. I’ve got about 30 miles of great driving road between here and SF. The other 200+ miles are just drudgery combined with moments of terror….
WeaponZero

The reason why the D did not get as much is because of the significance put on the P85D with higher performance and not so much significance put on S85D which had improved efficiency and range. I am not surprised that autopilot won because most people are equating it as:

Autopilot = fully self driven car

D = just a speed improvement to an already fast car.

Unfortunately, both of those assessment are not what they are really.
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Might be right. I agree that’s how people probably categorize the two.
- Jouni Valkonen
  
  Basically what Tesla showed with D was that non-AWD does not make any sense in any price category with electric cars.
Kyle Field

I like that the autopilot features are also on the “normal” Model S as well and, as with electric drive tech, is showing other manufacturers how to do it.
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Me too. If they were just on the highest-priced option, I’d be much less enthused about them.
tibi stibi

autopilot is the start of a new future!
- Jouni Valkonen
  
  Tesla has still some catch up to do with the rest of the industry.
TedKidd

On long road trips driving is fun for about 5%, the rest is tedious. Having the option to avoid the tedious parts is huge.