I strongly disagree. Autopilot is what made them COOL and gave them their secret sauce. I used to be a major fan back in 2015 and that was an incredibly momentous initiative that cannot be understated. You can say this now with the benefit of hindsight but do not make the mistake of assuming it was all just a waste of money. Autopilot was a key driver in the hype and fanaticism that turned Tesla from a hip startup into the trendsetter for the entire industry.

"I strongly disagree. Autopilot is what made them COOL and gave them their secret sauce."

To dorks who believed the hype, yeah.

Wrong. Autopilot is a pretty standard smart cruise control, which many other carmakers have and have had for years. It works and it works well. You are thinking of FSD.

Tesla's naming continues to suck. It's very common to see people confuse Autopilot with Full Self Driving. I'm not sure this is to Tesla's benefit since every FSD snafu gets attributed to Autopilot as well in the mind of someone not following the company closely.