Okay, I’ve done a few hour-long drives in my Gravity now with Dream Drive 2 Premium (or Dream Drive Premium 2?). I think I can reasonably answer my own question if anyone else is trying to compare the them.
Caveats, I don’t have DD2Pro, just Premium. I’m not sure if Pro has many more functions working at the moment compared to Premium.
My Tesla Autopilot is on a 2020 HW3 LR Model Y. I also subscribed to FSD on my Y about a year ago but stopped after a few months as I didn’t end up using much. I don’t remember the exact dates but I stopped using it before it switched to $100/month. I have no idea if Autopilot behaves differently on HW3.5 or HW4 and I don’t have a car with that hardware.
The short of it is that DD2P is vastly superior to my version of Tesla Autopilot. It has more features and is just generally easier to operate. All of these observations are on highway travel as I don’t use automated driving assists much in city driving.
Lane keeping between the two is very similar. Not much between them to really differentiate. Some people complain about ping-ponging with DD but I haven’t noticed that. I think it’s pretty solid and certainly better than the earlier version of Autopilot, Enhanced Auto Pilot and FSD.
The Lucid does do Automatic Lane Biasing, which sort of falls under the category of lane keeping. It will move the car away from hazards (large trucks and motorcycles) while still staying in the lane. I found this feature to be a positive but it wasn’t super consistent. Approaching 18-wheelers from behind it works consistently. But vehicles approaching from behind don’t seem to trigger it as consistently, like motorcycles splitting lanes.
Speed control is smoother in the Lucid than my Tesla. Tesla’s Autopilot always seemed a bit myopic to me. It doesn’t change speed in a logical way based on the traffic conditions ahead. It’ll speed up to reach the set speed even while traffic is clearly slower ahead. Lucid’s doesn’t do that as much maybe due to just accelerating more slowly in general or just more traffic into consideration.
The huge difference between DD2P and Autopilot is lane changes. Autopilot will not execute any kind of lane change for you without FSD. In fact, when I use the turn signal on Autopilot it disengages the suite altogether, which isn’t a bad thing since I’ll end up changing lanes manually. But I’ve always found Autopilot disengagement to be pretty abrupt and balky. I’ve even tried to pre-load the throttle to ease the lurching feeling when disengaging AP. Also, Autopilot’s disengagement of the steering wheel is really unpleasant. It doesn’t return control smoothly. If you override AP’s steering control it hits a certain resistance level and then just lets go. So you always end up with a jerky maneuver. It feels like the prank where someone holds your arm back while telling you to pull really hard, then letting your arm go so you punch yourself in the face.
DD2P has automated lane changes and COOPERATIVE lane changes, which I love. Co-op lane changes means the car keeps its speed control. When you indicate a lane change the car will ease up on steering control allowing you to change lanes smoothly. Then when you’re centered in the new lane it’ll ease back to taking control. It does the same for speed control as well. You can accelerate and then let go and it eases back to the set speed without overreacting speed control warning of AP. This is, by far, the best part of DD2P to me. I want it to control the mundane parts but allow me to have control on the critical parts of highway driving without completely disengaging. It’s extremely well done in my opinion.
Automated lane changes in DD2P are also superior to my version of available FSD. FSD, for me, either hesitates too long to change lanes, annoying other drivers and me or is too aggressive with the lane change, which makes you seem erratic. DD2P’s automated lane changes are configured pretty closely to what I’d do myself, so it might just be a personal preference issue. But I didn’t feel like it was taking too long to annoy other and it wasn’t aggressive about it either.
