Don't all new Teslas come with the hardware and the self-driving is a software upgrade? My impression was that the purchase basically locked in a price. I could be wrong on this.

I'll be all-in on self-driving when I can use it to go to the bar and come home, until then it's mostly just an interesting technological exercise.

But, yes, there are many use cases that go by the wayside if you don't have reliable door-to-door driving without human input.

There are questions about both whether the current sensor package is sufficient and even bigger questions about whether an upgrade to FSD happens in the life of the vehicle. (My money would be on not.)

I don't think they know enough yet to construct ASICs and decide on consumer-priced sensors. Hellaciously interesting problem though, I wish I were working on it.