Hmm, 285,000 [0] sales of FSD * say $8,000 [1] to be conservative = $2,280,000,000

That's more than I expected.

[0] https://electrek.co/2022/12/29/tesla-people-bought-full-self...

[1] https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/958/tesla-fsd-p...

Also maybe I'm just proving your point by saying that there is one option.

I write code. I notice bugs. I don’t want an in dash embedded device with a poorly designed ui/x.

I want something I can wrench on and when it breaks I can debug and fix.

Currently in a 2015 wrangler. Auto trans, manual locks, manual windows, $90 marine radio with shit bluetooth.

I’d get a cassette deck if I could bluetooth to it.

Point being, where I am, the car is what I need and can deal with my roads and winters and doesn’t have an OTA updated dash-to-drivetrain link that can decide at any time heated seats or cruise control is 30 bucks a month.

This was a much more lucrative proposition as a $2k add-on, I think.

However, the Enhanced Autopilot option was removed in 2019 and came back last year. I think this was done to juice the sales count. If the DoJ agrees, then Tesla might have to honor EAP's 2019 purchase price. This would make the minimum refund something like $3500.

Either way, this would be a blow to Tesla and will definitely worsen the layoffening.

Acting like you know better than actual customers of FSD whether the $8K, $10K, $12K, or $15K they spent on the software is reasonable for them is the height of arrogance.

Also, characterizing the current FSD Beta system as "cruise control" is delusional.

If you pay $10K for a paint color, you get the paint color. If you pay $20K for sport brakes, you get the brakes. If you pay $15k for Tesla FSD, you get the hope that Tesla will eventually deliver FSD, much the same as a Star Citizen customer is buying the hope that they'll eventually actually be able to fly their ship in a full game.

You can still argue that the aspiration is worth the money to the customers, or that they're already getting enough value out of the partially delivered product. But I also think it's reasonable for onlookers to think that there's some level of fraud going on, given the constant promises without delivery.

We are talking about the group of people who system16 criticized for being "happy with having paid for FSD." Other peoples' needs and wants differ, and characterizing those needs and wants as if they are plain wrong is arrogant.

In the end, who knows? Who cares? If a customer says they are happy with the purchase, why should someone else tell them they are plain wrong? I can disagree, of course, but I should not tell them they're just wrong for being happy.

I don't tell people they're wrong for paying extra for a special paint color.

I do care in some instances.

If an individual chooses to part with their money, it is 9/10 none of my business. However, in this case, parting of the money involves a seller providing a product that does not live to its advertising claims. As such, other entities can ( and will ) take note of this sudden change in customer's attitudes towards blatant lies. Note how much damage Tesla did to cars with cars as subscription. Other manufacturers were quick to pick up on this.

When I buy a car, I want some level of assurance that it is not just 'beta', 'alpha', but a fully working product. I don't accept this software mentality 'we will ship it in next update' in cars. So in this case, stupid customer moves affect me. So I can do two things. It seems easier to enforce current regulations on Tesla and quietly calm down defensive Tesla buyers, who will defend FSD with their lives if they have to.

That's really my problem. You get used with it and start trusting it until it unexpectedly goes straight into that white van.

The trouble is, nobody can afford to employ a hundred thousand professional test drivers.

> You can still argue that ... they're already getting enough value out of the partially delivered product.

I think it's true that some people feel that way, and that's fine. But I agree with OP that the Tesla others "who honestly believe 'real FSD is only a year away'" are being taken advantage of if not outright defrauded.

Agreed, most cruise control systems are considerably better. My cruise control has never tried to swerve me into oncoming traffic.

By the same token, walking will avoid the risk of being in a highway accident. So by this logic, walking is superior to driving.

Yes, a system that doesn't try to do something is better than one that does it poorly.

> By the same token, walking will avoid the risk of being in a highway accident. So by this logic, walking is superior to driving.

Again we're on the same page, walking is superior to driving. Although the pesky cars often make it more dangerous and there are limits that make walking impractical at times.

Again, arguing that you know better about what other people do with their money is arrogant.

    Full Self-Driving Capability
    
    $15,000
    
    All functionality of Basic Autopilot and Enhanced Autopilot
    Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control

    Coming Soon

    Autosteer on city streets

    The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.

cmd-f "beta"

0 results

hmmm...some further questioning is warranted.

So, for the people actually buying it with the actual contract paperwork and the sales pitch being provided, does the word Beta ever get used and is it fully explained?

to me, it looks like another "smear the DoJ for doing their job" campaign by those having the job done to them. it is so in vogue these days

Full Self-Driving Capability

Navigate on Autopilot: automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars.

Autopark: both parallel and perpendicular spaces.

Summon: your parked car will come find you anywhere in a parking lot. Really.

Coming later this year:

Recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.

Automatic driving on city streets.

But they get the brakes and they get the paint. What they get with supposed "full self-driving" is puffery and lies.

Musk's public statements around FSD since 2014 have been lies: https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...

In 2016 Tesla claimed that all Teslas being produced "will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." That was a lie: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now...

And these days Teslas can't even do full self-parking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

Now the word is that suckers who paid for FSD in a Tesla with Hardware 3 probably won't get Hardware 4: https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-gets-new-self...

Tesla was recently done for false advertising around FSD: https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/tesla-ordered-upgrade-self-dr...

Tesla also admits they have failed to deliver full self-driving but they think they don't need to refund any money because "failure is not fraud": https://electrek.co/2022/12/07/tesla-self-driving-claims-fai...

Despite the admission of failure, Musk is still running around claiming that FSD will one day magically become the "biggest asset value increase of anything in history": https://electrek.co/2023/01/26/elon-musk-thinks-not-smart-do...

It's not even bullshit artistry. It's just bullshit.

>the amount of Tesla owners I know that tell me they are happy

Exactly

During a 2 hour drive on an interstate on a clear, sunny day, FSD started steering into another vehicle 3 different times. One was a truck, and another was a wide load house being transported. I'll admit that is an odd case, but "don't accelerate straight into a house that is at windshield level" seems like a pretty simple ask. It did this multiple times and I had to temporarily disable the cruise control.

It also failed miserably on curving state highways, to the point that I turned it off after about 20 minutes.

FSD is supposed to only work on city streets, and was in limited beta in 2021 (you had to explicitly enroll). Autopilot is what runs on freeways/interstates today, and can be used on the street (but is not meant for city streets).

Autopilot, and it's Navigate on Autopilot system have been fantastic for me, but they are absolutely systems you need to monitor because they can do dumb things. It's not meant to be a hands-off driving system like the FSD system Tesla claims it will be one day.

Would you call all of these "unbreakable wine glasses" fraud? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=unbreakable+wine+glasses I think we would all agree that not one of them is actually unbreakable. But if someone sued for fraud because they were able to break one, they would probably be laughed out of court.

I imagine the vendors of unbreakable wine glasses would probably be in trouble if they charged $15k and argued that they'd receive over the air updates to Kevlar as soon as the regulatory approvals had gone through...

So you think the Justice Dept. has a formal investigation ongoing for which the main argument hinges around the name Full Self Driving? Umm..okay.

>So long as everybody knows what they are paying for is not an actual fully autonomous driving system

The expectation is that it will be. And, I admit, it might be, one day. But at what point is selling some potential future promise fraud? Over an infinite horizon, you could get away with any claim.

Whereas for a "full" self driving car, Tesla obviously has not (and probably will not) deliver a car that can fully drive itself in the context of normal car usage.

At the minimum, it's not "fraud, plain and simple" because there are people that currently use it and are happy with it. And it's not just sunk cost fallacy because you can buy it as a subscription for $200/mo, which is much less of an investment, and you can cancel that at any time. I don't know if Tesla breaks out numbers of how many FSD subscribers there are, but I think that would be pretty interesting to know.

Regardless, for something in development like FSD, I think the subscription model makes the most sense, since you know kinda what you're getting and if it's not worth it to you, you can cancel and then try again later after some updates. I kind of think they bumped the price to $15k just to switch more people to the subscription model.

But paying 200/mo USD for practically being a crash test dummy in real driving conditions, I'm not so sure.

When I ordered the car, I did so expecting it to be able to drive while I slept sometime during the life of the car. I have considered suing Tesla for failing to live up to the promises that prompted me to purchase the car. I had never purchased a new car before and wouldn't have except for the phantasmal claims of full-self driving. Refunding the $6k I paid for FSD seems insufficient to me.

genuine question but , were you not the tiniest bit skeptical when only Tesla were able to promise FSD?

like what secret sauce have they got that no one else has?

Also, remember that self-driving cars were all the rage then too. Hype was at its peak then, I think.

A large fleet of networked cars that were built from the ground up to provide real-world data (including cameras and human driver inputs) for AI training.

Honestly I kind of wonder if Tesla's software team (or overall technical approach) wasn't very badly mismanaged since they seem to have thrown away a huge head start. Or maybe autonomous car AI is just really hard.

Keep in mind they are likely spending 10x or less than Waymo on FSD, so a lot less employees/researchers, have been around a lot less time and have decided not to use the sensors and ground truth data that Waymo relies on.

Just having lots of data isn't necessarily very useful, or we'd see the pure FSD trying to get their sensors on everybody's cars.

I don't think that happy customers necessarily mean that it's not fraudulent. FSD provides some value and has been seriously misrepresented by Tesla. The fact that some people are happy with the value they get from it does not diminish Tesla's misrepresentation.

Just because there are people who use it and are happy with it doesn't mean it's not fraud. There likely are people who are being sold fake products (unbeknown to them) and are still happy with those products, they were still sold to them under a fake premise. Regarding subscribers, sure there are people who are happy to pay $200/month for driving assist (I mean people pay significant premium for other makers driving assist technology), however I suspect there are a significant number of people where the promise of "autopilot" was a deciding factor to buy a Tesla over another car. So it is likely not just fraud, but also unfair competition.

Other lane-keeping systems do nothing but try to keep the car in the lane (and some do a poor job of even that). Autopilot is rock solid in this regard. Like "I now actually prefer road-tripping 700+ miles instead of flying" rock solid. (I never road-tripped in the past because driving long distances wipes me out. Not so with Autopilot.)

Navigate on Autopilot is also super reliable in automatically changing lanes and exiting highways, and works on highways that SuperCruise and BlueCruise Hands-Free do not.

Traffic Aware Cruise Control is rock-solid in detecting and acting upon traffic lights and speed limit signs, though some systems already do this. This used to require purchasing FSD (it was a $7,000 option when I purchased our Model 3), but now you just need Enhanced Autopilot to enable it (which is $6,000).

I can easily see people asking for at least a downgrade to Enhanced Autopilot (a $9,000 difference), and I don't blame them. For example, my wife would NEVER use FSD Beta in its current state, but she loves Autopilot and uses it all of the time.

Given that FSD is included in the final price of the car that is used for car registrations, I'm wondering how those refunds will work.

I am completely uneducated on the state of EV charging right now. But for a 700+ miles, you would have to fully charge 2+ times? And how does it compare to a gas car given the availability of superchargers, excessive demands on long weekends, etc? Not trying to dismiss EV because of these factors, just genuinely curious of the compromise.

However, gas stations tend to be very spartan. Maybe you'll be fueling up at Bucee's or Wawa or Publix or something like that, or maybe you'll be filling up at Rod's Country Store which is a murder house that happens to have gas. Superchargers are usually located at the back of malls (which are useless if closed, but very useful when they are not) or large stores. Sometimes they are right in the city center, which is great because you can walk around and explore while you charge. It forces a break, which is great during road trips.

On a 700 mile road trip, we'd probably stop three times or so. However, Tesla Navigation is really really good at route planning with its superchargers. The nav can tell you when a charger is full or about to be full or if it has broken stalls or not. It will actually re-route you if a supercharging station fills up, if possible.

This is simply not true. Drove recently in BMW, Audi, and Volkswagen and all had a very reliable adaptive cruise control + automatic lane change assist. I have two cars, one of them being Tesla, and Tesla does not have advantage in basic cruise control.