S4WRXTTCS
Well-Known Member
Disagree. People paid for FSD, not a faster computer.
Additionally, people may well have bought a HW2 MS or MX (late 2016) instead of a HW1 MS or MX (pre-late 2016) because of its promise of FSD - that is the car itself was purchased, not just the feature. There may be other people who wouldn’t have bought altogether. Hence the cost to reclaim is more than just FSD - it comes down to if a judge decides that they still got benefit from their HW2+ car, based on their INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES
We had people trading in used Tesla's that were barely that old to get HW2/FSD so I don't dispute that.
The problem is FSD didn't have a promised date, and always needed regulatory approval. This is one of the arguments I used to try to convince them NOT to do it. I've always been against FSD, and considered its existence a sign of the end of the world as I knew. 2016 was a pretty messed up year when it comes to "what we're they thinking" moments.
All Tesla has done since then is keep pushing it down the road. They're basically making sure that any injured party has long forgotten about it.
The lack of a promise date means the "full self driving capable" can never really be challenged until which time Tesla officially says "No, ignore that. We didn't know what we were talking about back then". They probably will never say that, but they'll cite some regulation that was "out of their control".
By that time everyone will have moved on or Tesla will have a mechanism in place to move them on to whatever the latest promise is.
The problem with a case like this is it's not just a buyer of a car that's injured monetarily, but it's also competitors. Tesla sold vehicles, and they still do with the promise of full-self driving capable, and this makes any competitor look a bit silly in comparison for anyone who cares about autonomous driving. How much of Tesla's dominance of the market place comes down to essentially what's a lie?
So a judge who ruled anything higher than the value of FSD at the time of purchase would be opening up one hell of a can of worms.
I want to make sure its clear that I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not a fan of law shows. In fact there is probably a name for damages awarded behind the value of FSD itself, but I don't know what it is.
I simply don't see the results of a lawsuit going beyond the value of FSD itself. Especially since Tesla will likely settle anything that looks like it could go beyond that value due to the precedence it would set.