Am at a loss: is the $2k FSD offer going away on Monday?

[EVDRVN]

Do you just make up straw man arguments for everything. Do you understand context or are you just there to refute anything that does not fit you Tesla narrative. You should start a business. "I'm out"

 

[dnvr-ev]

The actual cost is probably somewhere in the middle.

Processor development - generic, ASIC, or whatnot - is EXPENSIVE. Especially something as transistor-dense as a neural processor like this would need to be. Fairly simple designs can end up being 9-digits, easily. I'd expect a chip like this to require some very serious custom work, on the order of $100m or more. You're not simply reusing an off the shelf design.

Case in point - an AI chip startup I'm familiar with has raised $56m in their first VC round. That, plus their seed money - and they haven't produced a chip yet. Maybe 50 people on the team, total thus far. I don't know how many are on Tesla's design team, but I'd guess it's more than that.

Processor manufacturing - is cheap. Maybe $40 on a current node. Less on a last-generation node. A chip like this would likely be on something like TSMC's 7nm node.

So let's take $100m (just a guesstimate on chip development cost - I'd venture it's likely more than that) + manufacturing cost, across, say, 500,000 units. Let's assume an entire years' worth of Tesla automobile production at one time. That's $240 just to cover the development and manufacture of a single NN chip.

That doesn't include the design of the rest of the HW3 system - the actual system board, ancillary interfaces (system buses, I/O etc) - or software development cost - or packaging - or delivery and field install costs or any of that.

So I'd say it's certainly more than $250 - way more - but probably less than $1,000 per unit when fully loaded.

Either way, chip development costs ain't cheap. And they're on to HW4 and possibly even HW5 by now - the NN chip for HW3 had to have been taped out a year ago now at least.

Elon, is that you?

 

[OCR1]

You crack me up, Knightshade. What do I win if I’m right?

I know! I know!

If you win, Knightshade has to go an entire week without using the word "literally" in one of his posts!

 

[DriveMe]

I don’t understand why people are so hung up on the computer upgrade. The new computer is just a way to achieve the FSD. What some of us just purchased is the future FSD upgrade. If such upgrade will require a new computer (and most likely it will), Tesla will provide it to us for free. Musk has been saying that for years. If tomorrow some software genius comes up with a new AI algorithm that will allow Tesla to achieve the FSD functionality on the current computer hardware (very unlikely, but not impossible), then the new computer won’t even be necessary. That’s Tesla’s choice.

Here’s my bet: there will be several new FSD-exclusive features released this year and they will likely require a new computer. If so, we’ll get that computer for free. I’ll take Elon’s word. And I have already wagered my $2000 on that!

 

[sbtz]

I don’t understand why people are so hung up on the computer upgrade. The new computer is just a way to achieve the FSD. What some of us just purchased is the future FSD upgrade. If such upgrade will require a new computer (and most likely it will), Tesla will provide it to us for free. Musk has been saying that for years. If tomorrow some software genius comes up with a new AI algorithm that will allow Tesla to achieve the FSD functionality on the current computer hardware (very unlikely, but not impossible), then the new computer won’t even be necessary. That’s Tesla’s choice.

Here’s my bet: there will be several new FSD-exclusive features released this year and they will likely require a new computer. If so, we’ll get that computer for free. I’ll take Elon’s word. And I have already wagered my $2000 on that!

I don't know about everyone else, but my concern (before I end up capitulating and buying the $2k upgrade this weekend) is that they'll end up doing a basic FSD on HW2.5 and then also an "enhanced" FSD that will require HW3, both EFSD and HW3 at an additional cost. They're already managed to go back and forth on pricing several times, and have also redefined EAP/AP.

I'll probably cough up the $2k because I got stuck on the dead AP1 branch with my Model S, and that sucked. I just hope I don't end up having to pay again and again on a car that I'm probably not going to keep for more than 5-6yrs.

 

[dnvr-ev]

I don't know about everyone else, but my concern (before I end up capitulating and buying the $2k upgrade this weekend) is that they'll end up doing a basic FSD on HW2.5 and then also an "enhanced" FSD that will require HW3, both EFSD and HW3 at an additional cost. They're already managed to go back and forth on pricing several times, and have also redefined EAP/AP.

I'll probably cough up the $2k because I got stuck on the dead AP1 branch with my Model S, and that sucked. I just hope I don't end up having to pay again and again on a car that I'm probably not going to keep for more than 5-6yrs.

One of two things is happening here.

1. Elon regrets all the price drops and doesn’t want your $2k-$3k for fsd now because he is easily going to sell it for $7k a pop soon. The sale is about to end and you are about to regret not getting in while you could.

2. This is another disorganized mess created by Tesla and Elon’s the dreamer while the staff is always trying to bring him back to reality. They will attempt to provide fsd on 2.5 and only do 3.0 computers when they have to. Either A. We get the 3.0 upgrade free down the road or B. They come up with a higher level of autonomy that is another price tier. I liked the enhanced fsd someone said above. They could have autopilot, enhanced autopilot, fsd, and enhanced fsd.

 

[Knightshade]

The comments on "They will attempt to provide fsd on 2.5 and only do 3.0 computers when they have to. " are simply baffling.

They just spent several years and a pile of money and man-hours developing HW3 specifically because they already knew 2.5 wouldn't get them there.... CAN'T get them there- how do you do FSD when your computer can't even handle the full framerate of all your sensors/cameras?

In what universe does it make sense for them to go "Eh, nevermind...." and toss that in order to avoid upgrading what in a year or two would turn out to be a small fraction of their total fleet anyway.

 

[dnvr-ev]

The comments on "They will attempt to provide fsd on 2.5 and only do 3.0 computers when they have to. " are simply baffling.

They just spent several years and a pile of money and man-hours developing HW3 specifically because they already knew 2.5 wouldn't get them there.... CAN'T get them there- how do you do FSD when your computer can't even handle the full framerate of all your sensors/cameras?

In what universe does it make sense for them to go "Eh, nevermind...." and toss that in order to avoid upgrading what in a year or two would turn out to be a small fraction of their total fleet anyway.

Listen to the podcast.
Since the computers cost around $1k each and take up to 4 hours to install they need the first fsd features to run on 2.5. That gives them lots of time to figure out the cheapest way to upgrade cars. During that time they may make basic fsd run on 2.5 and then they can upgrade all 2.0 cars with just the gtx1060 graphics card which costs a couple hundred a piece. They will save a fortune.

 

[Eno Deb]

I don’t understand why people are so hung up on the computer upgrade.

Just speaking for myself, but I suspect many feel similarly: I think that "true" FSD (i.e. level 4/5 autonomy) is far away (probably so far that it won't happen while l own my current car), and the near-term features that have been announced so far are IMO somewhat underwhelming and will probably not be very useful. So the hope is that the upgrade additionally includes improved hardware, and that the hardware not only ensures long-term support with new features, but hopefully also improves the reliability of the existing (and useful) EAP features (e.g. by improving the accuracy of the environment mapping and object detection). In short, the hope is that the hardware provides better value for the money they are asking.

 

[Glamisduner]

I'm not even sure if the FSD I bought is the same FSD people bought for 3k with the car.

 

[DB-Cooper]

I'm not even sure if the FSD I bought is the same FSD people bought for 3k with the car.

Nor am I. If you read the description on the web site where you buy it, it just sounds like Eary Access.

 

[DriveMe]

Well, I do know what I purchased. Here is the screenshot:

To be clear, I do not expect to have the above capability any time soon. Certainly not this year.

However, I do expect to get some new FSD-related features this year, like those currently listed on the website:

(Sorry for the big font, but theses are screenshots and the forum software resizes them automatically.)

 

[Eno Deb]

Well, I do know what I purchased. Here is the screenshot:

View attachment 386464

That's actually a really weird description, since it doesn't really say anything about the self-driving functionality at all. Any navigation system can "figure out the optimal route" after all.

 

[matto]

Folks, the $2k deal is not going away Monday, at least according to an email I received from support

Tesla :
Autopilot will come at a cost of $4,000 after delivery. Full Self-Driving will come at a price of $7,000 after delivery.
It is important to note that Full Self-Driving requires the customers first purchase Autopilot before purchasing Full Self-Driving. So in order for customers to receive all future drive assist updates including the features mentioned above, the customer would have to pay a total of $11,000.
You have the option of purchasing Full Self-Driving for the discounted price of $2,000 since you have Enhanced Autopilot enabled in your vehicle.
Please refer to our blog post regarding these recent changes for more information: Upgrading to Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability

Me:
When does the $2,000 upgrade price expire? From your email and blog post it seems I can upgrade for $2,000 at any point in the future?

Tesla:
As of now, there are no plans to change this pricing

 

[jjrandorin]

Hundreds of people calling CS and service to get clarity and no response. Requests for this in writing over email denied. Tweets to Elon to confirm and still no addition the the text on the website. I can assure you with 100% certainty that if that is true then Tesla is doomed if they move that slow or that sloppy. If the head of sales and marketing has not heard all this a hundred times over they are living in a cave, if you are in that position at Tesla and did not know that HW3 was going to be included then there is a serious problem.

They also forgot to tell all the customers about this "promotion". Jus a small detail. So if this is to make everyone happy then once it is gone and people find out they will have another unhappy group. Just a small detail they forgot when they changed the website and added a purchase option to the cart the code to update the cars on the Tesla DB, etc. Right. I predict this to change yet again this or next week when they put up the sales strategy dart board.

Anyone reading this thread all the way through might remember that I said I bought the update. I also said that, while I thought I would get the hardware, I was still a bit skeptical, and understood where people were coming from.

I also said that I emailed Tesla from my account and had not gotten a response.... well I got a response today from the customer service line on this topic that some may be interested to read.

My the title of my exact question submitted through my tesla account was:

"Will purchasing the Full self driving upgrade include the new HARDWARE version 3 retrofit?"

(I then gave some rationale around my question in the body text).

Here is a cut and paste of the exact answer I received from tesla support today:

==================================================================

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Tesla! Please allow me to apologize for the delay in our response to this email.

Customers who have purchased the Full self driving upgrade will have Hardware version 3 installed, once it is released and ready for installation we will notify customers. Here is a summary of the changes and what is included with each upgrade.
Full Self-Driving Capability

• Overview: Includes features like Navigate on Autopilot, Auto Lane Change, Autopark and Summon, as well as features we will be releasing later this year such as traffic light and stop sign recognition. As we continue to release new features, those who purchase Full Self-Driving will get them for free through regular over-the-air software updates.
• Features: Navigate on Autopilot, Summon, Auto Lane Change, Autopark and Full Self-Driving features in the future
• Pricing: USD $5,000 pre-delivery, USD $5,500 during trial, USD $7,000 after delivery
• Once the Hardware 3 upgrade is ready to be installed (which is included with the FSD purchase) we will notify you to schedule a service center appointment.

Please visit our Support Page, which covers frequently asked questions about Tesla and your vehicle. If you have any further questions or concerns, you can reach Customer Support 24/7 at [email protected] or by phone at 1-877-79-TESLA (83752).

Best Regards,

ed| Tesla Support
Customer and Product Support | Tesla Support

=================================================

Other people have gotten text messages from tesla on their phones, but not sure if anyone has gotten anyone to respond with this exact information in an email. This actually looks like a boilerplate email to me. It may not be, and maybe "ed" sends out emails like this regularly, typed out... but it looks like boilerplate copied text that a support person would cut and paste from a knowledge base entry (starting with the "full self driving capability" in bold). The text before that was likely typed by "ed". Its also likely that "ed" would not have responded if he was not relatively sure of this information.

So, I feel that my thought that I would get HW3 "eventually" is true / correct. Not sure when, and for ME, it kind of doesnt matter how long as long as its not 2 years or something.

Thought this info might be something that some would enjoy having.

@Knightshade maybe its silly, but I feel better having this email in my email history from tesla, than having a tweet. Its probably because I personally think twitter is a *sugar* show, and my disdain for it likely makes me discount anything "announced" there.

In any case, I believe you are 100% correct on this, figured I would come back and mention that.

 

[Knightshade]

Listen to the podcast.
Since the computers cost around $1k each and take up to 4 hours to install

You've already had these numbers debunked several times, why do you keep repeating them?

Elon explicitly said it's a 30 minute swap, and costs the same as the 2.5 computer.

Also that FSD as defined previous to the recent change (ie anything beyond EAP) requires HW3

Li then they can upgrade all 2.0 cars with just the gtx1060 graphics card which costs a couple hundred a piece. They will save a fortune.

Which part of HW3 costs the same as 2.5 did you not understand the first 10 times your made up numbers were corrected with facts?

 

[dave999z]

If I heard Elon right just now during the Model Y unveil, he said FSD would be feature complete by the end of the year via software only.

 

[EVDRVN]

Well there's your first mistake....





Which is weird, because we know for a fact have done in the past (see the LR RWD guys who got suspension swapped out for the softer one, for free, and that's not even part of their purchase like FSD stuff is).

It's almost like level 1 phone support is universally staffed by useless clueless people or something.




See, he asked a level 2 guy who already knows phone support is usually the last to know anything. Often behind their own customers. Good on him.





Yup, as I said.

And while Tesla is especially bad at this, it's HARDLY confined to new/small companies.

Back in 1997 Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4 which was a pretty huge deal at the time.

Over at IBM, still a huge player in the PC game at the time, the phone support group set up a dedicated group just to support IE4 calls. They added IE4 support to the phone tree options.

Problem was- IBM only supported IE4 when it came preloaded on an IBM computer. And the IBM preload wasn't scheduled to get IE4 included for another 6 months. And nobody in phone support had bothered to coordinate with the preload people.

So for 6 months an entire phone support group at IBM was paid to answer support calls for a product they didn't actually support at all, but that had a dedicated support option in the phone tree.





"People on the phone have no idea what's going on... I KNOW I WILL ASK MORE PEOPLE ON THE PHONE!"

Call 10 times you'll get 10 different answers. Hell you got 3 different ones in one call apparently.

Meanwhile, the actual CEO has been providing a clear, unambiguous, and consistent answer to your actual question since at least August of 2017, and the message hasn't change one bit since.

If you paid for FSD, and you need HW to make FSD work, you get that HW free.




Shocker- he repeated he has no idea WTF he's talking about.






Again except for literally every single thing the actual CEO has said since mid 2017- and what their own investor call on their own website says.


but sure- stick with phone support not being sure instead. THAT makes sense.






but that response doesn't answer your actual question.

You'd win whatever you were otherwise willing to lose if (read as when) you end up being wrong would be my actual answer.

You should pay attention. You make statements above that are not correct and you repeat things like a Tesla carnival barker. I spent 2 hours on the phone with a person of high technical knowledge and authority. They just moved a Tesla mountain and validated every suspicion I had. There are a few senior people there that know what's going on are not reading the script.

Anyone reading this thread all the way through might remember that I said I bought the update. I also said that, while I thought I would get the hardware, I was still a bit skeptical, and understood where people were coming from.

I also said that I emailed Tesla from my account and had not gotten a response.... well I got a response today from the customer service line on this topic that some may be interested to read.

My the title of my exact question submitted through my tesla account was:

"Will purchasing the Full self driving upgrade include the new HARDWARE version 3 retrofit?"

(I then gave some rationale around my question in the body text).

Here is a cut and paste of the exact answer I received from tesla support today:

==================================================================

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Tesla! Please allow me to apologize for the delay in our response to this email.

Customers who have purchased the Full self driving upgrade will have Hardware version 3 installed, once it is released and ready for installation we will notify customers. Here is a summary of the changes and what is included with each upgrade.
Full Self-Driving Capability

• Overview: Includes features like Navigate on Autopilot, Auto Lane Change, Autopark and Summon, as well as features we will be releasing later this year such as traffic light and stop sign recognition. As we continue to release new features, those who purchase Full Self-Driving will get them for free through regular over-the-air software updates.
• Features: Navigate on Autopilot, Summon, Auto Lane Change, Autopark and Full Self-Driving features in the future
• Pricing: USD $5,000 pre-delivery, USD $5,500 during trial, USD $7,000 after delivery
• Once the Hardware 3 upgrade is ready to be installed (which is included with the FSD purchase) we will notify you to schedule a service center appointment.

Please visit our Support Page, which covers frequently asked questions about Tesla and your vehicle. If you have any further questions or concerns, you can reach Customer Support 24/7 at [email protected] or by phone at 1-877-79-TESLA (83752).

Best Regards,

ed| Tesla Support
Customer and Product Support | Tesla Support

=================================================

Other people have gotten text messages from tesla on their phones, but not sure if anyone has gotten anyone to respond with this exact information in an email. This actually looks like a boilerplate email to me. It may not be, and maybe "ed" sends out emails like this regularly, typed out... but it looks like boilerplate copied text that a support person would cut and paste from a knowledge base entry (starting with the "full self driving capability" in bold). The text before that was likely typed by "ed". Its also likely that "ed" would not have responded if he was not relatively sure of this information.

So, I feel that my thought that I would get HW3 "eventually" is true / correct. Not sure when, and for ME, it kind of doesnt matter how long as long as its not 2 years or something.

Thought this info might be something that some would enjoy having.

@Knightshade maybe its silly, but I feel better having this email in my email history from tesla, than having a tweet. Its probably because I personally think twitter is a *sugar* show, and my disdain for it likely makes me discount anything "announced" there.

In any case, I believe you are 100% correct on this, figured I would come back and mention that.

You NEED that email. Issue is the deadline, that's the reality. Also what does HW3 really mean Onward...

 

[Knightshade]

You should pay attention. You make statements above that are not correct

Which ones specifically, and what evidence do you have to support the claim? You've been repeatedly incorrect every time so far, so I have low hopes it's different now, but hope springs eternal!

Y
and you repeat things like a Tesla carnival barker. I spent 2 hours on the phone with a person of high technical knowledge and authority. They just moved a Tesla mountain and validated every suspicion I had.

No, you didn't.

Such people aren't the ones answering the phones at Tesla.

You NEED that email.

You've been asked repeatedly what is magic about email from a level 1 support rep that doesn't apply to the written confirmation, over and over, by the CEO of the company to the general public.... or to the audio recording on Teslas own website saying the same thing.


You've been utterly unable to answer that though.

Also what does HW3 really mean Onward...

A drop in replacement for the existing AP computer, with 10x the framerate processing capability and about 1000% improvement in NN processing capability...that everyone who paid for FSD will be upgraded to for free, and which is planned to be standard in all Teslas by Q2 of 2019.

Or as the CEO explained last year-

“[It’s] very important to emphasize that the only thing that needs to change between a car that’s produced today and a car that’s going to be produced in the second quarter of next year is probably the autopilot computer. This is a simply change that takes about half an hour to upgrade the computer. Anyone will be able to upgrade their car to Full Self-Driving capability with a simple service visit. Basically anything made in the last two years will be upgradable to Full Self-Driving. So its better important to emphasize that there’s no need to wait until that comes out because its just a very simple plug and play change to get to Full Self-Driving. Anyone who has paid for Full Self-Driving option will get it done for free.”

(bold added since you missed it the first 10 times )

If I heard Elon right just now during the Model Y unveil, he said FSD would be feature complete by the end of the year via software only.

In the model Y? Absolutely. It'll come with HW3 from the factory given they're not going to start production on em for a bit yet. Same would be true on any S/X/3 once the production switchover happens at the factory... (Q2 2019 is the only date I've seen on this)

 

[dave999z]

@Knightshade Well, the Y doesn’t come out until Fall of 2020. Why would he make the point that FSD would be feature complete by the end of this year via software only if referring to the Model Y?