Anyone else think this is a slap in the face for long term FSD buyers?

[johnmodely]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746964887949934958

It's 2024, now 6 years after FSD was promised by years end.

Most of us have paid between 5-15k for this, are not allowed to transfer this feature that was never delivered to a new car (other than one short window must of us could not take advantage of), and still stuck with a beta that we are training for them instead of it being used what we paid serious amount of cash for.

And Musk is here touting a robot folding shirts, instead of focusing on delivering product sold to many people 6 years ago.

Not cool...

 

[diplomat33]

And Musk is here touting a robot folding shirts, instead of focusing on delivering product sold to many people 6 years ago.

Not cool...

And Elon clarified that Optimus is not autonomous in this video. So it is basically another staged video, just like the 2016 FSD video. Elon is doing the same thing with Optimus that he did with FSD: put out staged videos to hype something that likely won't be real for many years to come.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746970616060580326

 

[gaswalla]

FSDb guy here... the difference is Tesla is able to continuously adjust the hardware on Optimus. Imagine what the Optimus that came out on display a year ago would do today if all they could do is improve software. it's clear that AP2 and AP3 lack the hardware needed. (just had FSD shut down with the sun shining on the windshield, robotaxis are impossible if it can't handle the sunshine)

 

[ucmndd]

These things couldn’t possibly have less to do with each other. If you want to be sore that you got swindled out of thousands of dollars on FSD then by all means be sore… but it’s got nothing to do with the toy robot.

 

[jjrandorin]

"Anyone else think this is a slap in the face for long term FSD buyers?"​

"No"

 

[believer__]

I think companies do multiple things. I’m a software developer. You can’t solve all the issues by stopping other things Or throwing more people at it. I’m sure they are Working as fast as the can on FSD also. I’m in Australia, we have no Fsd beta or anything yet… Great car even without it…. Look forward to the day it’s even better…

 

[gsmith123]

Most of us have paid between 5-15k for this, are not allowed to transfer this feature that was never delivered to a new car

Unhappiness is certainly justified, especially for earlier buyers of expensive cars that they may want to upgrade.

(I got FSD on a used car so I effectively paid $3-4k and had ample knowledge of the various FSD timeline promises of the last 5 years, so I'm not particularly upset)

That said, Tesla's work on optimus probably isn't directly pulling time and resources from FSD. There are some ways it could be:

- scarce engineering talent
- scarce ML training resources (Dojo and Tesla's other infrastructure)

There are some ways it could help:

- if Tesla is investing in both FSD and Optimus you get some economies of scale on shared tooling (ML training hardware, common ML software tooling, etc)

If you're already upset about FSD I can definitely empathize being frustrated seeing Tesla invest in other projects.

 

[Todd Burch]

And Elon clarified that Optimus is not autonomous in this video. So it is basically another staged video, just like the 2016 FSD video. Elon is doing the same thing with Optimus that he did with FSD: put out staged videos to hype something that likely won't be real for many years to come.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746970616060580326

Lol staged? He literally posted immediately under the video that it’s not autonomous yet. You guys are always letting emotion cloud your judgement.

You can literally see the teleoperator in the corner of the video. If they wanted to “stage” the video they’d probably be careful not to capture the teleoperator, and maybe avoid having the CEO immediately post that it’s not autonomous yet. Good grief…

 

[spacecoin]

Lol staged? He literally posted immediately under the video that it’s not autonomous yet. You guys are always letting emotion cloud your judgement.

You can literally see the teleoperator in the corner of the video. If they wanted to “stage” the video they’d probably be careful not to capture the teleoperator, and maybe avoid having the CEO immediately post that it’s not autonomous yet. Good grief…

Anyone that knows anything about robotics will tell you that it’s a software problem to 99%. We don’t know how to make software for useful general-purpose robots.

Calling a remotely operated robot (by cable) “not yet autonomous” is the understatement of the century.

It’s like saying my Roomba is not yet sentient.

 

[RTPEV]

These things couldn’t possibly have less to do with each other.

I'll challenge that assertion somewhat. We don't know how many resources have been tapped to work on the Optimus project rather than FSD. Certainly AI/ML skills, compute power, and money are not unlimited. It may be that there has been no change to the amount of resources applied to FSD had Optimus been in the picture, but that doesn't seem very likely. It seems much more likely that given limited resources, there has been some impact to FSD development, given that the Optimus project has been stated to be reliant on AI, and even so much as to say that the AI is very much related to the FSD AI (albeit, the posted video is not focusing on any automation).

To me, it seems like perhaps Elon finally came to the realization (even if not publicly stated) that achieving true FSD is going to be orders of magnitude more difficult than his "first principles thinking" led him to believe, and he got bored with the slowing progress and his entrepreneurial spirt drove him to find a new project to work on that could show more rapid progress. And I'll even say the same thing will happen with Optimus: lot's of hype and promises and impressive initial progress, followed by years of slow incremental progress.

 

[Goose66]

Yes, Elon said this procedure was not "autonomous," but that certainly doesn't clear it up for most folks. IMO, this video is even more disingenuous than the 2016 FSD video. At least in the 2016 video, the car was driving. Here, you can catch glimpses of the right hand of a person standing just out of camera to the right who is very likely looking at the garment on the table and piloting the robot's movements with a wearable control device. Plus, the way the robot is tethered and the way the body swings during the arm movements, it seems possible that the robot is not even keeping itself upright but instead relying on the tether. What's more, we have no idea how many times they had to do it to get it to look like the robot is actually folding the shirt.

If this had been clearly presented as a demonstration of the robot's arm and hand dexterity, then maybe I would feel differently, although it doesn't demonstrate anything that I haven't seen before even a decade ago. However, it is clear that Elon intended for it to convince people that Optimus was some sort of technological breakthrough or that they were bleeding edge somehow, when everything I see in this particular video indicates that's clearly not the case.

 

[Goose66]

What's even more interesting is what's on the floor behind the robot with the blue tape covering parts of it. Are these cutting edge robots powered by Tesla Wall Chargers?

 

[JB47394]

Plus, the way the robot is tethered and the way the body swings during the arm movements, it seems possible that the robot is not even keeping itself upright but instead relying on the tether.

It's free-standing. There's no tension on those cables, and the body moves naturally. I'm assuming that they're for power and comms.

This looks like a training episode, and it got circulated without an explanation.

The part that confuses me is the robot pulling the shirt out of the bin. The teleoperator's hand should have been very clearly visible.

What's even more interesting is what's on the floor behind the robot with the blue tape covering parts of it. Are these cutting edge robots powered by Tesla Wall Chargers?

Why would I clown around with charging a robot's battery in a training environment when I can run wall power to the thing?

 

[AndrewZ]

I think you mostly need to just be in awe of Elon’s ability to monetize this stuff, it’s pretty amazing

but none of that money has been mine so

 

[zazim]

I have it in good authority that once Optimus is able to do a full hospital tuck on a bedsheet autonomously everyone will get back to work on FSD. It shouldn’t be long now.

 

[Darscot]

There have been a lot of lies about FSD and I am embarassed I ever believed it. That was a slap in the face, this is just a really bad t-shirt folding machine.

 

[Cal1]

Slap in the face? Wonder how all those Roadster orderers feel seeing Elon start yet another revolutionary path that doesn’t even remotely bring their product to market or even increase the sp. Or existing owners that have to pay tens of thousands for an out of warranty battery replacement. No lower prices for you! Why aren’t replacement batteries say $10k now. They’re not asking for 4680’s, just give them what they already have and what Tesla’s been making for years. I do hear him brag about reduced costs on the earnings calls. Just doesn’t seem to result in lower battery’s for existing customers. FSD is a fraction of what’s been promised for years. Yea I paid for it twice.

Just imagine what this company would be like with adult focused management. Undistracted by new lights. Just making things better. Right now. Not starting projects that may pay off sometime off in the distant future.

 

[brkaus]

Y’all are missing the point. Elon knows that Tesla cars don’t have the hardware (or software) for FSD. So he is developing this robot that can be put in the seat of any old Tesla and provide FSD features. /s

 

[Cal1]

I like it! Geeze you could put them in a bunch of vehicles (including ice) and bam ya got an instant robotaxi fleet! Brilliance!

 

[father_of_6]

Because everyone likes opinions, I'll add one more...

Elon is smart and has Asperger's. His mind is racing all over the place, and he has a very high level of confidence in his (and his employee's) abilities to achieve things that haven't been done before (or improve something that already exists).

Regarding FSD, I think Elon has been playing defense while waiting for AGI to happen. Since it's never been achieved before, he *can't* actually know how long it will take (or if it's even possible). BUT... he's made a habit out of doing things that people say are too hard or are impossible... so his judgement is biased towards "we can do it". This is why his communications to the public are always something like "by the end of the year". He's clearly a case of "overachiever syndrome".

Regarding Optimus, I think it makes total complete logical sense. If Elon's expectation is that Tesla will achieve AGI, it would be foolish to not have the hardware to make use of it. Flip the situation around - if Tesla achieved AGI and *doesn't* have a humanoid robot to take advantage of it, TSLA stockholders will be screaming at Elon for his lack of foresight.

Regarding resources being diverted away from FSD... eh. There probably weren't a bunch of robotics engineers pulled from FSD to work on Optimus. If we're talking software... it's been *YEARS* without progress. That lack of progress didn't happen because of Optimus. If anything, Optimus could be providing a way for the software team to look at problems from a different angle. Or just a useful distraction for the mind.

I work in software. Sometimes taking a break from a hard problem is better than spinning your wheels. Sometimes shifting to a different problem can help you solve your first problem.

Remember when the Mobileye CEO called out Tesla and said they would hit a "glass ceiling"? They were right. You can't take a bunch of ADAS features and make a self-driving car from it. Perhaps Tesla is taking a different approach, but can't really do that incrementally. Perhaps the software that is written to operate Optimus will be "FSD v13".

I think this thread is written from an outsider's perspective, and so I understand the frustration expressed... but I don't think the engineers have just dropped FSD for a shiny new toy.

My recommendation is that anyone who paid for FSD and feels ripped off should take Tesla to small claims court. It's likely you'll get a refund.

From my viewpoint, we owe Elon's "overachiever syndrome" for a lot of good things. I'm not trying to give him credit for everything that comes out of his companies - obviously there are a lot of other smart and hardworking people responsible... but there are competitors of his businesses that are failing left and right (legacy auto, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, etc).

I'm very thankful for Tesla and Elon. Again though, I didn't spend $12k on something that turned out to be less than I expected. If you're in that boat - really just take Tesla to small claims and be happy with the car (minus FSD).