As an FSD buyer, I am not convinced we are actually going to get the new hardware at all. I will believe it when Tesla contacts me to schedule my upgrade.
They are watering down FSD (by making summon, autopark, and NoA “FSD” features), and it is entirely possible they will get stoplights, stop signs and city streets operational in some very minimal form (with monitoring!) on the current hardware.
I can see how it now has the appearance that FSD was watered down, but that wasn't what happened. All that happened was EAP was deleted. EAP was deleted because you can't add features to EAP with HW3 without pissing off EAP HW2/HW2.5 owners. It was the only way that Tesla could have a clean slate to incrementally improve.
With the upcoming firmware update (that has the smart summons, and unconfirmed lane changes) we'll see the last features get added for EAP, and that's it for it. From then on its adding things, and that will require HW3/FSD.
Keep in mind that there is no rush on this so there is ample time for Tesla/Elon to clarify the situation. If I didn't have FSD I'd give it about a month before getting it. It's going to take Tesla a bit to get everything updated.
Hopefully what happens is Tesla will set it up so they only charge your credit card when you're within a few weeks of being upgraded to HW3.
The other reason there is no rush is it's likely that they'll keep this option available at this price point for awhile. At least until the updates start happening.
The root of this is they should have never sold the FSD in the first place. It never had any promised deliverable with a promised delivery date. They didn't take the approach they said they were going to do, and never put any effort into it. The only effort they put into was HW3, and the neural network for it.
They built their own ADAS system because they know (but, Elon won't admit it) that we're all going to be stuck in L2 for at least another 2-3 years. We don't even have a regulatory pathway to L3, and that's why the Audi A8 (which is L3 capable in a limited fashion) won't have L3 capability enabled in the US.
What Tesla really needs to do is to lay out a list of things they're hoping to achieve and a timeframe for them.
What they have now is really broad things. Like stop sign detection, and traffic sign detection. That's a start, but what about speed limit sign recognition. What about debris detection or pot hole detection? Or deer detection?
Lots of things will get added that aren't promised. Just like Sentry mode, and Dash Cam.
