Except they're still not sticking to what they can actually deliver NOW, because the "parking lot summon" thing is way harder than you imagine; I question whether they can do it in a way that isn't so fantastically dangerous that nobody will do it.
But let's talk about your choice of the word "honest". That's certainly one interpretation. But here's another -- they are limiting their liability with respect to current/future purchasers by no longer promising anything about full driverless autonomy. They can't do much about the liability for the ~150k people who have bought AP2 cars already, but by this time next year that will represent maybe 30% of their total number of customers? And a year after that, a small fraction. In other words, once they are selling more cars and are on a more stable footing, they can weather the impact of the massive liability they have to people who bought cars prior to this move.
But, if they kept making unkeepable promises, their liability would just pile up and up and up, getting worse the more they sell. They'd never dig themselves out of that hole.
Somebody on the legal and/or finance team finally got this message through Elon's thick skull I think. And I think leaving the "parking lot summon" feature in there was a concession that Elon demanded and they conceded, because Elon still doesn't get it.
(But "parking lot summon" is of very little economic value even if it worked, compared to something like being a driverless robotaxi in the Tesla Network, so their actual liability on that is more limited.)
