FSD may require a hardware upgrade...

[boonedocks]

ElecTrek reports that Elon was speaking at the "World Government Summit in Dubai" where he said "Tesla could need to upgrade the computer in the new vehicles in order to enable fully self-driving. Tesla’s vehicles are equipped with NVIDIA’s Drive PX 2 supercomputer and Musk said that it could be enough to surpass human driving, but if not, they could easily upgrade the computer"

Will those of us that have purchased current models with FSD at delivery be (harfware) upgraded if necessary, and at what cost?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says ‘almost all new cars will be self-driving within 10 years’

 

[stopcrazypp]

ElecTrek reports that Elon was speaking at the "World Government Summit in Dubai" where he said "Tesla could need to upgrade the computer in the new vehicles in order to enable fully self-driving. Tesla’s vehicles are equipped with NVIDIA’s Drive PX 2 supercomputer and Musk said that it could be enough to surpass human driving, but if not, they could easily upgrade the computer"

Will those of us that have purchased current models with FSD at delivery be (harfware) upgraded if necessary, and at what cost?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says ‘almost all new cars will be self-driving within 10 years’

From the details this is in reference from Nvidia saying two or more PX 2 units would be needed to reach FSD, however Tesla had only installed one and is banking on that being enough processing power. There's been other threads that discussed this discrepancy already. It'll be interesting to see how Tesla will handle things in the case of the car needing an upgrade. Worse case scenario is they refund the FSD option fees.

 

[boonedocks]

Electrek reported that Elon said this today 2-13-17. Not a quote from Nvidia.

"Musk said that it could be enough to surpass human driving, but if not, they could easily upgrade the computer"

 

[croman]

Tesla would be sued to Kingdom Come if they failed to install the necessary hardware free of charge to customers who bought FSD. They'd better budget for that now just in case.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Electrek reported that Elon said this today 2-13-17. Not a quote from Nvidia.

"Musk said that it could be enough to surpass human driving, but if not, they could easily upgrade the computer"

I know, but the context is what Musk is talking about is specifically that 1 vs 2 system difference for the NVidia PX 2 system. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Tesla would be sued to Kingdom Come if they failed to install the necessary hardware free of charge to customers who bought FSD. They'd better budget for that now just in case.

They can refund the money for the option (perhaps with interest, if people press for it). Given the amount of disclaimers on the option, I find it unlikely a judge would find issue with doing that.

 

[sorka]

Tesla would be sued to Kingdom Come if they failed to install the necessary hardware free of charge to customers who bought FSD. They'd better budget for that now just in case.

I guess it all depends on how you define FSD.

 

[sorka]

They can refund the money for the option (perhaps with interest, if people press for it). Given the amount of disclaimers on the option, I find it unlikely a judge would find issue with doing that.

They'd have to offer a buyback as an option as well as I'm sure some folks bought for the sole reason that they'd have an FSD car. If Tesla never delivers on that, refunding the FSD fee won't be enough.

 

[Reeler]

Tesla is not likely to upgrade their AP for free. They never have even offered an upgrade. I predict it will be AP5 or so before they have FSD working. Maybe 5-10 years down the line.

There are many things Tesla has promised, not delivered and then erased any mention of it. The list is long, but I bet AP2 will get something short of FSD or in limited circumstances.

When FSD works and the regulators allow it, I will upgrade immediately and be sleeping in the back seat on my commute. Until then, it is silicon snake oil.

 

[croman]

Let me be clear: I am an attorney and have sued many many companies for consumer fraud back when I started. This is about as open/shut as they come. Tesla can't decide how to make a consumer whole. As @sorka stated -- many consumers bought a Tesla because of FSD. It was the feature that compelled the entire purchase. Putting aside a slam dunk consumer fraud claim -- even under a breach of contract theory, the buyer is entitled to be made entirely whole if they can prove they would've bought a different car and FSD was what pushed them towards a Tesla. Tesla made a contract and despite what people think about Tesla's "fine print" -- a hardware limitation isn't going to cut it as an excuse for a material breach.

Throw in a slam dunk consumer fraud case and Tesla really better deliver free of charge or they will drown in litigation. Remember, I used to do these lawsuits as a young attorney because attorneys fees are baked in to most state consumer fraud laws. Nothing better than a slam dunk case where the other side fights (its like those Chinese finger traps -- the more you struggle the worse it becomes).

Lets just assume Tesla will eat whatever cost there is (remember if its in the future, the tech cost will drop as compared to present value). Tesla gets $100k+ at 30+% margins from us now, so it can't be that big of a deal to them to upgrade purchasers for free to avoid breaching a contract.

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

^^ What @Reeler said.

While I am happy with AP1, I will also admit that it has not lived up to the hype sold by Tesla. It does not auto park properly, or come pick me up on private property, or take highway exits (maybe coming soon).

Just like AP1 was oversold, so is AP2. Realistically speaking, AP2 will be better on in-city driving, AP1 is "good enough" on freeways. And both AP1 and AP2 will need the driver's attention anyway.

In the meanwhile, I'd just be happy if they took their focus off of 0-60 times, and focused a bit more on reliability, service center wait times, and repair costs.

@croman - can such a case be made for AP1 also? Tesla has not delivered on all capabilities, and while AP1 is still "beta", doesn't Tesla have enough leeway to weaken your case here?

 

[F123456]

I think the Nvidia units are relatively easy to reach, at least, but I don't recall if there's physical space for two, if it's that two units (not one upgraded one) are required. Anyone?

 

[Reeler]

Wow, folks are drunk on that snake oil. There is a list of like 15 things that Tesla talked about or EM tweeted about, but never delivered.

What if FSD is offered on closed tracks, below 40mph, or single lanes in sunny conditions? Does that fulfill their promise? I think they only promised to have hardware that could do it maybe and probably will under some circumstances. But, the driver will always have to be alert and ready to take over.

Until I can sleep in the back seat, who cares about FSD?

 

[boonedocks]

I think I'll take screen shots with dates for future reference for sure.


I bought rear Executive seats in my 2015 S85D and when purchased there was a list of about 5 things that were going to be available in an app that passengers in the back seat could control. To date not even one of those features has been enabled. This time around, with pre-purchased FSD, I will have more than enough to "remind" Tesla about what was sold to me.

 

[calisnow]

I wonder if Tesla, this time around, built the system with some kind of modular design so an Nvidia "brain swap" is a fast thing at a service center. Xavier is coming out next year with, I've heard, 20 trillion ops per second instead of 12.

 

[croman]

^^ What @Reeler said.

While I am happy with AP1, I will also admit that it has not lived up to the hype sold by Tesla. It does not auto park properly, or come pick me up on private property, or take highway exits (maybe coming soon).

Just like AP1 was oversold, so is AP2. Realistically speaking, AP2 will be better on in-city driving, AP1 is "good enough" on freeways. And both AP1 and AP2 will need the driver's attention anyway.

In the meanwhile, I'd just be happy if they took their focus off of 0-60 times, and focused a bit more on reliability, service center wait times, and repair costs.

@croman - can such a case be made for AP1 also? Tesla has not delivered on all capabilities, and while AP1 is still "beta", doesn't Tesla have enough leeway to weaken your case here?

I'm not as familiar with AP1. I've read a lot about how it was supposed to do some more fancy summoning (someone pasted a photo of Tesla's site showing the car leaving a garage and going to the front path in front of a house). I hear 8.1 will bring ramp to ramp autosteer for AP1. That should be most of what AP1 was supposed to do.

The key difference is AP1 delivered substantially all what was promised. If Tesla fails to deliver the hardware to make FSD possible, we're not debating whether FSD is all it was cracked up to be but rather that FSD was an inducement to capture purchases rather than a viable feature.

If FSD comes out and it requires someone to sit in the driver's seat but not do anything, I believe they will have met their stated expectations for FSD. It would only be a bonus if its true Level 5 and we can sleep or read (or whatever) while the car drives itself.

 

[Reeler]

For AP1, blind spot detection was touted on the Tesla site as a feature. They have renamed it blind spot warning and more correctly state its capability. At various times, WiFi hotspot, red light detection, entry/exit from highways, and many more things have been promised and not delivered.

Autopark, auto high-beams, auto wipers and more don't currently work well enough to be relied upon, but are listed as features. Tesla has never bothered to get those working well and instead focuses on acceleration tricks.

 

[boonedocks]

I think some posters haven't read everything posted on Tesla's site about FSD promises. It is pretty clear Tesla is selling a car with self driving features not requiring a driver. "When you arrive simply step out of your car and it will go into park seek mode....at tap on your phone brings it back". That is pretty clear that a driver is not needed.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla may have "baked-in" the cost of an upgrade, since it will probably be cheaper to upgrade to newer faster CPU/GPUs once the software is ready than to put in the ones that are fast enough now.

 

[calisnow]

@Reeler - I applaud Tesla for focusing on acceleration tricks instead of reliability of high-beams, auto wipers - it's the right business move. I'm not joking. It sells cars, which adds to EV snowball effect and helps fund R&D and capital calls - building the future. Absolutely the right thing to do.