GeoffEV
Member
Which thread is that quote from? I'd like to peruse as many of these FSD - or, rather, lack of FSD discussions as possible.
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FSD Timeline Promises (summary)
- Thread starter t3sl4drvr
- Start date
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
The quote implies more than actually happened though. Tesla never claimed they had a finished product.
The nearest you get was them promising level 2 city streets driving.... and I already agreed that was absolutely a valid basis for a potential lawsuit- but that any resolution was likely to be a tiny settlement to each buyer in that period, so long as they'd finally delivered that (at L2) by the time the suit was settled, which seems likely given it's already in beta testing.
It'd be similar to the delayed AP2 suit- couple hundred bucks per customers, and millions to the lawyers.
Most of Elons statements, in contrast to the definitive "L2 by end of 2019" one from Tesla during the sale process, are forward looking/speculative, generally protected by safe harbor rules.... and a lot of folks mix up "Statements made during sale" and "General speculative comments about the possible future of a product"
Also, this claim is flat out untrue:
"Tesla never said "we don't have a working version anywhere and there is no proof we ever will.""
They have always explicitly said any of the not-released-yet features would only be pending software validation to confirm safety in ADDITION to the regulation language....(and if we wanna pretend Elons tweets matter, he's mentioned various bits were NOT fully working yet tons of times too--- see his remarks on smart summon during the last year of development as a great example... "It almost doesn't suck right now" and so on)
The city streets code for example has "existed" for -years- but was not good or safe enough to release to anybody-- it's only now that software validation is approaching the stage they can release to a tiny group of beta testers.
A wider release will then serve as the start of software iteration and validation for higher levels of driving code.
As pointed out in post #8- they're kind of already there- arguably ahead of schedule.
Accident rate of drivers on AP is ~10x lower than the average human driver.
(there's statistical arguments to be made about this data, type of roads, age of fleet, etc... but at that point you're only arguing about if it's "really" 10x safer yet, or only 5x safer, or whatever the real x number is)
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rxlawdude
Active Member
If you believe that IL law post, this would be the appropriate jurisdiction to argue in SCC. Could it be the analysis you quote might be a bit, um, over the top?
I still await anyone who's dissatisfied and wants a refund for FSD to take Tesla to SCC (you can do this because SCC is carved-out from the mandatory arbitration you agreed to at purchase).
Yet not one poster has reported doing so on the basis of "fraud" and winning. Wonder why?
There is no discrimination because real FSD does not yet exist, and the latest Level 2 beta software does nothing truly useful and is not the promised product. Tesla has not yet provided the promised product to anybody.
Although Tesla never claimed to have a finished product, they implied a time frame when they said (as they said to me and anyone else who bought their car during a several-years timespan) "Your car [not A car, not Tesla cars but specifically your car] will be able to drive the kids around, drive coast-to-coast by itself, or operate as a robotaxi." Tesla and Elon effectively promised that if I paid for FSD my car would be Level 5. For this promise to be fulfilled it needs to happen while I still own my car. They still have time, but somebody who has been waiting for six years while their car ages out has a very real grounds for complaint. The post above about Illinois law sounds to me like it would apply. Why hasn't anybody brought a lawsuit? Maybe because lawsuits are obscenely expensive and multi-billion-dollar companies have full-time lawyers.
Tesla and Elon also said that my car had all the necessary hardware for FSD, which was not true, and he's claiming that cars sold today have all the necessary hardware, something that cannot be known until the software exists.
You keep claiming that Tesla never promised more than Level 2, which is patently and demonstrably false because they were promising what amounted to level 5 autonomy until they quietly backtracked, without any tacit acknowledgement or offer of restitution to buyers who paid before the promise changed.
Tesla makes the best cars on the road and I love mine. But why, oh why did they have to sell promises of a system that did not yet exist? If Musk was so certain that FSD was just around the corner, why not wait until he had a finished system to sell? Selling something that does not exist is hucksterism.
It comes from the thread:
After what time has passed would you consider an FSD class action lawsuit?
There is also a thread:
Lawsuit over FSD claims allowed to proceed
rxlawdude
Active Member
But not Small Claims Court, almost half of which have dollar controversy amounts in the range of what FSD costs. In fact, IL has a $10,000 SCC limit.
C'mon unhappy Illinois owners, please go ahead and sue Tesla in SCC. Please report back the results of your suit.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Nobody has been waiting 6 years.
FSD went on sale late 2016. We won't even be at 5 years, for the very first buyers, for several more months.
The average age of a car in the US right now is north of 12 years.
So even if you try and apply a "must deliver sometime during useful lifespan of vehicle" we're not even halfway there.
Naah---small claims is cheap (sometimes free)- and doesn't require any lawyers.
And is specifically allowed even if you didn't opt out of arbitration.
Nobody is suing for "I DIDN'T GET L5 YET" because there's no case there.
No, I don't.
I keep claiming, because it's a fact, that after March 2019 the only thing Tesla promised was L2.
Because that's the actual case.
Buyers from late 2016 through ~March 2019 were promised at least L4. (you can make an argument over if the promise is L4 or L5, but certainly more than 2)
I've said same for years- so claiming I've always said they only promised L2 is simply false.
They've sold two vastly different FSD products. One pre 3/19, one post.
One is L4(or 5) the other only promises L2.
If they're still intending to deliver L4 (or 5) to those pre-3/19 buyers there's nothing to acknowledge or offer restitiution for.
But changing the promise to L2 stops building the pool of potential people they owe interest bearing refunds if they eventually find they can't deliver that (or at least stops building the pool of folks needing free HW upgrades if they CAN delivery it but not with the 2016 delivered HW)
Because tweets such as this are unconscionable:
(a bit like promising Model S ”starts deliveries next month“, only to be drip released 5 months later)
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
But his tweet was accurate.
FSDBeta, showing functionality, was released before end of the year to a limited testing group.
It exists.
We're now in the "software validation" phase mentioned during the purchase process- the software exists but is not reliable/safe enough for wide deployment or higher operating levels.
You might wanna go back and read what Elon has previously said explaining the steps of this- including what he means by 'feature complete"
The tl;dr is first part, feature complete, means the system has the capability of doing any specific part of the driving task, even if it does not always do them perfectly. This happened in 2020.
The next part is getting incredibly good at all elements of those tasks. That is still in progress.
The last part is getting regulators to agree the system is good enough for stuff like RTs. (this step is easier or harder depending on the specific local jurisdiction, but not super relevant until step 2 is done)
No, his tweet was highly misleading.
‘Regulatory approval’ is an obvious, fallacious red herring. Functionality is miles off real world application.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You repeating a clearly inaccurate claim doesn't make it less inaccurate.
What he said was true.
For RTs? No- it's not.
There's a few US states you could deploy a consumer self-driving system without significant regulatory hurdles right now... (in most states you could not though- and nowhere overseas I'm aware of)
Widespread commercial self driving deployment would absolutely have regulatory issues to varying degrees nearly everywhere.
Regulatory approval is not holding up a Tesla robotaxi. Tesla is holding it up, with their FSD being in infancy. Hence, ‘regulatory approval’ is a fallacious red herring
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Except that's not what he said.
He only mentioned steps 1 and 3 in the 3 step process I mentioned (and that he has previously described on numerous occasions).
Step 1 is done.
We are on step 2 now.
We are NOT at step 3 yet -which is regulatory (and a different situation for RTs than it is for consumer vehicles)
Again:
Elon Musk said:
They hit step 1 with FSDBeta.
Step 2 is taking that system and improving it to where it no longer requires supervision. That's in progress now.
Step 3, which he also mentions in the tweet because it's the FINAL step to get to RTs, is regulatory approval for commercial deployment to the public. Which you can't do until step 2 is done.
This isn't even new info- folks just seem to like to leave out a lot of details or not read them.
I think Knightshade is essentially suggesting this was perhaps a top-tier non-answer addressing the two bookends of the process but ignoring the meat and potatoes, which would be getting this system to the point where approval for fully autonomous deployment is even an issue facing regulators.
This is like working to colonize an earth-like planet in Alpha Centauri but saying the real unknown in whether the planet will have a breathable atmosphere and drinkable water when we arrive 150,000 years from now.
This is like working to colonize an earth-like planet in Alpha Centauri but saying the real unknown in whether the planet will have a breathable atmosphere and drinkable water when we arrive 150,000 years from now.
No, Elon's tweet was highly misleading because he said "...regulatory approval is the big unknown." The actual big unknown is When will FSD be good enough to dispense with human supervision?
Very soon after FSD demonstrates that it can actually drive more safely than a human but without human supervision, it will be given regulatory approval, maybe sooner in some jurisdictions than in others. (And OTA updates can easily enable/disable FSD based on location.) Elon is crying "Regulatory approval!" when we are still years away from even asking for regulatory approval.
Also because when he said "Functionality is looking good for this year" he means that in his hyper-optimistic view the software will have all the components (i.e., "feature complete") but anybody not familiar with Elon-speak would assume that "functionality" means that it can actually do the job it was intended for: Unsupervised driving.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Yup.
Someone asked him when- so he said when he expected the FIRST part to be done (and he was right BTW
Then he mentioned what the LAST part will be once they get to it, and that he couldn't predict a date for THAT part to be completed.
Not sure how ME got so confused over it.
What's extra funny is this thread began with people being mad when Elon DOES try and be more definitively predictive over exact deadlines.... and now they're mad he did NOT provide one for the later steps.
(double funny given he HIT the one early step one he DID include)
They just wanna be mad at Elon either way seems to be the message.
That's true though
Because Tesla has no actual control over that piece.
So they literally can't know.
Ah, but Tesla DOES have some control over that bit.
Not as much as they'd like I suppose, but some
Anybody not familiar with Elons previous comments (where he explained in some detail, as I already quoted, what he means by feature complete) probably ought to do some more reading before they come ranting on here about FALSE CLAIMS though.
FloridaJohn
Member
Please. Releasing a limited Beta to hand-selected volunteer testers is not "released". The vast majority of testers (approximately 94% of them) are Tesla employees. If a single customer had the FSD Beta, would that count as released? No, it wouldn't.
Smart Summon is "released." Navigate on Autopilot is "released." Neither one of those functions perfectly (or maybe even that well), but they are available to the customers that purchased them. Over time, with steady and constant improvements, they may eventually live up to their billing.
But Autopilot on City Streets has not been "released."
Smart Summon is "released." Navigate on Autopilot is "released." Neither one of those functions perfectly (or maybe even that well), but they are available to the customers that purchased them. Over time, with steady and constant improvements, they may eventually live up to their billing.
But Autopilot on City Streets has not been "released."
Yup.
Someone asked him when- so he said when he expected the FIRST part to be done (and he was right BTW
Then he mentioned what the LAST part will be once they get to it, and that he couldn't predict a date for THAT part to be completed.
Not sure how ME got so confused over it.
What's extra funny is this thread began with people being mad when Elon DOES try and be more definitively predictive over exact deadlines.... and now they're mad he did NOT provide one for the later steps.
(double funny given he HIT the one early step one he DID include)
They just wanna be mad at Elon either way seems to be the message.
That's true though
Because Tesla has no actual control over that piece.
So they literally can't know.
Ah, but Tesla DOES have some control over that bit.
Not as much as they'd like I suppose, but some
Tesla has no idea whatsoever when they will "solve" FSD to the degree that human supervision is no longer needed. They are working furiously on it, but when or even if they will succeed is entirely unknown. Regulatory approval, OTOH, is a foregone conclusion: It will be approved as soon as it can demonstrate safety.
They have control only over how much time, labor, and money they're willing to invest in it. They have no control over whether or not they will succeed.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
But they have some direct control over it.
They can determine the iterations, they can determine how much $ and hardware they will throw at the back end (Dojo, etc), they can determine how much $ and hardware they'll throw at the front end (HW4- any potentential sensor changes, etc).
What level of safety?
I ask, because we already know for example what is legally ok in the US for even L2 is not ok in the EU.
So no, it's not at all a foregone conclusion- and will vary greatly from one place to the next.
Heck, regulatory approval of "a car factory in germany" has already taken much longer than was expected and that's a lot less revolutionary than self driving.
And the "RT" element in the question adds an ENITRE additional level of regulation since it's commercial.
Do you need a taxi license in areas that use them? THAT is regulation that'll need to be figured out.
Uber/Lyft are -still- spending tons of $ in lots of places on regulation and that's with HUMAN drivers.
I mean, you just wrote "releasing it is not released"
That's kinda silly.
The tweet asked, specifically, about "first release"
Elon said it was "looking good" for FUNCTIONAL release this year.
That was released Oct 2020. to limited # of testers.
it exists, and is the hands of a small # of people, and has been in various versions for most of the last year.
People keep wanting to read EXTRA stuff into what was said... (or ignore the details like the 3 step bit he's previously laid out) as some kinda weird gotcha.
it has though. Several iterations now.
Just not to you.
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