Fernand
Active Member
I think it's totally fine for people to buy into this, eyes wide open, for whatever reason they want. To support the development, to have a cool toy, to be able to track progress, to get the latest 3.0 hardware which might improve safety, to get the FSD features, etc.
There just seems to be a lot of confusion about what is actually being promised here - and it is not really due to Tesla's website...it has to do with the social media pronouncements by various people , talk of robotaxis, Tesla YouTube fans, the media representations of what is being delivered, people's misperception of what the cars can do, etc.
I think as long as people realize that FSD is being promised as an L2 system for the city which can recognize and respond to street signs and lights and do "automatic" driving on city streets (and highways of course), and understand that "automatic" driving means the features "require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous," then people can proceed with their purchase, eyes wide open.
Will it progress beyond that? Maybe, someday! Is Tesla required to provide that progress to FSD owners, if it turns out the current hardware (with HW 3.0) can't do L3/L4/L5? No. Tesla can (and will!) come out with products with more capable hardware (better radars, better cameras, etc.) that can do L3/L4/L5 in the future, call it something else, say FSD 2.0, and there is no obligation for them to provide compensation for people purchasing FSD under the current description, which will not be as capable.
In the event the current hardware (HW 3.0 + sensing suite) turns out to not be capable of "achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers," there's no reason Tesla will need to update it, and no requirement for them to do so, as long as they have delivered the L2 automatic driving capabilities in the city with that hardware. The statement of this possibility is right there in the description of the product.
That's my take on it, anyway.
None of the above means you shouldn't buy it of course! It's a personal decision, and there are a lot of reasons to spend $3k on it - just have to understand what you're buying, and what the future holds, as with any product. Technology will march on and cars will truly drive themselves at some point - but Tesla's FSD is not promising to deliver that.
That's the problem. When Tesla says the car is not fully autonomous, they are speaking in the present tense, and that's 100% correct. Nowhere does it say clearly what the "full self-driving" capability WILL BE, when/as FSD matures. The end-point is not stated, except they say "As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates". I want that. They've said the 3.X CPU will be required to go past EAP. So I need that. Pretty simple.
This $3k, not $6K, pricing is evidently temporary, so waiting to upgrade your CPU, if you plan to keep the car more than say another year, will cost more. It does come down to expectations and whether the customer believes that Tesla is on track to deliver at least something like NOA on surface streets.
Some people have had bad experiences, but most of us have found both the car and company to be "good to excellent". Based on my experience to date, I believe Tesla's automation will cover more and more environments. Personally I deduce that fully autonomous operation, e.g. as in Robo-Taxis, will come, but after several years of refinement. Good enough for me, and I don't believe any other company can get "there" faster than Tesla. I plan to keep the car for several years, and I want the 3.X computer and whatever highest level of automation Tesla delivers "as it evolves".
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