Growing FSD liability could be massive.

Tesla: Growing Full Self-Driving Liability Could Be Massive (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Tesla, Inc. recently issued a recall on its full self-driving software package. Click for my take on TSLA's potential liability for FSD and my view of the stock.

seekingalpha.com

“For those that have followed the Tesla story, you know that CEO Elon Musk has basically talked about full self-driving for almost a decade now. The company still has not shown off the U.S. coast-to-coast autonomous drive that it said would come by the end of 2017, for instance.”

“The potential liability question comes into play here if you think Tesla won't be able to truly solve FSD with the current hardware. One might think that a potential lawsuit would just want to refund the FSD price, and those arguing here might cite the recall number of vehicles to get a total liability. At an average cost of $10,000 for FSD, that gets you to around $4 billion when you consider how many customers have reportedly paid for the package so far.”

Image source: Full Self-Driving Computer Installations | Tesla Support Other Europe
Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

 

[zoomer0056]

As soon as I read "growing" and "massive" in the thread title I figured it was news media sensationalism. Yup.

 

[GSP]

Seeking Alpha. I never waste time reading their stuff.

While Elon has made grand statements, and repeatedly, Tesla’s written documentation on what they intend to deliver for “FSD” does not exceed L2 driver assistance. Neither do they promise how well the FSD features will work. In my opinion, Tesla has already delivered 90% of their promises. The only missing features that I can think of are ”ASS” (actually smart summon) and reverse summon.

I do expect Tesla to continue to work hard to improve FSD performance, with the goal to provide L4 autonomy if possible.

GSP

PS. Being able to monitor first hand how this cutting edge technology improves is a major reason I purchased FSD.

 

[beatle]

Not sure where the $10k average comes from. Only Tesla knows how much they have raked in from FSD purchases and what that averages out to be.

If this gets legal momentum, Tesla will argue that even though they haven't fully delivered on their promise of full self driving, their customers have enjoyed other benefits of the system and a full refund would not be justified. If there is a settlement, it will also be fuzzy on used cars purchased from Tesla with FSD. In those cases, FSD may have been a deciding factor for the buyer making the purchase, but it was not an option that was over and above the purchase price.

 

[ewoodrick]

Tesla: Growing Full Self-Driving Liability Could Be Massive (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Tesla, Inc. recently issued a recall on its full self-driving software package. Click for my take on TSLA's potential liability for FSD and my view of the stock.

seekingalpha.com

“For those that have followed the Tesla story, you know that CEO Elon Musk has basically talked about full self-driving for almost a decade now. The company still has not shown off the U.S. coast-to-coast autonomous drive that it said would come by the end of 2017, for instance.”

“The potential liability question comes into play here if you think Tesla won't be able to truly solve FSD with the current hardware. One might think that a potential lawsuit would just want to refund the FSD price, and those arguing here might cite the recall number of vehicles to get a total liability. At an average cost of $10,000 for FSD, that gets you to around $4 billion when you consider how many customers have reportedly paid for the package so far.”

I think that you are talking about the liability of having to replace HW3 with HW4 equipment. That's NOT the general discussion of FSD liability with FSD. That has to do with who pays in the event of an accident when FSD is enabled.

But it's an easy answer for me. It's not an issue. FSD WILL run on HW3. It basically is doing so right now.

HW4 is just a normal update of hardware for the car, akin to putting new wheels on the car. HW4 design was started before HW3 started to deploy. And I'm sure that HW5 is probably underway as well. It's technology. It becomes expensive to stay with old hardware.
And of course, I'm pretty sure that Tesla has made multiple changes to the HW3 board over the years to support parts availability. It's an ongoing process.

And yes, this EXACT SAME DISCUSSION occurred when HW3 was introduced. So many people are glass half empty, even though the glass is currently just about full.

 

[beatle]

I think that you are talking about the liability of having to replace HW3 with HW4 equipment. That's NOT the general discussion of FSD liability with FSD. That has to do with who pays in the event of an accident when FSD is enabled.

But it's an easy answer for me. It's not an issue. FSD WILL run on HW3. It basically is doing so right now.

HW4 is just a normal update of hardware for the car, akin to putting new wheels on the car. HW4 design was started before HW3 started to deploy. And I'm sure that HW5 is probably underway as well. It's technology. It becomes expensive to stay with old hardware.
And of course, I'm pretty sure that Tesla has made multiple changes to the HW3 board over the years to support parts availability. It's an ongoing process.

And yes, this EXACT SAME DISCUSSION occurred when HW3 was introduced. So many people are glass half empty, even though the glass is currently just about full.

HW3 was a free upgrade though. If HW4 were simply a replacement computer that is just a bit more efficient at running the same code, is just a bit less expensive to produce or has a slightly lower failure rate, I don't think anyone would be assuming the HW3 sky is falling. However, HW4 rumors seem to include additional cameras and high resolution radar which give the system better capabilities. It's those capabilities that many believe (including perhaps Tesla) are necessary for higher levels of autonomous driving, and that's why people believe Tesla is going to pack it in on the HW3 cars and may eventually be forced to take it on the chin.

 

[ewoodrick]

HW3 was a free upgrade though. If HW4 were simply a replacement computer that is just a bit more efficient at running the same code, is just a bit less expensive to produce or has a slightly lower failure rate, I don't think anyone would be assuming the HW3 sky is falling. However, HW4 rumors seem to include additional cameras and high resolution radar which give the system better capabilities. It's those capabilities that many believe (including perhaps Tesla) are necessary for higher levels of autonomous driving, and that's why people believe Tesla is going to pack it in on the HW3 cars and may eventually be forced to take it on the chin.

Not quite. the difference between HW 2.5 (or earlier) and HW3 was a lot more than a bit more efficient at running code.

And there's a LOT of people that were promised explicitly that Tesla would update their computers to support full FSD. As well as I can remember, there were explicit statements on Tesla's website about it, not just an Elon tweet.

It's amazing how many people think that forward thinking means that the past is a failure.

It's those capabilities that many believe (including perhaps Tesla) are necessary for higher levels of autonomous driving,

Yea, and most of those are the ones that are saying Elon will get FSD completed somewhere between 10 years from now and never. Let them know that HW5 is in development, and they'd say that it is an example of HW4 is a failure.

Just because they are adding extra cameras, doesn't mean that they are needed for FSD. It could be to bolster Sentry mode. Or even better, allow a symphony of Teslas to stay in better sync during a 200-car light show. It's all nay sayer speculation at this point. And honestly Tesla nay sayers have tended to be wrong.

 

[ddeflyer]

While I hold seeking alpha in extremely low regard, I think Tesla is sitting on a monumental amount of liability if they were to completely fail to deliver FSD on any hardware platform. I am also of the camp that thinks HW3 is insufficient to deliver the FSD promises (combo of forward camera resolution and lack of radar), BUT, given the current state of FSDb I think Tesla is making very solid progress on FSD and is likely to deliver the majority (maybe even all) of the fundamental features with HW4 (where those features are hands off, eyes off general autonomy).

Given all of this, I think Tesla is extremely likely to face a major write down on the FSD purchases so far, this could be some amount of refund or other good will buy (such as supercharger miles, etc) OR it could be the cost of mass retrofits with hardware required. What all this amounts to for the average owner will depend largely on just how far HW3 can go towards expectations and just how vocal most people are.

 

[ewoodrick]

While I hold seeking alpha in extremely low regard, I think Tesla is sitting on a monumental amount of liability if they were to completely fail to deliver FSD on any hardware platform. I am also of the camp that thinks HW3 is insufficient to deliver the FSD promises (combo of forward camera resolution and lack of radar), BUT, given the current state of FSDb I think Tesla is making very solid progress on FSD and is likely to deliver the majority (maybe even all) of the fundamental features with HW4 (where those features are hands off, eyes off general autonomy).

Given all of this, I think Tesla is extremely likely to face a major write down on the FSD purchases so far, this could be some amount of refund or other good will buy (such as supercharger miles, etc) OR it could be the cost of mass retrofits with hardware required. What all this amounts to for the average owner will depend largely on just how far HW3 can go towards expectations and just how vocal most people are.

So what in HW3 is missing? Remember, HW3 supports cameras, RADAR, and ultrasonics (my car has them all). Is it just "more cameras"

 

[ddeflyer]

So what in HW3 is missing? Remember, HW3 supports cameras, RADAR, and ultrasonics (my car has them all). Is it just "more cameras"

HW3 no longer includes radar (or ultrasonics for that matter but that is only relevant to EAP features). Short of dramatically more advanced (and resultantly much more expensive) cameras you won't be able to match the distance of human perception at some of the lighting edge cases (high dynamic range and low light vision without being too blurred from longer accumulation time). HD Radar is basically a great way to fill this gap with a relatively cheaper solution which has a different set of degrading conditions (ie the set of times that both radar and cameras would be effectively useless is much lower).

 

[Chisale]

I'm also not a big fan of Seeking Alpha but certainly Tesla's financial liabilities with FSD lies and false promises are large. Though....if you look at it through the lens of the amount of money Musk pi**ed away on Twitter, then it's not so bad after all. Only billions instead of tens of billions.

 

[ewoodrick]

HW3 no longer includes radar (or ultrasonics for that matter but that is only relevant to EAP features).

Pretty sure that isn't correct. Well, HW3 NEVER included them. HW3, just like HW4 is a computer board with no cameras, sensor, RADARS etc.

It's whether the CARS include cameras, RADAR, ultrasonic sensors. My Model Y has all of them. In the newer Model Ys they just didn't install them, they didn't replace the HW3 board.

Short of dramatically more advanced (and resultantly much more expensive) cameras you won't be able to match the distance of human perception at some of the lighting edge cases (high dynamic range and low light vision without being too blurred from longer accumulation time). HD Radar is basically a great way to fill this gap with a relatively cheaper solution which has a different set of degrading conditions (ie the set of times that both radar and cameras would be effectively useless is much lower).

So, all you can say is that more advanced cameras and HD RADAR are better? Or I'm guessing, you really are just assuming this, since you really didn't add any details.

In all of the images of Tesla visualizations that I've seen, such as the one below, everything seems to be accurately classified. Higher resolution cameras nor RADAR is needed.

Take a look in front of you the next time you get on the road. Do you look at every car and calculate their direction and speed? Of course not. You tend to focus on small areas, not that far away. You may look into the distance periodically to see what's coming, but not continually. Do you always look behind your car? Nope.
Drive through a pedestrian filles street. Are you continually calculating if each person is going to jump out in front of you. No, heck, you couldn't even tell me how many people you have passed.

Human vision is a LOT less than most people think that it is. When you look at the architecture of the cones and rods, you see a high density in the middle, thinning to the side.

And that tends to assume perfect (or correct to perfect) vision, lots of drivers aren't seeing with perfect vision. Many are driving with "barely can see it"

I'm very sure that if I was driving a Tesla and ONLY had access to the camera views, that I'd be able to safely drive the car.

Just because HD RADAR can more accurately map, just because higher resolution cameras have more resolution, doesn't mean that they are required.

One of the issues that the vision team has had and Elon has discussed is too much information. It takes a lot more processor power/time to process a 4k image than it does a 1k image. You then have to look at the differences in output and many would be surprised to see that there isn't much difference.

Let's go back 20 years to the old NTSC 640x480 TV. Have you ever watched this? Don't you think that you could have driven a car using images of this resolution. I'm pretty sure that I could. I remember an ancient Driver's Ed simulator that had lousy resolution, but I aced it.

Too much information is detrimental

 

[ddeflyer]

My implication is that there are the additional sensory inputs in addition to any supporting hardware (wire harnesses, compute modules, etc).

But more importantly, my contention is that radar allows for sufficient environmental perception in situations that won't be able to be handled by cameras without much more expensive cameras. Importantly, radar (of the HD/multi tracking variety) has its own set of strengths and weaknesses which should be complimentary to the use of lower quality cameras (and lenses). I suspect HW3 will be very very capable in many daily environments, but as this is safety critical stuff, the edge cases matter enormously. You can't have the car rear-ending another vehicle because the sun glares out the cameras.

 

[enemji]

So who is suing the Pope and all his delegates for promising heaven in return for all the confessions and donations to the church?

 

[WyoDude]

And honestly Tesla nay sayers have tended to be wrong.

 

[AndrewZ]

As soon as I read "growing" and "massive" in the thread title I figured it was news media sensationalism. Yup.

Started reading this and thought you were going in a very different direction

phew

 

[dachshund]

I don’t think a lot of people will want refunds. It’s obviously improving, and I feel it’s hard to give up on a decent L2 system. But - it’s quite reasonable to expect a refund for those who want it. Elon’s endless false statements should reward him with a legal decision to compensate people who want out.

 

[ddeflyer]

I don’t think a lot of people will want refunds. It’s obviously improving, and I feel it’s hard to give up on a decent L2 system. But - it’s quite reasonable to expect a refund for those who want it. Elon’s endless false statements should reward him with a legal decision to compensate people who want out.

My guess is that nothing will happen until a few more costly verdicts start to come down (in court or arbitration) at which point Tesla will try to trade a pittance such as a bunch of free supercharging miles or transfer of FSD to a new vehicle etc. for a waiver of rights regarding FSD. Most people would probably take it and they (Tesla) know that. It is especially true the longer Tesla waits and the older and more jaded cars are with HW3 FSD.

 

[beatle]

Not quite. the difference between HW 2.5 (or earlier) and HW3 was a lot more than a bit more efficient at running code.

And there's a LOT of people that were promised explicitly that Tesla would update their computers to support full FSD. As well as I can remember, there were explicit statements on Tesla's website about it, not just an Elon tweet.

It's amazing how many people think that forward thinking means that the past is a failure.



Yea, and most of those are the ones that are saying Elon will get FSD completed somewhere between 10 years from now and never. Let them know that HW5 is in development, and they'd say that it is an example of HW4 is a failure.

Just because they are adding extra cameras, doesn't mean that they are needed for FSD. It could be to bolster Sentry mode. Or even better, allow a symphony of Teslas to stay in better sync during a 200-car light show. It's all nay sayer speculation at this point. And honestly Tesla nay sayers have tended to be wrong.

Only in this day and age of OTA updates allowing for promises to be sold is forward thinking equivalent to the past being a failure. Had FSD not already been sold to owners of cars with significantly different hardware, this thread wouldn't even exist. We'd only speculate at how much better the newer technology would make the driving experience.

With Tesla being so keen on reducing costs, they would not add pricey hardware that didn't need to be there, especially if that was only there to improve unpromised free features like sentry or light shows.

 

[bradtem]

Tesla will craft the refund process, if and when they get forced into it, to minimize the refunds.

They will probably toss more features into EAP and raise the price, so if you want a refund, you get less refund, or you have to give up not just auto-park and auto lane change and nav on autopilot, but a few other things. People who bought FSD are the sort of people who like a car "fully loaded" and so many will not want to unload their car just to get back $5K. (Many paid $10K to $12K for FSD and EAP downgrade would only be a $4K to $6K refund plus interest.) But they might make the difference smaller by tossing in some more features.

I don't know exactly what they will do but I know they will hunt for things, and probably will find them.

I paid $2K for FSD during the tiny window that it was that price, so my refund is not that likely.