If someone buys FSD with a new Tesla they get to enjoy it (what features are present). Is the FSD then tied to the individual purchaser or the car, neither? The reason I ask, I purchased a 2017 Model S with a window sticker showing FSD $3000, EAP $5000. The car no longer has FSD. If I purchase FSD for this car, will it be removed between purchasers? And will my purchase apply to a cybertruck purchase 3 years down the road?
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Help me understand FSD ownership
- Thread starter sheltz32tt
- Start date
Tam
Well-Known Member
No. You pay FSD for the current car. For those paid it in 2016 and had to return the car after the lease term, or for those who totaled the car, they can't transfer that FSD payment to another car (even if in the case that FSD function was never realized during the ownership).
Car
Since the FSD stays with the car regardless of who the owner is, once the prior owner bought it, it should still be there.
FSD stays with the car.
If the sticker says it has EAP, and FSD then it has EAP and FSD.
So I would fight Tesla if they removed FSD from the vehicle.
Tesla can't claim it's tied to the car, but then remove it.
How did you acquire your vehicle? Through Tesla?
There have been reports of Tesla removing EAP/FSD during "audits".
https://thenextweb.com/cars/2020/02/13/tesla-autopilot-surreptitiously-taken-now-given-back-alec-model-s/
If the sticker says it has EAP, and FSD then it has EAP and FSD.
So I would fight Tesla if they removed FSD from the vehicle.
Tesla can't claim it's tied to the car, but then remove it.
How did you acquire your vehicle? Through Tesla?
There have been reports of Tesla removing EAP/FSD during "audits".
https://thenextweb.com/cars/2020/02/13/tesla-autopilot-surreptitiously-taken-now-given-back-alec-model-s/
Tesla removes FSD on cars they send to wholesale auction.
If you purchased the car from a dealership(not Tesla) then it most likely had FSD removed.
If the dealership presented the car as having FSD and you find out after the sale the car does not have it, you need to talk to the dealership.
Do you have a source for that? I'm not saying they aren't or that isn't in line with previous behavior like removing free supercharging for life from the vehicle (back when it was tied to the vehicle). But, that I haven't seen any official statements on the matter.
I’ve read a few examples of Tesla removing FSD and AP after a purchase from a 3rd-party dealer. Here’s Tesla’s response to such a situation:
“Tesla has recent identified instances of customers being incorrectly configured for Autopilot versions that they did not pay for. Since, there was an audit done to correct these instances. Your vehicle is one of the vehicles that was incorrectly configured for Autopilot. We looked back at your purchase history and unfortunately Full-Self Driving was not a feature that you had paid for. We apologize for the confusion. If you are still interested in having those additional features we can begin the process to purchase the upgrade.”
OP, if this happened to you raise hell. That worked for the buyer referenced in the below article.
Source: Tesla Remotely Removes Autopilot Features From Customer's Used Tesla Without Any Notice [Updated]
whitex
Well-Known Member
Tesla can remove FSD if they buy the car and resell it, no different than they can change out the wheels. Removing FSD and FUSC remotely without being part of the ownership transfer chain has been reported from some owners and seems to be something Tesla does to try to limit their costs (FUSC costs them money every time you charge, FSD requires free AP computer upgrade, might require MCU upgrade, etc). They are hoping that the complication of 2 ownership transfers (old owner to dealer, dealer to new owner) will create enough confusion and make any legal challenge very complicated so people don't try (new owner has a claim against the dealer, dealer has a claim against the original owner, who in turn has a claim against Tesla). Quite brilliant, though IMHO completely unethical and probably illegal, but I bet it works most if not all of the time (almost the only remedy is to stir up some media storm about it, legal ways take years).
That said, @sheltz32tt, how do you know you don't have FSD? In 2017, EAP included all currently available FSD features (in 2019, Tesla redefined FSD to consist mostly of features previously in EAP). Below is FSD definition from 2017 - none of this is available today, so probably no way to tell if you have it or not other than if it's available in your online account as an upgrade, but options have in the past shown up there for some people who already had them.
That said, @sheltz32tt, how do you know you don't have FSD? In 2017, EAP included all currently available FSD features (in 2019, Tesla redefined FSD to consist mostly of features previously in EAP). Below is FSD definition from 2017 - none of this is available today, so probably no way to tell if you have it or not other than if it's available in your online account as an upgrade, but options have in the past shown up there for some people who already had them.
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I don't have an official comment from Tesla but I have read a few instances of it happening.
Jalopnik article based on this thread Tesla YANKED FSD option without notice - Class Action lawsuit? Any Lawyers here? [Resolved]
FSD removed
In that case Tesla claimed the buyer never bought it, and was discovered during an audit.
Which is a lot different than removing it from cars they send to wholesale auction.
The funny thing about this is I fully expect them to, but I haven't found the smoking gun yet. Haha.
I absolutely agree that its unethical, and probably illegal.
But, I don't expect the practice to continue due to media attention. This is assuming the practice was even taking place which hasn't been confirmed.
When they pulled FSD from the guy who bought the car at the auction it caused such a stir that Tesla was forced to respond relatively quickly.
When Tesla tried to refuse FSD refunds for accidental app purchases that too brought a lot of attention. At some point Elon was forced to respond. He did the whole "responding to a tweet pretending he didn't know about it" thing he does.
Tesla has such a massive fleet of vehicles now that it's extremely difficult to hide shady business practices.
The bad publicity isn't worth the cost savings.
That guy bought it from a dealer who bought it at an auction.
"I have purchased used 2017 Tesla MS on 12/20/19, from 3rd party dealership (not Tesla), who purchased it from Tesla through the auction house on 11/15/19. The car had FSDC Autopilot."
The only way Tesla's audit makes sense is if they intended to remove FSD before the auction but forgot to do it.
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But, they didn't remove it because they sold it to auction. They sell a lot of vehicles to auction so this would happen fairly frequently if they did.
They removed it because their audit showed the original buyer never bought it. So their claim is that it never should have been enabled in the first place.
Tam
Well-Known Member
Which one didn't pay for FSD:
1) Original Owner
2) United Trader, the auction house
3) Alec the current owner
Tesla did produce a copy of the original Monroney sticker that indicated that FSD was paid for. It did not provide any proof that the original owner skipped any payment mentioned on the sticker.
When United Trader bought it from Tesla, FSD was there physically and functionally driven by the auction house. Tesla did not produce any document stating that United Trader did not buy FSD from Tesla. Tesla did produce a detailed list of what was done / taken away, repaired with the car but that did not include FSD removal.
Alec the current owner believed the United Trader's story that it did come with FSD because they drove it themselves so he agreed on the price he paid for the paper trail that he got: nowhere there are any mentions of FSD removal.
Not until he got the news from Tesla Service Center that he, Alec, the current owner didn't pay and Tesla never mentioned anything about no payment from the original owner (That's why Tesla produced a copy of Monroney Sticker with FSD.)
The most feasible rationale that I've read is:
How do you tell if a car has FSD vs EAP?
Tesla may want to unify its fleet options once it got a hold of a used Tesla in its possession. For example, all certain used cars would start to have plain Autopilot and no longer a mixture in the fleet with some have EAP and some have Plain Autopilot.
whitex
Well-Known Member
And yet, deleted FUSC has been reported on multiple occasions, no media shitstorm, no tweet confirming that FUSC stays with the car (or did I miss one?). Some things even if Tesla loses in court and it's reported, they still don't fix for owners not part of the lawsuit (e.g. $5K compensation settlement in Europe over the P85D horsepower being massively overstated). This is not the first and not the last thing Tesla gets away with, so I suspect they will always keep on trying, including deleting FUSC or FSD when they see a car go through an auction - they just need someone to scan the auctions for Tesla's every day, note the VIN numbers, and delete the expensive features over the air.
Also, when something happens a lot, media no longer cares about it. They will report the first time, maybe the second, and then it's old news. That's why they report on a once in a decade plane crash, but not on 100 people a day (on average) who die in car accidents in just the USA.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Even it that was true, it sounds like Tesla sold the car with FSD to the auction house - new sale in which FSD was paid for. Are they refunding $5K to the auction house because they took money for something they did not own (the FSD option)?
If Tesla ever gets FSD to work (the actual pre-2019 FSD, the one that you can summon across the continent, or have it drive your underage kids to school and activities), they will likely switch to a subscription model as it makes more sense, and this problem will go away. Unfortunately it's very hard to sell a subscription to vaporware which does absolutely nothing for years (4 years and counting now), hence they have to take people's money up-front selling a dream. I wonder how many people who leased their car with FSD when AP2 first came out think that extra monthly payment was worth it, just for the opportunity to dream. How many of them would have like to just stop paying for FSD after a year or two?
I'm simply stating what Tesla claimed happened.
They claimed that the car was wrongly configured for FSD, and the original buyer never paid for it.
I can't explain why it was on the Monroney sticker or maybe that was incorrect too
I can't explain why it took so long for Tesla to suddenly discover it
In fact that whole Tesla side of the story sounds a bit fishy. Where its only believable because of Tesla's history of incompetency.
But, that's what they're claiming.
They claim they're not removing FSD from vehicles sold to auction houses. And, that they're only removing FSD from vehicles misconfigured with it where the original buyer didn't pay for it.
In this particular case we'd have to track down the original buyer to see what the paperwork looked like.
Why would they refund it to the auction house? The auction house bought, and sold the vehicle with FSD.
It wasn't until the vehicle was delivered to the customer that the FSD was pulled. So the customer was out the money, and Tesla resolved the issue to make the customer whole. Not until the media got wind of it of course.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Neither.
If you ask to take your FSD purchase and apply it to another car Tesla will tell you it’s “tied to the car” and to pound sand.
If Tesla ever takes ownership of a car again, and increasingly often in cases where they don’t, they’ll decide to pull the feature if they detect a change of ownership to try and fleece the new owner for an extra $7k.
Some have had this “fixed” by arguing and involving the media. I suspect many more are less lucky.
Bottom line, be wary of thinking you “own” anything with Tesla - particularly anything they can rob you of with the flip of a bit via your car’s ever-present connection to the mothership.
whitex
Well-Known Member
I meant before the media attention. Tesla sold FSD to the auction house and then disabled it, hence my suggestion to refund the auction house. Isn't it funny how it takes a media campaign to get Tesla to undo sneaky things they try? Apparently dealing strictly with customer service does not work. I'm still not convinced they won't try that again with someone and hope that person won't know how to care to spin up the media.
