If you want FSD later, buy it now for $3K and receive the autopilot computer upgrade within 6 to 12 months. It has 10 times the processing power of the current system. This upgrade will be free if you bought the FSD option, Elon reaffirmed it yet again on the Q3 call earlier this week. Likely this will get you some updates (recognize stop signs, red lights maybe) but it will be several years before real self driving. Buying for $3K is a 60% gain on your investment assuming you were going to buy it anyway later at $5K. You could also attempt a 60% gain in Tesla stock, buy now at $330 and see if you can sell at $528 later.
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I’m so confused about FSD!!
- Thread starter Johnstac
- Start date
You are guaranteed new hardware to make FSD work. If FSD is still not working then they have no reason/obligation to upgrade you. They aren't going to incrementally upgrade everyone every time there is a new hardware revision until they settle with what is required when FSD actually launches.
I say save your money.
I posted about this issue in another thread. But, briefly, my 2 cents:
If you are risk averse, it probably makes sense to wait. "Real" (i.e., level 4-5) FSD is a long way off. Tesla's incremental FSD features might be underwhelming at first, and could easily get delayed quite a bit. You might sell (or even crash) your car before the FSD features get really good.
But, I recently purchased a Model 3 with FSD because I am comfortable with some risk. I tend to keep cars for a long time and want the upgrades that will roll out over the next few years. The car may never completely drive itself, but I figure I'll enjoy the features that get added.
Also, for me it is a psychologically more comfortable to pay now and be done with it, rather than wondering whether to upgrade at various future opportunities. The price may go up... it may go on sale periodically... who knows?
If you are risk averse, it probably makes sense to wait. "Real" (i.e., level 4-5) FSD is a long way off. Tesla's incremental FSD features might be underwhelming at first, and could easily get delayed quite a bit. You might sell (or even crash) your car before the FSD features get really good.
But, I recently purchased a Model 3 with FSD because I am comfortable with some risk. I tend to keep cars for a long time and want the upgrades that will roll out over the next few years. The car may never completely drive itself, but I figure I'll enjoy the features that get added.
Also, for me it is a psychologically more comfortable to pay now and be done with it, rather than wondering whether to upgrade at various future opportunities. The price may go up... it may go on sale periodically... who knows?
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Folks with the HW2 computer don't have dashcam features at all.
Folks with 2.5 do (but pretty limited)
Wouldn't surprise me at all if those who bought FSD get the HW3 upgrade in 6 months and get much better dashcam features.
just to cite one example that doesn't require Tesla to solve L5 driving before you get value from FSD.
Why?
because the 2.5 computer can only handle 200 fps max from the cameras... (and they're providing more than that right now)... the HW3 computer can handle 10x that.
Eno Deb
Active Member
According to Musk the new chip in HW3 is a neural network accelerator that will replace the NVidia GPUs that are currently used for computer vision tasks such as object detection. It will probably allow them to run larger neural nets and process more input data, but it doesn't necessarily mean that other things, such as video compression, will run faster than on the current CPU board. If the "10 times" performance advantage is real, it is likely not because they have developed some miracle chip, but because it is tailor-made and heavily specialized for their specific computer vision tasks.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
I'm specifically referring to this remark-
Elon Musk on Q2 earnings call said:
When hackers have shown us "what can AP2.5 see" they explicitly mention they are having to dial down many of the cameras significantly in frame rate capture specifically because the computer can't handle full FPS on all cameras.
The new HW fixes that.
Eno Deb
Active Member
Musk's remark is very likely related to the performance of the neural net that is processing the video frames to perform computer vision. Again, it does not mean that tasks such as video compression (which is likely the bottleneck for the current dashcam feature and has nothing to do with neural nets) will get a performance boost.
My point is not that L5 won't require new hardware. My point is that L5 is who knows how many years out from actual approved deployment. Tesla does not have to upgrade AP2 or AP2.5 hardware until L5 is actually achieved.
Who knows at what point that will be. They aren't going to upgrade you to each hardware increment if they still haven't reached L5 autonomy.
Uncle Paul
Well-Known Member
FSD now seems more simple than ever. You order your new Tesla without it. Autopilot is an option to get all the driver assistance features, traffic aware Cruise Control and Tesla Waze type traffic conditions. Everybody get some of the features like emergency braking if distracted.
Later on they intend to offer upgrades to FSD with a combination of software updates and perhaps an optional computer upgrade to optimize the FSD experience. These upgrades will have their price and consumers can purchase if they wish.
Along the way, Autopilot will continue to advance, perhaps to a state where it will be enough for many owners, and they will decide against spending more money for that option.
Later on they intend to offer upgrades to FSD with a combination of software updates and perhaps an optional computer upgrade to optimize the FSD experience. These upgrades will have their price and consumers can purchase if they wish.
Along the way, Autopilot will continue to advance, perhaps to a state where it will be enough for many owners, and they will decide against spending more money for that option.
FSD is many years away, but it’s very likely that (like EAP), there will be incremental advances before that happens. At some point (probably next year), HW3 will be installed in cars going forward. For those who purchased FSD, the hardware upgrade will be “free” and you’ll start seeing features offered to those people that fall between EAP and total FSD. It’s hard to know what those features will be, but we know from Elon’s recent comments that he’s still working on FSD— it’s clearly not being abandoned, so that’s not why they took it off the ordering screen.
Taking it off the menu makes sense if HW3 is coming relatively soon and/ or they’re considering charging more in the future. They don’t want to have to retrofit a lot of cars if they can, especially if they’re not making as much money as they could.
The biggest reasons not to buy FSD is if you don’t anticipate keeping your car very long or if you only want total FSD capability, which probably won’t happen for many years.
Taking it off the menu makes sense if HW3 is coming relatively soon and/ or they’re considering charging more in the future. They don’t want to have to retrofit a lot of cars if they can, especially if they’re not making as much money as they could.
The biggest reasons not to buy FSD is if you don’t anticipate keeping your car very long or if you only want total FSD capability, which probably won’t happen for many years.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
That is explicitly untrue.
FSD isn't "level 5 or nothing"
Musk mentioned the first FSD-only features would begin rolling out with V9 of the software, and later clarified that would happen once HW3 was in new cars and being installed for free in existing 2.x cars if you already paid for FSD
I think the problem about discussing FSD here is that you have a lot of people on this forum who purchased FSD but will never admit that it was likely a waste of money, so they will just try to convince other people to do the same.
I will remind that the vast majority of model 3 purchases did not include FSD even when that feature was available.
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