Is FSD refundable

[Knightshade]

Some might suggest then, compiling a list of all of Elon's historical tweets/promises of FSD as well(Robotaxi LA to NYC with no human intervention by 2019...), include the statement on the earnings call in the filing, and let it play out. Some might suggest that once the suit is filed, a settlement (confidential) may occur before it even gets to court...

Again, aspirational general statements about the future on twitter aren't part of a sales contract.

Tesla has sold a fairly large number of cars. Do you think if there was a real case here it wouldn't already have been filed? Do lawyers not like money all of a sudden?

Im assuming this request for investigation isnt made up out of thin air and with 100% zero basis...

Why do you assume that?

senators who don't understand things call for investigations into them all the time

Remember that 'the internet is a series of tubes' guy?

Tesla, during the actual sales process of FSD is very clear the system is L2, and offers no date or promise whatsoever of if/when it will be higher than that.

We'll know when a Level 3+ system is coming because systems like that require permits and regulatory approvals before a company can even start dreaming about thinking about it

This is not entirely accurate.

In many US states Tesla could launch such a system today if it was ready- without needing any approval or permits from anyone.

In OTHER US states that would not be true of course.

Give Teslas previous operating methods if they did have such a system they'd likely launch it where they could, and use the safety data in those places as evidence to regulators elsewhere that it's safe.

But they don't have such a system to turn on yet.

 

[2101Guy]

Again, aspirational general statements about the future on twitter aren't part of a sales contract.

Tesla has sold a fairly large number of cars. Do you think if there was a real case here it wouldn't already have been filed? Do lawyers not like money all of a sudden?

your statement implies that no one in the entire US has found out who the legal agent for tesla was within their state, gone to the courthouse to obtain the proper forms, and filed their own individual lawsuits against (or had a lawyer do it) Tesla via service to that agent, and ended up with Tesla settling the claims confidentially...that has NEVER happened? Ok....

 

[AndreP]

This is not entirely accurate.

In many US states Tesla could launch such a system today if it was ready- without needing any approval or permits from anyone.

In OTHER US states that would not be true of course.

Give Teslas previous operating methods if they did have such a system they'd likely launch it where they could, and use the safety data in those places as evidence to regulators elsewhere that it's safe.

But they don't have such a system to turn on yet.

Are those states giving companies a free license to conduct autonomous testing and such in their jurisdictions or are they behind the ball because it isn't even on their radar yet? The states where this stuff is on this radar, California being an obvious leader, are on top of legislation etc. In the end I'd be very surprised if any states will be allowing Level 3+ autonomous testing, much less actual deployment, on public roads without permitting and the regulatory red tape.

Either way you'd still expect permit applications and such in the stringent states to long precede real deployment to ensure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed prior to facilitate a smooth roll out.

 

[jjrandorin]

And even on admittedly a VERY pro tesla forum, these poll results speak volumes about perception...

How many believe that the FTC will find Tesla did use deceptive marketing practices?

Tesla FSD is the biggest kickstarter scandal ever.

teslamotorsclub.com

it actually doesnt prove anything, because on this topic, in this subforum, any discussion of FSD is basically an echo chamber, except for a few very dedicated holdouts. Any look through the first couple of pages of this subforum would show that this specific subforum is the exact opposite of "very pro tesla"

 

[Knightshade]

Are those states giving companies a free license to conduct autonomous testing and such in their jurisdictions or are they behind the ball because it isn't even on their radar yet?

Those states don't require a license for this.

At all.

It's legal TODAY.

Explicitly in their laws.

This arguably puts them well AHEAD of the states that require a bunch of approval hoops.

. In the end I'd be very surprised if any states will be allowing Level 3+ autonomous testing, much less actual deployment, on public roads without permitting and the regulatory red tape.

Then I guess you should be surprised, since that's already the case today.

.
Either way you'd still expect permit applications and such in the stringent states to long precede real deployment

Why?

Tesla has repeatedly shown they prefer rolling things out as soon as THEY believe it's safe to do so whenever possible.

So there's no reason to think this would be different.


If they get to the point they believe it's safe to offer L3 or higher they'd roll it out in the states it's {B]already legal[/B] to do so without any additional red tape at all.

Then they can collect a ton of real world usage data to prove to the more reluctant states how safe it is in real world use.

 

[Knightshade]

your statement implies that no one in the entire US has found out who the legal agent for tesla was within their state, gone to the courthouse to obtain the proper forms, and filed their own individual lawsuits against (or had a lawyer do it) Tesla via service to that agent, and ended up with Tesla settling the claims confidentially...that has NEVER happened? Ok....

The filing of the suit would be public record.

Even if it's later settled in confidence.

Given how it's national news every time a single tesla has a car accident (despite other brands having THOUSANDS PER DAY), you'd have heard of it.


To my knowledge the only such suit that has been filed and gone anywhere was the 2 brothers in CA who filed a false advertising case because the sales guy at the Tesla store allegedly told them the car was self-driving.

Last I knew they'd filed I think 4 complaints, 3 were dismissed by the court, and the 4th survived summary judgement so the case is still underway.

 

[AndreP]

Those states don't require a license for this.

At all.

It's legal TODAY.

Explicitly in their laws.

This arguably puts them well AHEAD of the states that require a bunch of approval hoops.

Then I guess you should be surprised, since that's already the case today.

Why?

Tesla has repeatedly shown they prefer rolling things out as soon as THEY believe it's safe to do so whenever possible.

So there's no reason to think this would be different.


If they get to the point they believe it's safe to offer L3 or higher they'd roll it out in the states it's {B]already legal[/B] to do so without any additional red tape at all.

Then they can collect a ton of real world usage data to prove to the more reluctant states how safe it is in real world use.

You need to stop breaking out a single post into multiple chunks, it's not difficult to understand a block of text with paragraphs and reference back to the post.

Name a state with zero autonomous vehicle permitting/legislation and where we know any significant testing or deployment is happening.

 

[Knightshade]

You need to stop breaking out a single post into multiple chunks

Since you appear to think you're my employer, when should I expect my first check?

Name a state with zero autonomous vehicle permitting/legislation and where we know any significant testing or deployment is happening.

It's $100/hour for me doing basic research for you FYI, this one is free though.


There's a bunch of states where it's legal.

Arizona is the most obvious.

No permit is required.

You only need send the state notification you're testing, and a certification your system is safe, you have a policy to handle law enforcement interaction, and you will obey all the same laws normal drivers do.

That's it.

You don't need a "permit" or additional permissions of any kind.

It's one of the (several) reasons Waymo is operating their commercial robotaxis there.

Search | ADOT

azdot.gov

There's several US states that require even LESS THAN THAT.

In Colorado for example the law states " The use of automated driving systems is authorized if the system is capable of conforming to every state and federal law applying to driving."

That's it.

If your L4 or L5 car can follow all existing driving laws you can let it self drive. TODAY. Without even needing to tell anyone you're doing it- let alone getting "approval" or "permits"

Autonomous Vehicles — Colorado Department of Transportation

www.codot.gov

Read the section under "policy" if you don't want to take my word for it.

Levels of automation 0-3 (SAE) are legal under Colorado law with a human driver in the vehicle.

Defined “Automated Driving System”, or ADS, as Society of Automotive Engineers levels 4-5. Highly autonomous driving systems (Level 4-5), with or without a human driver, are authorized to operate in Colorado if they can meet all applicable state and federal laws.

So yes, Tesla could roll out L3, or L4, or L5, today in Colorado (and other states) without any permitting or any such nonsense if their system actually worked at that level.

 

[Twiglett]

Im assuming this request for investigation isnt made up out of thin air and with 100% zero basis...

The start of the article headline answers your question - "Two Senators..."


Add me to the list of folks who doesn't think the current FSD packages is worth $10k crowd.
I bought EAP with the car then added FSD later. Nothing changed in the car capabilities in any way, but I did get the HW3 upgrade at least.
As @Knightshade mentioned, current FSD is just the old EAP with the promise of city street driving, so its worth EAP money (I think it was $5k), definitely not $10k.
Even when "city street" driving appears, I think the public release will be of limited use until they improve the nav to the point that you can make it take the route you want.

 

[AndreP]

Since you appear to think you're my employer, when should I expect my first check? It's $100/hour for me doing basic research for you FYI, this one is free though.

There's a bunch of states where it's legal. Arizona is the most obvious. No permit is required. You only need send the state notification you're testing, and a certification your system is safe, you have a policy to handle law enforcement interaction, and you will obey all the same laws normal drivers do.

That's it. You don't need a "permit" or additional permissions of any kind. It's one of the (several) reasons Waymo is operating their commercial robotaxis there.

Search | ADOT

azdot.gov

There's several US states that require even LESS THAN THAT. In Colorado for example the law states " The use of automated driving systems is authorized if the system is capable of conforming to every state and federal law applying to driving." That's it.

If your L4 or L5 car can follow all existing driving laws you can let it self drive. TODAY. Without even needing to tell anyone you're doing it- let alone getting "approval" or "permits"

Autonomous Vehicles — Colorado Department of Transportation

www.codot.gov

Read the section under "policy" if you don't want to take my word for it.

So yes, Tesla could roll out L3, or L4, or L5, today in Colorado (and other states) without any permitting or any such nonsense if their system actually worked at that level.

I'm just trying to effectively communicate with you but am convinced your way of composing posts is designed to dissuade people from arguing back.

Am I crazy or is Waymo operating totally driverless vehicles within only a very limited area of Phoenix and "driverless" rides in a wider area but those are remotely monitored by a human or someone actually sitting in the driver's seat?

Is Arizona not a haven for this type of testing in no small part because of the climate that isn't transferrable to other parts of the country?


If there are no other confounding factors, then we can theoretically use Tesla's widespread deployment of Level 3+ systems in these areas as a proxy for permit applications and then eventual deployment in areas with more stringent regulations.

 

[Knightshade]

I'm just trying to effectively communicate with you but am convinced your way of composing posts is designed to dissuade people from arguing back.

Am I crazy or is Waymo operating totally driverless vehicles within only a very limited area of Phoenix and "driverless" rides in a wider area but those are remotely monitored by a human or someone actually sitting in the driver's seat?

That's correct... though the remote monitoring people can't directly drive the car-- they can only do higher level help like send it a different route or something.

Point being- they have no "permits" to do this- and don't need any- in AZ.

Is Arizona not a haven for this type of testing in no small part because of the climate that isn't transferrable to other parts of the country?

The weather is one of the items I was referring to when I mentioned the lack of requiring permission was just one of several reasons they picked AZ.

They're trying to solve for the simplest case first- relatively low density, relatively perfect weather, etc.

Tesla aims for a far more generalized solution.

If there are no other confounding factors, then we can theoretically use Tesla's widespread deployment of Level 3+ systems in these areas as a proxy for permit applications and then eventual deployment in areas with more stringent regulations.

...that's what I said originally.

That there's several US states they can turn such a system on anytime it's actually ready to go- no permits or regulatory hurdles required.

So there wouldn't neccesarily be any "warning" in the form of "Oh they applied for a bunch of permits"


And then they'd use the data gathered there to convince other states (and other countries- most of which have significantly more restrictive regulations if they have any at all on this stuff) that the system is safe.

 

[AndreP]

That's correct... though the remote monitoring people can't directly drive the car-- they can only do higher level help like send it a different route or something.

Point being- they have no "permits" to do this- and don't need any- in AZ.





The weather is one of the items I was referring to when I mentioned the lack of requiring permission was just one of several reasons they picked AZ.

They're trying to solve for the simplest case first- relatively low density, relatively perfect weather, etc.

Tesla aims for a far more generalized solution.






...that's what I said originally.

That there's several US states they can turn such a system on anytime it's actually ready to go- no permits or regulatory hurdles required.

So there wouldn't neccesarily be any "warning" in the form of "Oh they applied for a bunch of permits"


And then they'd use the data gathered there to convince other states (and other countries- most of which have significantly more restrictive regulations if they have any at all on this stuff) that the system is safe.

Well there would still be warning of Level 3+ deployment via permit applications in any state other than those with relaxed regulations, assuming those regulations don't also evolve over time. But we would have even more advanced warning via Tesla rolling out different versions of the software in those states prior to data collection / analysis and fixing issues.

We can likely safely assume none of that is happening this year. Maybe city streets will be widely deployed, but it will be a Level 2 system.

 

[Dan D.]

You need to stop breaking out a single post into multiple chunks, it's not difficult to understand a block of text with paragraphs and reference back to the post.

Name a state with zero autonomous vehicle permitting/legislation and where we know any significant testing or deployment is happening.

I second this, with apologies. They can write whatever way they want but I often don't read @Knightshade posts because of this. Somehow I can't follow the train of thought.

 

[Knightshade]

I second this, with apologies. They can write whatever way they want but I often don't read @Knightshade posts because of this. Somehow I can't follow the train of thought.

I'm honestly baffled by how someone finds a reply that addresses each point individually harder to follow than when someone quotes an entire single giant block of text with multiple points in it, and replies with their own single giant block of text on all those points.

Paragraphs exist for a reason. Same idea here.

 

[AndreP]

I'm honestly baffled by how someone finds a reply that addresses each point individually harder to follow than when someone quotes an entire single giant block of text with multiple points in it, and replies with their own single giant block of text on all those points.

Paragraphs exist for a reason. Same idea here.

Don't want to clog up a thread with this but

#1. It blows up the reply in sheer size. What should take up a few rows on a screen ends up taking two pages, and that makes it look much more daunting. If you want people to read and digest what you're saying, you need to make it look palatable.

#2. You're exacerbating it by breaking other grammatical rules that impede comprehension, like the following:

There's a bunch of states where it's legal.

Arizona is the most obvious.

No permit is required.

That's it.

You don't need a "permit" or additional permissions of any kind.

It's one of the (several) reasons Waymo is operating their commercial robotaxis there.

Half of these aren't sentences or complete thoughts and none of them require their own row separated by an empty row.

There's a bunch of states where it's legal, Arizona is the most obvious. No permit is required, that's it, you don't need a "permit" or additional permissions of any kind. It's one of the (several) reasons Waymo is operating their commercial robotaxis there.

This takes it from 11 rows down to 2 and makes the thought much easier to follow. I've seen a lot of your posts before and would swear you're intentionally trying to make them difficult to read and rebut.

 

[Knightshade]

This takes it from 11 rows down to 2 and makes the thought much easier to follow. I've seen a lot of your posts before and would swear you're intentionally trying to make them difficult to read and rebut.

Just the opposite. I've often found when folks post the WALL OF TEXT people end up replying to the first thing they wrote and ignoring huge other chunks of it because they can't be bothered to read all of it without line or paragraph breaks.

 

[PointHope]

I think that's what we're all hoping for but when you read the predictions (even from Tesla's employees) it looks like we're a long way out from that happening. I keep my cars for about 4 years and I don't expect that the FSD option I bought on mine will ever be fully activated in that time. Would be happy to be proven wrong... Good thing the car is still a lot of fun to drive on its own.

Some reading for those interested:

Tesla Autopilot director contradicts Musk’s self-driving timeline

Musk described full autonomy as "basically a solved problem" in 2016.

arstechnica.com

Tesla privately admits Elon Musk has been exaggerating about ‘full self-driving’

Musk’s comments do not match the “engineering reality.”

www.theverge.com

I can see how early Tesla adopters could be frustrated by Elon Musk asperger's. But ya must consider how he is rewriting the entire car industry.
The cars are million+ mile vehicles, Not the usual disposable pieces of shiete from the big 3, (Ford, GM, Chrysler) which must be replaced every 4 years.
We are witnessing an entirely new transportation paradigm evolving. Million mile vehicles piloted by humanoid android devices with high levels of self awareness... Some truly amazing sci-fi phenomena coming to real life.
Prepare to say goodbye the planned obsolescence commercialism of the past 50 years.
I'd wager the CyberTruck will be good for 2 million miles.
Very likely we will start seeing Musk-Mars colony being built by humanoid android devices this decade.
BTW I currently drive a 30 year old Nissan normally aspirated diesel which get 12 kms/L, has a million kms, looks horrible but still doesn't leak/use a drop of oil between oil changes.

 

[Jblangi]

I just sent my complaint about this FSD ghost-ware promise and demanded a refund until the company is serious about FSD. And I'm ready to join a class action lawsuit...but meanwhile let investor relations know your displeasure.

Contact Us | Tesla Investor Relations

Contact Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors to provide comments, to report concerns or to ask a question.

ir.tesla.com

 

[not-Martin]

I just sent my complaint about this FSD ghost-ware promise and demanded a refund until the company is serious about FSD. And I'm ready to join a class action lawsuit...but meanwhile let investor relations know your displeasure.

Contact Us | Tesla Investor Relations

Contact Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors to provide comments, to report concerns or to ask a question.

ir.tesla.com

Bravo. Good stuff dude.
I will be doing the same for both of my cars & take it further as necessary

 

[not-Martin]

Again, aspirational general statements about the future on twitter aren't part of a sales contract.

If statements, whether they be verbal (such as autonomy day April 2019) or on Twitter (such as late 2016), are not QUALIFIED as being aspirational, then there may well be legal liability, regardless of what printed words on a website or paper contract state.
Only a judge ultimately decides, but based on my basic university first year legal education on contracts, the judge will focus on whether the actions of the defendant induced action by the plaintiff. There will also be a reasonable person test applied.