Could this be explained as a setback for autonomous progress?
As its ability gets better and better (in laboratory condition for now) and near public release, there should be more promotion, more selling, more ease to buy, not less!
That sounds like autonomous progress is nowhere fast enough for the past 2 years since its initial sales in 2016.
By not selling the feature, I think Tesla may decrease its legal liability for any class action lawsuits from people who don’t think the functionality has been delivered fast enough. Maybe that is a reason to do it.
But even more importantly, the naming is confusing and potentially even dangerous. Let’s say the first Full Self-Driving Capability feature is released — call it automatic stopping for red lights and stop signs. If someone enables Full Self-Driving Capability in their Tesla, there has to be a pop-up that says something to the effect: Full Self-Driving Capability is
not full self-driving. That’s super confusing, and could conceivably lead someone to believe their car has a higher level of autonomy than it does.
Tesla should have two software packages: Enhanced Autopilot and something like Tesla AI or Advanced Vehicle Intelligence. Enhanced Autopilot is Enhanced Autopilot, and then the other package is everything beyond that, including full self-driving but also every incremental feature leading up to that point.
Calling the other package Full Self-Driving Capability leads to the contorted phrasing “first Full Self-Driving Capability feature”, which only makes sense if you understand Full Self-Driving Capability is a proper noun that doesn’t mean full self-driving capability. If you say the sentence “Full Self-Driving Capability isn’t full self-driving capability” out loud — without the benefit of capital letters — it sounds flatly self-contradictory.
This is naming convention hell, and should be changed.
