Poll: 81% of Prospective Model 3 Owners Say They Won’t Pay Upfront For Full Self-Driving

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It seems most prospective Model 3 owners aren’t willing to shell out cash upfront for a $3,000 “full self-driving capability” option that is likely years away from becoming available to engage.

In a poll posted by jsraw 81.3% (347) of respondents said they will not pay for the feature at purchase. Adding the option later will cost an additional $1,000. Of respondents, 18.7% said they will pay for FSD upfront.

According to Tesla’s website, FSD “doubles the number of active cameras from four to eight, enabling full self-driving in almost all circumstances, at what we believe will be a probability of safety at least twice as good as the average human driver. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat. For Superchargers that have automatic charge connection enabled, you will not even need to plug in your vehicle.”

Elon Musk has said that level 5 autonomous driving is possible with second generation Autopilot and the FSD option, meaning the car is fully autonomous in any and all conditions. During his TED talk in April, Musk said the company plans to conduct by the end of 2017 a coast-to-coast demo drive from California to New York without the driver touching the wheel.

Obviously, there will be regulatory hurdles ahead and Musk has said it will likely be two years before owners will be able to engage FSD capability.

See a few comments on the poll below, or go to the thread here.

Swift

EinSV

jason1466

Waiting4M3

Enginerd[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

 

[hockeythug]

Only if they gave me some sort of credit per mile or something to offset a little of the cost until it’s out of “beta”. Cap it at so many miles a month.

 

[MXWing]

TMC administration shorting tsla or what?

First is being a mouthpiece for UAW propeganda.

Second is sensationalist headlinea on FSD taken out of context.

One or two more patches that uses the cabin camera, reads stop lights and stop signs and you won't be able to reach into your wallet fast enough for 3k.

Amateur hour came early today.

Poll is misleading because FSD literally does 'nothing' - so why pay for 'nothing'.

When 'nothing' becomes 'a little bit', poll easily swings the other way.

 

[CarlitoDoc]

Do not hold your breath for anything that is tied to "government regulation", especially in the current "Toxic" political environment. FSD will happen, but not now. That is my two cents.

 

[McRat]

Do not hold your breath for anything that is tied to "government regulation", especially in the current "Toxic" political environment. FSD will happen, but not now. That is my two cents.

Especially here in California. State rebate removed. No promised DCFC chargers installed. Halted the VW EV infrastructure until the legislators got something in exchange. HOV lanes turned into toll roads.

I blame Governor Trump for all of it.

I saw a gopher in my garden. He probably did that too.

Seriously, FSD has nothing to do with the Oval Office or Diversity. It's a technology issue at this point. There are a lot of miles being driven every day by fully autonomous cars in the USA on public streets all across the country. The engineers responsible for this feat are not convinced it's ready.

At this stage of the game, it is possible that it will not be Tesla Motors that releases the first fully autonomous car for sale.

 

[JeffK]

Do not hold your breath for anything that is tied to "government regulation", especially in the current "Toxic" political environment. FSD will happen, but not now. That is my two cents.

I disagree.
FSD has numerous benefits such as lower insurance rates and they could save lives. These are things both parties care about.

Many elected officials are trying to fast track regulation around autonomous vehicles. Companies are happy to help write up the regulation as well in addition to other lobbying efforts. I've not heard about anyone who's really opposing it or what their argument would be against it.

 

[insaneoctane]

How much consideration has anyone given to the potential price hike on the upgrade option once FSD is operational? When Tesla demonstrates FSD (possibly by the end of the year) and is actually ready to "turn it on" to the masses, it seems to me that the upgrade cost for everyone with the necessary hardware (AP 2+) might skyrocket. Everyone has been assuming they can activate for $4K like they can today. But, today is just a promise of things to come. They might keep the price for a several months while they roll in a pieces of functionality....But once those things have come, and if it works, it's worth WAY more than $4K. Tesla isn't usually shy about charging high prices for things people will pay for. Just saying that after the demo and once FSD is operational how could Tesla only charge $3K new/ $4K upgrade?

 

[oktane]

Make no mistake, Tesla WILL lose the class action suit against them (or settle to the plaintiff's favor). What they've done is simply indefensible. I'm surprised they haven't learned their lesson and even dare accepting money for FSD.

 

[hockeythug]

TMC administration shorting tsla or what?

First is being a mouthpiece for UAW propeganda.

Second is sensationalist headlinea on FSD taken out of context.

One or two more patches that uses the cabin camera, reads stop lights and stop signs and you won't be able to reach into your wallet fast enough for 3k.

Amateur hour came early today.

Poll is misleading because FSD literally does 'nothing' - so why pay for 'nothing'.

When 'nothing' becomes 'a little bit', poll easily swings the other way.

Go over to Electrek if want a Musk circle jerk.

 

[182RG]

There is no "fleet learning" going on. Tesla has no way to transmit and receive camera feeds from the cars in any usable capacity.

^This^. Not sure how anyone can be in denial over this.

 

[JeffK]

^This^. Not sure how anyone can be in denial over this.

I've give the benefit of the doubt that @oktane is simply grossly misinformed and not merely a troll or has other psychological issues.

Perhaps @oktane keeps forgetting a /sarcasm tag or to add a smiley.

We know for a fact that Tesla sends back information and we even know what that information is, as it's been posted on the TMC forums.

 

[fiksegts]

no chance, FSD is very far away

 

[diplomat33]

no chance, FSD is very far away

I don't FSD is "very far away". Considering all the companies, including Tesla, that have working FSD prototypes, I say we are 2-3 years away from FSD in commercially available vehicles. I also think that next year, Tesla will probably release some small partial FSD features via over the air updates.

 

[scottm]

I'd go a little further and say, I'd be even happier to save a couple thousand on my model 3 (reduced base price of the car) by not provisioning the hardware needed for self-driving. Yes, making it impossible to upgrade over the air later for self-driving. And I would have no hard feelings about being in the unlucky crowd not getting that feature.

Although, cost of a computer in that quantity for Tesla is not thousands, it would be a few hundred at most. And I do want the safety features anti-collision braking, and convenience of distance following cruise control... but nothing that "lets me take my hands off the wheel for any length of time". They can keep that part of the computer.

I know it probably doesn't make sense to have 2 different levels of computer / capability in the car and is why Tesla is just putting supercomputers in every car and all sensors in every car. Electrical components are cheap in quantity.

 

[JeffK]

I'd go a little further and say, I'd be even happier to save a couple thousand on my model 3 (reduced base price of the car) by not provisioning the hardware needed for self-driving. Yes, making it impossible to upgrade over the air later for self-driving. And I would have no hard feelings about being in the unlucky crowd not getting that feature.

Although, cost of a computer in that quantity for Tesla is not thousands, it would be a few hundred at most. And I do want the safety features anti-collision braking, and convenience of distance following cruise control... but nothing that "lets me take my hands off the wheel for any length of time". They can keep that part of the computer.

I know it probably doesn't make sense to have 2 different levels of computer / capability in the car and is why Tesla is just putting supercomputers in every car and all sensors in every car. Electrical components are cheap in quantity.

Since it's all the same computer that controls AEB and MobilEye won't do any more business with Tesla, you pretty much need the hardware. Plus it'll help the resale value later.

 

[Phrixotrichus]

I don't FSD is "very far away". Considering all the companies, including Tesla, that have working FSD prototypes, I say we are 2-3 years away from FSD in commercially available vehicles. I also think that next year, Tesla will probably release some small partial FSD features via over the air updates.

Considering the state of things you sure are optimistic. Hope you`re right, but I don`t believe it. I don`t even expect the legal side of things to be ready at that time.

 

[scottm]

One thing Tesla should consider is pay-per-use.

Get away from making people pay up for assets and promises that are non-functional and depreciating.

Instead, Tesla "simply" rolls out self-driving and starts demonstrating it. THEN offering everyone a "5 cents per mile" usage fee for whenever the driver chooses to use it. It serves as a motivator for them to develop it.

Following a cloud-computing model... DaaS Driving as a Service

 

[diplomat33]

Considering the state of things you sure are optimistic. Hope you`re right, but I don`t believe it. I don`t even expect the legal side of things to be ready at that time.

Yes, I am very optimistic about FSD. I do believe that Tesla will roll out FSD in pieces over lots of over the air updates. I do think that we will see the first pieces of FSD roll out late next year. I believe this because I have seen a lot of FSD demos that give me confidence that the tech is very close. And if Tesla does roll it out in pieces, then I think we are more likely to see the first iterations of it much sooner than if we wait for the whole thing at once.

 

[scottm]

Since it's all the same computer that controls AEB and MobilEye won't do any more business with Tesla, you pretty much need the hardware. Plus it'll help the resale value later.

Wonder how long it will be before aftermarket driving aids show up on the market, that work in any car?

MobilEye selling a windshield stick-on kit with cameras and wires into control buses on the car.. and there you have it: emergency assist braking, distance following cruise control, etc..

Already, some dashcams have built-in road line marker following feature that bleep when you wander out of your lane. These are so annoying because they're not smart enough to "know" (read that you are signaling) you want to make an intentional lane change. Serves as a proof of technology of what I'm talking about.

The more and better these after market systems integrate into the car, the more functional and desirable they become.

I wonder how long it will take for regulators to demand the "opening up" of car control interfaces on a port. Much like OBD/II plugs were forced into cars to allow any shop to service and maintain all that new fangled emissions stuff.

 

[diplomat33]

I assume that Tesla made a big deal about FSD hardware and added the FSD option on the design page so as to boost sales. But I think Tesla would have been better off not putting anything on the page to buy and simply saying that they were working on FSD. Then, once they had something of FSD to actually put in the cars that people could use, then they could have added the FSD option to buy it.

 

[gregincal]

^This^. Not sure how anyone can be in denial over this.

Why in the world do they need to send camera feeds to do fleet learning? Nobody ever said anything about streaming raw data to Tesla and having them analyze it there. There are a gazillion ways they can be sending data from the cars that promotes fleet learning that doesn't involve sending camera feeds, and distributed processing of the data in the cars is a hugely more efficient way to solve the problem.