Should Tesla fully refund FSD owners in UK

[MrBadger]

Company I worked for had a Level 4 vehicle for research purposes in limited but public safety critical design domain. Very limited team size, very limited budget and one sensor.

My mistake was that I thought that a company with seemingly unlimited cash, best brains in the world, all the sensors and features present to achieve full self driving and a boss adamant that it’s been solved and ready to release by end of the year might have had had the ability to actually deliver on their promise.

 

[Pink Duck]

Taking a step back and looking at the wider picture of Tesla’s attempts to implement self-drive, a while ago they switched to single stack by extending US City Streets to highways, then attempted to refine. FSD Beta progress has stalled these last couple of months, while V12’s end-to-end neural nets approach from curated video training is the focus, requiring even more training compute to escape local minima. However, if that doesn’t get there, what next?

 

[Js1977]

Most people have no clue as to how tire pressure monitors, airbags, GPS and so on work, or whether the adaptive cruise in their previous car was laser or radar, let alone how lasers or radars work, and so put their faith in manufacturers

Well.... the thing is that the people here questioning??? seem to be very clued up on all the things you mention plus much more!. Very clever people indeed (apparently) judging by their posts.... "Should Tesla fully refund FSD owners in UK" .... If you have to ask....

 

[qwickshot]

Don’t forget that what Tesla is selling is not a full autonomous car.

They were only ever selling a ‘level 2’ (as defined in the states) driver assistance package. ‘FSD’ as it was sold was always going to need a certain degree of user input.

Even waymo and cruise regularly need user intervention with their far more substantial suite of sensors in fully mapped environments. That situation involving a Cruise car a few weeks ago was horrific, but it perfectly highlights why self driving cars are miles away on uncontrolled city streets.

To be clear, I voted yes, they should refund people if they ask for it as per U.K. consumer law but let’s not get carried away in suggesting FSD was ever more than a level 2 system.

 

[KennethS]

I’ve no idea if there is or not, but is there any time limit on claiming something was miss sold? i.e. You’ve had it six years and didn’t complain, so you accepted it for what it is, however bad that may be, so you can‘t claim anything back?

I'm not too worried. The question is when the claims period of 6 years begins. On our 2019 Model 3 the earliest date would be 31/12/19 since functionality was stated as coming by year end. Should Tesla argue that (which might be counter to their later statements) the 6 years runs to 31/12/25. So at its most restrictive there are still 2 years to claim. But I would argue they have continually pushed the promised date forward. In any case, unless FSD becomes more useful (I am highly doubtful) and we still have and plan on keeping the car I will decide closer to the time. If we sell earlier I ask for a refund at that time. This is not legal advice just my ramblings.

I have no expectation that a true fully autonomous car will be available in the UK during my lifetime. But I have not given up hope that Tesla might offer additional functionality that makes keeping FSD for what it cost in 2019 worth having before the claims period expires. Ever the optimist....

 

[Pagemakers]

And there are self driving vehicles and taxis in the USA so no, to believe the hype was not wacko at all.

 

[Marktm250]

Have you watched any videos? It can go really well for quite a bit of time, which is really positive, but, and there is always a but, it will then randomly drive in front of another oncoming vehicle or similar crazy move, which would result in serious injury or death.

I've said it before, but FSD puts you on high alert due to its unpredictable nature and thats why I think stats may show that its safer. People are ultra focused on FSD whereas a regular driver isn't necessarily ultra focused when they get behind the wheel.

The most dangerous time for FSD is when its almost feature complete. Thats the time when people will be complacent and then thats when the accidents will happen. As strange as it sounds, its actually safer now when its performing poorly, compared to what it might be like when its 'almost' perfect.

My recent exigence using the free 3 months of FSD in my MYLR absolute confirms 2020M35R,s comments. When passengers are yelling "turn it off" after I had to prevent the "drive in front of another oncoming vehicle" several times, it's simply too dangerous even if it sharpens your awareness (which it does for me!).

My suggestion to Tesla is keep the "visualization" of FSD for everyone that purchases a Tesla and wait on offering FSD until the "camera/awareness" systems can detect and analyze much more activity (especially in the rear), much further vehicle distances in all directions, solve obvious traffic light issues (flashing red nearly caused a serious incident), prioritizing the navigation route over dangerous lane changes with much more forward "thinking" logic, get rid of phantom braking issues - to name the most obvious in my short experience.

 

[Jason71]

And there are self driving vehicles and taxis in the USA so no, to believe the hype was not wacko at all.

I hope you arent including GM Cruise in that since it turns out they are essentially a scam at this point with humans intervening remotely every 4 miles or so!
I wonder if Waymo are also hiding anything?

 

[Zilla91]

To dismiss as a dunce anyone who failed to question Tesla's self-driving fiction (and we agree, it is fiction) is a bit much.

It’s really not. No amount of AI, sensors or compute will ever be able to navigate the wide variations of UK roads. Not now and not in 100 years.

If you really think it’s possible then you need your head checked.

And there are self driving vehicles and taxis in the USA so no, to believe the hype was not wacko at all.

To this day there is still no self driving car on sale for the general public anywhere in the world.

Those robo taxis you see are all geofenced to very limited locations

 

[qwickshot]

Those robo taxis you see are all geofenced to very limited locations

…and have humans intervening regularly.

See the cruise automotive reference above.

 

[KennethS]

Not now and not in 100 years.

I wouldn't bet on that. But it's academic as none of us will be here to see.

 

[Jason71]

It’s really not. No amount of AI, sensors or compute will ever be able to navigate the wide variations of UK roads. Not now and not in 100 years.

If you really think it’s possible then you need your head checked.

I was never under any illusion that a 2019 M3 would ever be capable of self driving in the UK or anywhere else . But if you don't think its a problem that can be cracked in the next 100 years then I think you may be the one requiring the checkup from the neck up.
With the pace of technology I am fully expecting it to be within my lifetime.

 

[Zilla91]

No amount of technological pace is going to get over the fact you’ll never be able to create a system that can A) handle different rules and customs in every country and B) handle the different variations of road types.

Do you really think any tech will be able to deal with single lane country roads, meeting situations, crazy roundabouts, unexpected road closures and diversions, roads with missing lines, all different manner of weird and wonderful road signs? It’s never going to happen.

It’s wild seeing adults who, it’s safe to assume if they’re driving around in 40-110k cars, are pretty switched on and successful to believe in this pie in the sky nonsense

 

[NewbieT]

I sometimes wonder how people manage to drive (and some clearly can’t) which means I do see a time (in my lifetime) when self- driving cars will match human capability.

The legal merits are not about whether a Tesla aficionado knew it was vapourware, but whether Tesla misled an average reasonable person. A lot of people did buy FSD on the back of commitments made by Tesla. I don’t think for one second they’re all ‘stupid’, ‘gullible’, or bought FSD just to support the cause.

I’m not sure if there are any Tesla shareholders or eco warriors trying to dampen the heat but fortunately for the populace it’s a judge that gets to decide not some internet forum.

 

[Js1977]

I don’t think for one second they’re all ‘stupid’, ‘gullible’, or bought FSD just to support the cause.

Yes, maybe a not all. Not even most of the rich like wasting money after all....

I sometimes wonder how people manage to drive (and some clearly can’t) which means I do see a time (in my lifetime) when self- driving cars will match human capability.

Get a Taxi.... It drives for you and I dont see passengers moaning about how ugly it looks and how the wipers etc. work.

I’m not sure if there are any Tesla shareholders or eco warriors trying to dampen the heat but fortunately for the populace it’s a judge that gets to decide not some internet forum.

Well... Crack on with the judge and dont ask for opinions on here then.

The legal merits are not about whether a Tesla aficionado knew it was vapourware, but whether Tesla misled an average reasonable person

Fair point but us here consider ourselves to be above average.

A lot of people did buy FSD on the back of commitments made by Tesla

Allot of people have been voting for government for many years on the back of their commitments as well....


Not meant at you personally but Do What Ed did after he posted here and people chickened out. Best thing he did was going at it on his own and better chance of success.

TL;DR - Dont prod and moan about it and just get it done.

 

[Jason71]

No amount of technological pace is going to get over the fact you’ll never be able to create a system that can A) handle different rules and customs in every country and B) handle the different variations of road types.

Do you really think any tech will be able to deal with single lane country roads, meeting situations, crazy roundabouts, unexpected road closures and diversions, roads with missing lines, all different manner of weird and wonderful road signs? It’s never going to happen.

It’s wild seeing adults who, it’s safe to assume if they’re driving around in 40-110k cars, are pretty switched on and successful to believe in this pie in the sky nonsense

Humans can do it. Computers and AI have surpassed humans in many areas already. No reason to think Driving wont be one. They already have better reaction times. Never get distracted and can see in multiple directions at the same time in multiple spectrums.
100 years is a long time.

 

[Pink Duck]

I wouldn’t say anything Tesla has done with MCU2/AP3 is anywhere near close to my animal latency. I’m sure we’re all familiar with accelerating past transitory risk while AP is just about to conclude to slow down.

 

[Durzel]

The press and weird owners are to blame.

For years what seemed like a majority of people never questioned how implausible it was that a small number of waist height cameras with 2015-era CMOS image sensors, which wash out in sunlight, which can't see in the dark, which don't penetrate mist or fog or rain or dust or grime, and which require a wet sponge (sold separately) simply for them to stop displaying errors on the dash, will never ever provide the information required to drive a UK car down an unlit B-road at 5am on a gloomy winter morning.

On my Model S the IIHS-rated "Pisspoor" headlamps are so bad even I can't see where I'm going, so what chance does a $65 camera have? Reason folks believed it all is because they were *completely taken in* by the charlatan in charge, whose words have echoed around the empty heads of motoring journalists and forum Teslastans for years now. Elon promises this, Elon promises that.

There is hope. Have a look at this week's Top Gear review of the facelifted 3 and you can almost smell the howling J-turn as all the lizard stenographers slowly realise they've been told lies, and for the sake of everyone's safety should probably not keep repeating them. In addition to Autopilot, the review also takes aim at the needless monkeying with important secondary controls that nobody asked for (they describe the indicator setup as "dangerous", which it is), and at the auto wipers that also never work.

Compared to reviews of its peers, the updated 3 comes over as a mixed bag.

"Is it worth the money? It is not. Maybe on the wide, homogenous roads of the USA, but not in the UK where the car bongs every 30 seconds to tell you it’s turning Autopilot off and you’re on your own." -- lol.

I firmly believe had Elon not bought Twitter he could've probably carried on this nonsense for several years more. As it is more and more people have seen behind the curtain and are realising that the persona of him as a modern day Tony Stark is a mirage, and that his bullshit is getting exposed in real time.

He deserves plaudits for dragging everyone else along towards electrification, but in my opinion that light has been diminished for some time. I also don't appreciate being straight up scammed by the richest person in the world, which is basically what happened when I purchased FSD. I'm just a regular Joe, not a billionaire.

I'm quietly hoping that more reviewers will call out the basic stuff that doesn't work at all well on these cars, and ask questions about how credulous the world should be about the claims that these cars will be Robotaxis, etc, will fully drive themselves, when this other stuff is missing or doesn't work properly.

As for myself personally - when I bought my car in 2020, my first Tesla, I was on board with Elon being eccentric but on the right side of history. I had no reason to suspect that the claims made on the website about full self driving being delivered by the end of 2020 were unrealistic. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt somewhat on this, because I recognise it's a very tough problem domain to solve, but I fully expected them to deliver if not by the end of 2020 then some time in 2021 at least. I didn't expect to find after I had bought and paid for the car in full that actually UNECE regulations and Tesla's inflexibility when it comes to tailoring anything towards markets other than the States (case in point - matrix lights, illegal in the States until recently, have been installed on MIC cars since 2021 and have had no functionality added to them in all this time) meant that these claims were bullshit, and that Tesla would've known they were just taking money for something they couldn't deliver. Fool me once, etc.

 

[MrBadger]

No amount of technological pace is going to get over the fact you’ll never be able to create a system that can A) handle different rules and customs in every country and B) handle the different variations of road types.

Do you really think any tech will be able to deal with single lane country roads, meeting situations, crazy roundabouts, unexpected road closures and diversions, roads with missing lines, all different manner of weird and wonderful road signs? It’s never going to happen.

It’s wild seeing adults who, it’s safe to assume if they’re driving around in 40-110k cars, are pretty switched on and successful to believe in this pie in the sky nonsense

I am sure many FSD drivers would have been happy with Level 3 on motorways, ie NoA at Level 3.

When Model 3 launched in UK, ie, those still in the City Streets by end of the year window, HW3 was brand new, AP had only just become a standard 'free/aka 2k price increase' fit and EAP was not an option.

For me, when EM stated that 'NoA was feature complete', that's what sounded the death knell for me as far as what I wanted FSD to achieve as I personally saw the differentiator between EAP and FSD to be that FSD was hands off and EAP (had it been available) was driver assist.

During a 3 hour mostly motorway drive yesterday, I was thinking what EAP/FSD in its current form gave me over what basic auto steer would offer. The only difference that I could see was that with basic autopilot, the car would bong at me every time I wanted to change lane, where as with NoA, my wife would nag me to stop using it to change lanes because it would indicate, then cancel and confuse other drivers, before it did anything.

For my wife, it gives her nothing as the performance of NoA has been so poor that she never wants to even try it. And unfortunately, with couple of phantom breaking events yesterday, and a couple of last minute brakes to avoid overtaking adjacent car, its getting that way with plain old TACC too. I think if the car had given one more refusal to overtake, that would have been game over for TACC too.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I am sure many FSD drivers would have been happy with Level 3 on motorways

Yes that would definitely do me, (90% of my journeys, long enough to warrant any form of automation, are motorway - for someone with a boring, lengthy, inner-London commute I guess that would be different) ...

... but the boss doesn't want to do that (or solve Wipers, Headlights, Indicators using conventional tech)

My surprise is that people around him are not reigning him in. a) They are happy to go along with him, persuaded that "Extending the boundaries is a worthwhile objective" b) they are a bunch of yes-man/women.

b) would bother me ... a la Putin et many al. before him.

The only difference that I could see was that with basic autopilot, the car would bong at me every time I wanted to change lane, where as with NoA, my wife would nag me to stop using it to change lanes because it would indicate, then cancel and confuse other drivers, before it did anything.

Is that better with FSDbeta (in USA)? Not sure I've seen enough highway-videos to form an opinion.

For my wife, it gives her nothing as the performance of NoA has been so poor that she never wants to even try it

That's what separates the Boys from the Girls. I use NoA every dual carriageway journey, because the SatNav shrieking at me "Take the next exit .. .TAKE THE NEXT EXIT ... ****************" doesn't always work! whereas the car heading for the off-ramp solves the problem every time