This happened to me too a couple of week ago!!! My EAP and FSD have been completely removed from my car which i purchased 2 years ag!! There has been absolutely no communication from Tesla on this and only when i got through to a sales person who was kind enough to look into it they said that during an audit they removed the features because there was no proof they were purchased by the previous owner. What makes matters complicated is that the features were added as a goodwill gesture from Tesla because they massively messed up. He was a Tesla Fleet owner (Executive Chauffeur company) that was ordering many cars at the time. I will go back and read this thread with much interest as this is severely affecting me.. I can't believe they removed what they have proven to be a safety feature (fewer accidents on AP) without any formal communication. Shocking....
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Tesla YANKED FSD option without notice - Class Action lawsuit? Any Lawyers here? [Resolved]
- Thread starter MS-Alec
- Start date
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- class action fsd fsdc
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Correct- no sensor difference- HW3 is just swapping the FSD computer in.
There ARE differences between 2.0 and 2.5 though (camera filters, radar, some wiring at least)
What were they thinking, relying on a database to accurately record this? It's like they have only been in business for five minutes.
Everyone knows that databases are full of errors. Records go missing, details are entered wrong, special circumstances are not recorded. The last thing you should do is assume the database is right and go through removing features from cars based on that.
I don't know why they are even bothering with older vehicles. Just write it off, it's not like they actually lost money because of it since enabling AP and FSD costs them $0. All the hardware is already there, it's just a signal to the car.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Point of order- FSD on older cars absolutely costs them money since it comes with a free upgrade to the FSD computer.
That's a good point, which is probably why they are doing this audit now. But removing even basic autopilot is really bad, considering it's included for free in all new Teslas anyway.
kkillebrew
Banned
Trying to get a better handle on what is happening here.
When I bought my MS from Tesla in 5/2019 is was an inventory car listed as having FSD - and it does - Tesla Rep said it had the the latest FSD board (now known as HW3) so I got it, it cost $5k more. However on the MPVA there is a separate line for Autopilot at $3K and a separate line for FSD at $5K.
Since then they have restructured and moved certain features from Autopilot to FSD I believe. So if I had not purchased FSD but, according to the MVPA, I purchased autopilot for $3K which included summon and some other features now removed, would I not still be entitles to those features? They were there when I bought the car and associated with a particular line item on the purchase agreement.
Is this something buyers are experiencing? I would be mad for sure if so.
When I bought my MS from Tesla in 5/2019 is was an inventory car listed as having FSD - and it does - Tesla Rep said it had the the latest FSD board (now known as HW3) so I got it, it cost $5k more. However on the MPVA there is a separate line for Autopilot at $3K and a separate line for FSD at $5K.
Since then they have restructured and moved certain features from Autopilot to FSD I believe. So if I had not purchased FSD but, according to the MVPA, I purchased autopilot for $3K which included summon and some other features now removed, would I not still be entitles to those features? They were there when I bought the car and associated with a particular line item on the purchase agreement.
Is this something buyers are experiencing? I would be mad for sure if so.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Nope.
5/19 is post restructure.
3k is "basic" AP (just autosteer in a single lane, and TACC)- no summon or anything else. (this is actually "free" on brand new Teslas except the SR now though they raised the prices on the cars by 2k at the same time)
5k FSD is "everything else" (this is now 7k if bought today)
That's what you've got.
Before March 2019 it was instead:
5k for EAP (Enhanced Autopilot- which includes EVERYTHING the FSD to today includes except the free computer upgrade)
3k for FSD (which is the computer upgrade plus all new features coming in the future
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jelloslug
Active Member
Didn't read all 26 pages but am a Used Car Dealer (rather large by the way) and we have bought and sold several S models purchased at the auction. So let me clear up a couple things.
First, the auction house does not purchase the vehicle. They are simply an intermediary. The Sellers are mostly car dealers that took the vehicle in trade (eg Mercedes dealer takes it in trade for a new car) or a wholesaler that bought it directly from an owner. Tesla does sell cars at auction that for whatever reason they choose not to retail, say for example an off lease unit that was in an accident and has a Car Fax showing moderate damage.
So yeah if Tesla takes the car in trade or off lease, they can strip the seats out, take the wheels off, deactivate all the software, whatever they want then send it to the auction. Doesn't matter what's on the Monroney. Tesla owns the car at this point and the price they receive will reflect the current state of the vehicle at the time of the sale. Perfectly legit. However what is not ok and borders on fraud in my opinion, is doing all that AFTER the car has sold. So Tesla is basically selling the car at auction with one set of highly desirable options, collecting the premium for it, then taking it from the new owner that paid the premium! That is theft!
But there is an unintended consequence that no one is pointing out. The guy who really gets hurt is the man who purchased the car new, paid all the extra money for the upgrades only to have those upgrades vanish at trade in time. Trust me, markets are efficient and in short order dealers will figure out that the FSD and other upgrades are going to vanish when they take it into inventory and they will value the trade accordingly. So new Tesla buyer pays all the extra money for a new car with FSD only to have a base autopilot when he trades it in.
The first loser here is the original owner who can't recapture the value of all the extras he paid for that Tesla is going to remove from the car. The second loser is Tesla. Besides all of the bad will (as well there should be) as the dealers, wholesalers, etc.. figure out what's going on, resale values will suffer, ultimately making it more difficult to sell new ones.
First, the auction house does not purchase the vehicle. They are simply an intermediary. The Sellers are mostly car dealers that took the vehicle in trade (eg Mercedes dealer takes it in trade for a new car) or a wholesaler that bought it directly from an owner. Tesla does sell cars at auction that for whatever reason they choose not to retail, say for example an off lease unit that was in an accident and has a Car Fax showing moderate damage.
So yeah if Tesla takes the car in trade or off lease, they can strip the seats out, take the wheels off, deactivate all the software, whatever they want then send it to the auction. Doesn't matter what's on the Monroney. Tesla owns the car at this point and the price they receive will reflect the current state of the vehicle at the time of the sale. Perfectly legit. However what is not ok and borders on fraud in my opinion, is doing all that AFTER the car has sold. So Tesla is basically selling the car at auction with one set of highly desirable options, collecting the premium for it, then taking it from the new owner that paid the premium! That is theft!
But there is an unintended consequence that no one is pointing out. The guy who really gets hurt is the man who purchased the car new, paid all the extra money for the upgrades only to have those upgrades vanish at trade in time. Trust me, markets are efficient and in short order dealers will figure out that the FSD and other upgrades are going to vanish when they take it into inventory and they will value the trade accordingly. So new Tesla buyer pays all the extra money for a new car with FSD only to have a base autopilot when he trades it in.
The first loser here is the original owner who can't recapture the value of all the extras he paid for that Tesla is going to remove from the car. The second loser is Tesla. Besides all of the bad will (as well there should be) as the dealers, wholesalers, etc.. figure out what's going on, resale values will suffer, ultimately making it more difficult to sell new ones.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
In this case it appears the disconnect is Tesla flagged the car to have FSD removed in their back-end systems while they still owned it.
But the software audit/update to remove it from the car didn't go through until after the auction happened.
I'm not aware of any paperwork the dealer got from the auction purchase saying the car came with FSD though.... they just assumed it had it because they saw the menu option AFAIK.
The dealer admits FSD vanished while they still had possession before they turned it over to the final buyer- but just thought it was a glitch.
The ideal fix for this would be for Tesla when they flag removing on the back end to immediately imitate the software push to the car... though I suppose this may not always work depending on state of the car right then- but it would at least help I suppose.
.... this makes no sense.
Those options would only vanish if he's trading it in to tesla and presumably he's ok with whatever Tesla is offering for the car.
because if Tesla doesn't own it after him they can't remove anything.
The only reason anything was ever removed here was Tesla owned the car after the original guy... (who got all his money back BTW- it was a lemon law repurchase)
I am certain the dealer assumed it had FSD because it was on the car when he bought it, just like the wheels, leather seats, etc.. The auction generally just lists the basics like trim levels, gas or diesel or electric, etc.. I check for the Autopilot in the Driving menu. If it is there at the time of sale it needs to be there after the sale... period.
According to what I read above, this has happened to other buyers of Teslas who purchased from third parties, i.e. Used Car Dealers, or apparently from private parties. Until Tesla makes an announcement of an actual policy, I, as a buyer and seller of used Teslas, will simply assume that the FSD and other software related premium options are at risk of disappearing and will pay accordingly. I am not going to risk paying a premium only to have it vanish. Of course there will be buyers who don't know about this yet as it is just now making the headlines, but as I said, markets are efficient and lacking any statement from Tesla, the secondary market for these cars will do the same.
FWIW, I like Teslas, they are very reliable, great handling, luxury sedans. Tesla however needs to stop changing their policies from month to month, it will not play well when the other OEMs hit the market with their EV products.
That actually makes a little sense to me. Tesla offer the original purchaser EAP/FSD for free to make up for some issues he had. And maybe that was intended to be limited to him, as he didn't pay for them, so the features weren't transferrable.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Given we know for a fact some features come as time-limited trials, your period doesn't make much sense there.
I'm unaware of anyone who has actually lost FSD buying a used car that never went back to Tesla in the interim of ownership.
Which tells us if Tesla never owned it, you're fine.
If they did, you need to insure what you're selling is what's really on the car- which you can do (as the current owner) by asking Tesla and getting their answer in writing.
That's an extra task the seller needs to do right now... and I've already suggested how Tesla can remove that burden from sellers- when they remove FSD (or lifetime connectivity- which they've also stated they will remove when they take back a car) they need to do it on the back end and the actual vehicle both prior to disposing of said vehicle so it's clear what features the car actually has when it goes up for sale.
There doesn't appear to be ANY change of policy here at all.
They've removed FSD from used cars for quite some time.
This is just bad timing (the time gap from when they removed it server side, to when they removed it car side) that got a lot of press.
It does make sense though because if you buy a car (for example a premium trim Mercedes E Class) and when you go to sell it, Mercedes removes all the options that make it premium and you are left with a base-level car, it's going to affect the book value of the car and the original owner will lose out because the trade in value will reflect the base-level trim and not the premium trim.
Like I said earlier in the thread, Tesla needs to decide whether FSD is a piece of software licensed to the original owner or something that sticks with the car (e.g. once the car has it, it has it). If it's tied to the owner, the owner should be able to buy another Tesla and automatically have FSD activated on the new car without needing to pay for it again. If it's tied to the car, the second, third, etc... owner(s) should have the functionality enabled without having to pay. The FSD option should not just vanish altogether.
Sadly, I did.
Yes, I think that's agreed, but also recognized as double-dipping by Tesla since they could offer a subsequent owner a paid upgrade to features that by rights Tesla have already been paid for (under the current model for selling FSD - ie: not purely a license to use based on subscription).
Yes. And as a dealer, @swdunne has a perspective of the value system that end users may be less aware of. Any doubt or perceived uncertainty about high value software options remaining with a car are bound to effect values throughout the chain.......
....... and as Tesla is part of that chain then they can't avoid losing out through reputation, lack of clarity and confidence in product amongst buyers.
Where Tesla might win is by making the used market unattractive to anyone other than Tesla.
Tesla could address this whole issue with a simple statement that except in case of fraud, car features will not change while titled outside of Tesla.
So has anyone found a contract, EULA, terms of service, or anything in writing regarding FSD, licensing, who owns what, who has the right to do what, etc?
Its mind boggling that people are willing to pay a company for a beta. Its mind boggling that people are willing to pay for something that has yet to be delivered despite commitments/promises. Its also mind boggling that people are willing to shell out money to a company that will walk all over its customers and not provide a written EULA, TOS, contract, etc. If people keep throwing money at Tesla, they are just going to continue all this bad behavior. Fool me once, fool me twice, now fool me three times should be a Tesla owner's motto!
Its mind boggling that people are willing to pay a company for a beta. Its mind boggling that people are willing to pay for something that has yet to be delivered despite commitments/promises. Its also mind boggling that people are willing to shell out money to a company that will walk all over its customers and not provide a written EULA, TOS, contract, etc. If people keep throwing money at Tesla, they are just going to continue all this bad behavior. Fool me once, fool me twice, now fool me three times should be a Tesla owner's motto!
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At the moment, I haven't seen anything that suggests anything other than 'once FSD (or previously EAP) is purchased, it doesn't become a permanent part of the car', unless the car is purchased back by Tesla - in which case I guess it's up to them what they do. At least I believe this is Tesla's intention and usually the case. The evidence against this is usually that cars that have changed ownership were purchased with FSD active / available on the car, and it has subsequently disappeared. I haven't seen detailed evidence regarding what happened in those cases, but I imagine that whenever an owner can demonstrate that a specific car was either sold by Tesla with FSD or had a paid upgrade by previous owner, Tesla would remedy any mistaken removal.
For me the biggest question (that remains regardless of individual situations) is what rights Tesla have to remove features from my (any) car - especially without my (owner's) consent. At the moment, I don't think Tesla are maliciously downgrading cars (except arguably batterygate / chargegate) but they are not quite the same issue imo, although they potentially (likely) do materially effect the value of the car. Buying a used car, in some cases apparently owning it for months / years, then having FSD (or similar) dissapear is hard to defend against as the current owner will have no access to suitable supporting evidence.
This all becomes more sketchy when you consider the understanding that paid FSD upgrades would also get HW3 once needed to maintain the FSD feature set. It must be worth Tesla paying $1-2k over market trade value to get such cars out of the system so they never have to upgrade them (at least not at their cost).
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The above poster from a different thread might be one of those cases. They bought a used Tesla previously owned by Enterprise which came with AP (probably EAP based on the year) and it was removed 3 months after purchase when the app transferred to them.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
No, they won't.
Because Tesla can't remove those things until after they own the car.
Which is after he has gotten the trade in value WITH FSD ON IT from Tesla.
It's absolutely not tied to the owner- period full stop.
It's tied to the car (if actually purchased by the owner). The only exception is when Tesla becomes the owner when it's already used- they then have the option to remove it.
The problem with the big public case is that happened on the back end- but they didn't do the software push to remove it on the car-end until after it had been sold at auction to a dealer.
BUT if the owner trades the car into a different (non-Tesla) dealership and the dealership knows that FSD is going to be stripped when the car changes hands again and can't be sold as a marketable value-add, the dealer is going to pay the original owner less for the car.
Tesla's behavior on this proves otherwise. The fact that they can/will remove the option from the car states that it is not tied to the car. If it was tied to the car, it would stay with the car. It's kind of like it's tied to the car as long as the car is owned by the person who bought the option.
Agree that Tesla missed the window with Alec's case and then tried a back-handed approach to resolving it.
The problem is the lack of communication. If Tesla was clear about FSD and just openly came out and said that when you sell your car, certain features you purchased may be removed, a lot of this would be avoided (I think they actually started doing this now). They have been doing this for a while with the free supercharging and no one questions free supercharging being removed when a car changes hands.
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