Will Tesla be able to deliver FSD with HW3.0 and current Model 3 sensor suite, ever?

[AdamMacDon]

That logic is akin to saying my computer has a (hardware) graphics card therefore I should get all the (software) video games for free.

I bought FSD, for the record.

Ehhh, as a game developer I have to disagree with you there. If Nvidia/AMD created all video games sure, but that's not really how the industry works. Tesla created that autopilot hardware solely for use with their autopilot software. As far as I am aware, there is no sanctioned 3rd party software for Tesla hardware.

Tesla themselves have hinted at a subscription system coming for AP, and honestly it makes sense. Most people aren't gonna be able to justify $12,000 (Canadian Dollars), for a piece of software I would classify as Alpha (the beta designation doesn't really fit, IMO). Even purchasing cars these days is often priced with "monthly payments", instead of a lump sum. It's easier mentally for people to justify paying 100 payments of $140 instead of $12,000 up front, even though one amount is quite a bit larger over the time span. Considering AP apparently isn't transferable, it makes the option even more sensible. Unless you plan to keep your car for near a decade, buying it outright would be throwing good money after bad.

Source: Tesla will likely roll out a monthly subscription plan for customers who aren't yet ready to drop $7,000 upfront for its self-driving technology

 

[SammichLover]

I didn't ... mean to imply that.

But you did, it follows from your argument directly.

A lot of software is licensed to a user and stays with the user.

And plenty doesn't, with a trend towards this. This is even more the case when it is from the same provider and as part of the product, inherent to it.

This came to a huge point for me when I attempted to sell my M3 (I was just seeing value)... there was no way at all for me to add value to the sale by saying it came with FSD.

??? This was some automated site somewhere? If you really were looking to sell it or get an accurate value for some purpose, which you weren't, you definitely should go somewhere else that is actually dealing in the value of the vehicle. Insurance policies even cover FSD packages as inherently part of the vehicle, and included in the value if the vehicle is written off.

 

[SammichLover]

Tesla created that autopilot hardware solely for use with their autopilot software.

They created it, to the level of capability they installed, to SELL their AP software. They also used most of the same gear to have a few baseline safety features, and after a couple years they ended up bundling some features into the base car, and adjusted the base price accordingly, but still the point stands.

P.S. In my years of experience this "Alpha" rocks for the features there! This is more in the vein of Google's Not A Beta stuff, at worst. The EAP set was already really good over a year ago.

 

[FreshPrince]

Tesla will can achieve better than human reliability with current setup.

This means that FSD will drive over/bump your neighbor's kid playing near car's quarter panels, because of blind spots, but will stop at stoplights and obey traffic laws.

 

[Knightshade]

That's not the point.
The point is that whether you have FSD or Autopilot, the same hardware is there.

Funny thing about that- originally (E)AP was only supposed to use 4 cameras, and FSD would use all 8.

Then turned out they really needed all 8 for AP to work well, so folks with "just" AP (or EAP) got the other 4 turned on 'free'

Which obviously makes you think maybe they need more than they thought for FSD to really work well too.

A lot of software is licensed to a user and stays with the user.

And some other software is licensed to a specific piece of hardware, and doesn't.

Win10 OEM preloads for example.

Also FSD for example.

If all the Tesla cars are fundamentally the same AP hardware at this point, why do I need to repurchase 8000 worth of software every time I get a new car

The same reason even if you already have a Dell PC with a windows preload, if you buy a new one you'll be paying for a new windows license.

The license is tied to the hardware.

This came to a huge point for me when I attempted to sell my M3 (I was just seeing value)... there was no way at all for me to add value to the sale by saying it came with FSD.

Of course there is. Ask a higher price since it has FSD.

 

[Kognos]

And some other software is licensed to a specific piece of hardware, and doesn't.
Win10 OEM preloads for example.

Not an appropriate example. OEM costs for Windows (to the vendor) are near zero and baked into the cost of purchasing a PC. That's why it is tied. If you buy a new full priced Windows off the shelf you can transfer it. Upgrading an OEM carries the OEM license, which means it's non-transferrable. It's more about the supportability than anything else in this context.

I get that some software is tied and some isn't. There are good reasons either way. This isn't going to be solved in a forum, and neither of us are Tesla board members. So I just agree to disagree.

I just don't believe FSD should be tied to the car itself. If you buy FSD through Tesla, you can literally guarantee that every Tesla car from that moment on will have equal or greater FSD hardware capability. It's a nicer way to keep that cost and keep a customer, since anyone I sell my Tesla to may find that 8000 addition (or more) to be more of a detriment to the cost than a benefit. Tie it to the driver and everyone wins. I can choose to buy it and then I have it in my Tesla ecosystem as long as I stick with Tesla. It's not like future cars won't have the hardware already baked in, and anyone I sell my older cars to don't have to be "sold" the FSD functionality they may not want.

 

[AdamMacDon]

They created it, to the level of capability they installed, to SELL their AP software. They also used most of the same gear to have a few baseline safety features, and after a couple years they ended up bundling some features into the base car, and adjusted the base price accordingly, but still the point stands.

P.S. In my years of experience this "Alpha" rocks for the features there! This is more in the vein of Google's Not A Beta stuff, at worst. The EAP set was already really good over a year ago.

Your analogy is still way off base with comparing Tesla's AP hardware to a GPU manufacturer. The two business and development models share almost nothing. Nvidia does not make money from software compared to their hardware sales. You can disagree with that all you like, but it is still a fact. I get your point, but again subscription models make way more sense for this case. Subscription models do NOT make sense for AMD or Nvidia, at least not now. Maybe when cloud streaming games comes into the mainstream more.

Nobody said alpha products can't be really cool, I enjoy my base AP from time to time. But still, calling it a beta is beyond a stretch. The definition of which is generally as follows "A Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs". I'd say Tesla is years away from feature complete. We still don't even have it stopping for traffic control devices yet, which is a pretty big part of driving, nevermind the various other features that are very important and still absent (turning through intersections).

 

[Knightshade]

Not an appropriate example. OEM costs for Windows (to the vendor) are near zero and baked into the cost of purchasing a PC.

That's completely untrue. They're not "near zero" they're somewhere between ~5-10% of the cost of the PC in most cases.... (one cite I find had it at $15 for PCs $250 and less (6%) and $50 for higher priced ones for example).

Further it's not always "baked in"- For example if you wanna upgrade from Win10 Home to Win10 Pro on your $329 Optiplex it's gonna be an additional $60 charge. Almost 20% of the base price of the PC. And that's on TOP of the "hidden" Home license cost you're paying.


No it's not $8000, but your Optiplex isn't $50,000 like a car is either.

I get that some software is tied and some isn't. There are good reasons either way. This isn't going to be solved in a forum, and neither of us are Tesla board members. So I just agree to disagree.

Sure, as long as we can at least agree on the facts at least

I just don't believe FSD should be tied to the car itself.

Then I guess you're gonna like the subscription model- maybe- depending on the details.

If you buy FSD through Tesla, you can literally guarantee that every Tesla car from that moment on will have equal or greater FSD hardware capability. It's a nicer way to keep that cost and keep a customer, since anyone I sell my Tesla to may find that 8000 addition (or more) to be more of a detriment to the cost than a benefit. Tie it to the driver and everyone wins. I can choose to buy it and then I have it in my Tesla ecosystem as long as I stick with Tesla. It's not like future cars won't have the hardware already baked in, and anyone I sell my older cars to don't have to be "sold" the FSD functionality they may not want.

It's obviously better for Tesla if you pay them another $8000 for each car you buy though.

It's not like you have a ton of other options for comparable EVs with advanced driver aids or something right now.

There's LOTS of things Tesla would (or at least should) be doing differently if they didn't consistently have more orders for new cars than production capacity to build them- but that makes somewhat less sense for them to do as long as they DO have that.

 

[Knightshade]

Nobody said alpha products can't be really cool, I enjoy my base AP from time to time. But still, calling it a beta is beyond a stretch. The definition of which is generally as follows "A Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs". I'd say Tesla is years away from feature complete.

FWIW Elon defines beta a bit differently-

Elon Musk clarifies the use of the word 'beta' for the Autopilot, says will need at least 1 billion miles to get out of it - Electrek

We still don't even have it stopping for traffic control devices yet, which is a pretty big part of driving, nevermind the various other features that are very important and still absent (turning through intersections).

We do if by "we" you mean "teslas FSD".... it's US only right now though.

 

[Kognos]

That's completely untrue. They're not "near zero" they're somewhere between ~5-10% of the cost of the PC in most cases.... (one cite I find had it at $15 for PCs $250 and less (6%) and $50 for higher priced ones for example).

That's OEM reseller prices. I have worked for several OEMs. The prices are usually flat-rate and very low especially with larger vendors, lower than what you see resold to customers. There are reasons why these vendors have direct deals that are sealed. But that's not topically relevant to the thread other than the point which was that the hardware for FSD is already fully baked into the purchase price of the car - you're not paying 8000 for anything other than enablement.

 

[SammichLover]

Your analogy is still way off base with comparing Tesla's AP hardware to a GPU manufacturer.

First off, not my analogy.

I think it is problematic for the reasons I give, and somewhat for yours. Because FSD is the product, and with video cards the AMD, Nvidia, et all don't really have products like that. More-so Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo use video card hardware as part of their consoles. That's really what Tesla is like, console companies. And they aren't really in the business of handing out their prime titles for free to everyone that buys their console. Even though Nintendo uses marque titles like Mario Galaxy and such to drive console sales, it is really the title sales that are bread and butter. The Wii shifted that to some extent, it used to be more-so that the consoles were loss-leaders until very late in the lifecycle. Still though the software is key revenue, on top of the console revenue.

Nobody said alpha products can't be really cool, I enjoy my base AP from time to time. But still, calling it a beta is beyond a stretch. The definition of which is generally as follows "A Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs". I'd say Tesla is years away from feature complete. We still don't even have it stopping for traffic control devices yet, which is a pretty big part of driving, nevermind the various other features that are very important and still absent (turning through intersections).

The features that are shipped are at worst "late beta". They are successfully used daily on public roads by the general public. That's Google Not Really Beta, but with higher stakes so not even really that.

It is nothing like what software developers (and yeah, a couple decades ago I had a career in such) think of for [internal] beta, much less alpha.

It is an actual shipping product. I have an actual shipping product. Next years version, next month's version, will have more capability and it'll be more solid in handling an even wider range of cases (EDIT: and more features, which Tesla claims they already have in the code base, and that's supported by stuff hackers have found in features that are there but flagged off in the public release builds). But calling it "alpha" is a gross misuse, abuse really, of the word.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

That's not the point.
The point is that whether you have FSD or Autopilot, the same hardware is there.

Yes it is the point - IIRC 2014 autopilot cars only had 3 cameras with an order of magnitude simpler computer & less complex software coding. Tesla could easily have made a standard autopilot car & an option for an FSD manufactured car with extra cameras, ultrasonics & supercomputer. Since the latter is included with the car, they have to recoup its & the extra software writing costs (make profits).
Tesla are making a gamble - they may need, say, 30% of the fleet to buy FSD to break even across the 100%.

 

[Dutchie]

I have just send this to Tesla. Basically asking them for a monthly newsletter on the status of FSD. It is the least they could do for people who invested in it

Hello,

I have my Model X for almost three years now and the car and your service has been excellent. I am a real “Tesla Fan” and referred many people to Tesla.

I have one concern though, and that is the status of Full Self Driving.
When we bought the car the sales staff said that feature complete for Full Self Driving would be by the end of the year. Elon Musk even said that there would be demonstration of the technology through a Coast-to-Coast drive by the end of the year. That all was in 2017!

Last year there was the FSD investors’ day where Elon launched the idea of the Robotaxi. He then also mentioned that feature complete would be by the end of the year. In between Elon made numerous predictions through Twitter, predictions that have come and gone.

Yes, there have been quite a few software updates with new applications. However, the steps towards “feature complete” have been small and far between. In the mean time our car is almost three years old with no real set date of when to expect the FSD feature that we paid for. We even are waiting for the new FSD computer which Elon said would be installed in January/February of this year.

I see also a growing unrest with my fellow owners of Tesla’s who bought the Full Self Driving feature. Some start doubting if Tesla can deliver all.

In order to quench the unrest I would ask you if - for all the customers who invested in the Full Self Driving - you could provide us with a monthly newsletter which describes the broad status of the project with an (updated) timeline. I don’t think it would be hard to do and that it would take much time. I do think that - for all the people who invested their hard earned money in this project - it is something that would benefit Tesla and the customer.

Kind regards

 

[Knightshade]

That's OEM reseller prices. I have worked for several OEMs. The prices are usually flat-rate and very low especially with larger vendors, lower than what you see resold to customers

No, those were the quoted prices to OEMs.

the point which was that the hardware for FSD is already fully baked into the purchase price of the car - you're not paying 8000 for anything other than enablement.

Again- this is factually wrong.

It's a $60 ON TOP OF THE THE BASE PRICE upgrade to go from W10 Home to Pro on that $329 Optiplex.

That's over 18% of the cost of the hardware to upgrade the software.

That's actually more expensive than an $8000 software upgrade on a $50,000 car as a % of the total price.

 

[Kognos]

Yes it is the point - IIRC 2014 autopilot cars only had 3 cameras with an order of magnitude simpler computer & less complex software coding.

Ok, so I should timebox my statements -- it is impossible to get a Tesla Model 3 today that isn't fully FSD capable with all of the hardware necessary. I agree this isn't possible in the past.

 

[Knightshade]

I have just send this to Tesla. Basically asking them for a monthly newsletter on the status of FSD. It is the least they could do for people who invested in it

ROTFL

Tesla didn't even add the early FSD buyers to the early access program. A thing they explicitly promised to do, and could be done with basically a few button clicks.

They sure as hell ain't creating you a newsletter

Yes it is the point - IIRC 2014 autopilot cars only had 3 cameras

They only had 2.... and one of them was a backup camera that wasn't used by autopilot. AP1 only used 1, monochrome, forward facing camera... plus one front-facing radar (with slightly shorter range than the current one), and the 12 ultrasonic sensors (which were also significantly shorter range than the ones used today).

 

[Kognos]

No, those were the quoted prices to OEMs.
Again- this is factually wrong.

Proof is in your picture. What's the price of Windows 10 home (139 list price)? It's free on the list, because it's included in the price from Dell, and near zero cost to Dell (from MS). Pro retail price is $199. Upgrade is 60 because Dell proxies all of the support and also gets a discount.

Again, the underlying point is that it's cheap/free to vendor/consumer because it's baked in to the base price and supportability.

 

[Knightshade]

Proof is in your picture. What's the price of Windows 10 home (139 list price)? It's free on the list, because it's included in the price from Dell, and near zero cost to Dell (from MS). Pro retail price is $199. Upgrade is 60 because Dell proxies all of the support and also gets a discount.

Uh....no.

Win10 Home is Autopilot. It's "free" because the actual price is baked into the car price, just as the MS license is baked into the PC price.

Pro is FSD. It adds 18% to the base price.

The analogy is almost 100% dead on balls accurate as a percentage of total price for the upgrade.

P
Again, the underlying point is that it's cheap/free to vendor/consumer because it's baked in to the base price and supportability.

Except, the upgrade is not free.

It's roughly 18% of the base cost of the product in both examples.

And the software upgrade is tied to the hardware it's bought for in both examples.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

Ok, so I should timebox my statements -- it is impossible to get a Tesla Model 3 today that isn't fully FSD capable with all of the hardware necessary.

Yes, because Tesla choose not to make a separately manufactured option

 

[ralfpeter]

The following compromise would seem fair and result in more people buying it without feeling uneasy about it. The buyer of FSD gets to transfer FSD from date of purchase until 10 years after FSD has received regulatory approval.