"Please note, customers who choose leasing over owning will not have the option to purchase their car at the end of the lease, because with full autonomy coming in the future via an over-the-air software update, we plan to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network."
Elon once again promising fully autonomous vehicles in 3 years.
Also, isn't this a rental? A lease normally has a residual, so you can choose whether to buy the car.
I have yet speak to any experienced embedded developer who actually thinks "full autonomy" is remotely possible in the near/mid term. The suggestions that it is possible, seems to come mainly from junior developers and snake-oil salesman.
We don't even have "full autonomous" trains, planes, or trucks yet.
Would an auto-car that crashed at a rate 1/10th of humans be a successful "full autonomous" vehicle? You could save 30000 lives a year in the US by deploying such vehicles and probably more due to knock-on effects. But that would be about 10 auto-car deaths/per day. No way that works with the current media.
Unfortunately, it seems many people are not going to accept auto-cars with less than airplane like safety levels. Of course that will never happen. So yes, "full autonomous" vehicles are a long way off (probably forever), unless someone (Waymo?, Tesla?) can show they are much safer and some kind of national or state level laws are passed to restrict the legal liability of the makers and owners of such vechiles. Sort of like how ski resorts would not exist without special laws restricting liablity.
> an auto-car that crashed at a rate 1/10th of humans
This is incredibly generous assumption, especially given the fact that cars with advertised Autopilot features, like Tesla's offerings, actually make accidents more likely[1][2]. Compared to the driver fatality rate in other luxury vehicles, Tesla's offerings nearly triple driver fatality[3].
This is like theorizing about a car that survives 99.9% of all impacts at any speed. It doesn't exist, nor is there any indication that it will exist, and it doesn't serve a purpose other than to prop up a contrived argument.
No assumption, just a serious question. I agree no one is near that good yet. But it was a question that people should be thinking about. How good will be good enough to let the auto-vehicles operate on the roads?
> This is like theorizing about a car that survives 99.9% of all impacts at any speed. It doesn't exist, nor is there any indication that it will exist
This is a strawman. We're talking about replicating all of the abilities of a driver in all of the conditions they're supposed to operate in with approximately the same kind of performance. When we get to that point, then we can consider your question.
[Quick edit: a good question here though is what kind of drivers test is sufficient for us to even begin considering autonomous vehicles? Is that even answered?]
why would that be a strawman? And why would we be talking about replicating the abilities of human driver? The ultimate point is to have safer transport, not copying a human driver with all of their quirks and flaws. Autonomous driving might look very different from human driving and still be safer. The way human drivers drive today is not necessarily optimal.
We don't want approximately the same kind of performance, we want much better performance, so it essentially must be different from the human driver
Level 5 isn’t only about safety, but also about universality.
At level 5, one expects a self-driving car to ride gravel roads, park in highly temporary parking spots, spot police officers and follow their orders, drive short distances on non-roads (e.g. to drive around a car pile-up), etc.
A car that recognizes those cases, stops, and tells it’s passenger “please help me out for a few meters” would be a fantastic accomplishment and very, very successful, but wouldn’t qualify as level 5 autonomous.
I actually think landing an orbital rocket is probably easier by an order of magnitude, possibly even two.
Rocket science is a matter of applied physics, with materials science thrown in, and a bit of very well understood and straightforward software engineering.
Autonomous driving is a matter of getting AI models functioning to a well enough degree. My understanding of how this is done is you try to find more and better data to throw at it and tweak the models to hopefully make it learn better until the point it seems to pass your tests, which are whatever you've been able to come up with that you can think to test.
It's like trying to throw a pitch over home plate, but in one case you have a pitching machine you can aim and dial in the speed, and in the other you have a living pitcher. Only that living pitcher is an Orangutan you're trying to train.
One of those is a lot more art than science, and as such, getting well understood and reproducible outcomes that don't fall apart at a fundamental level when you add one more variable is harder.
If Tesla’s cars were as good in parking as that, one in six attempts to park a car would lead to a fender-bender or worse.
Yes, that isn’t a valid comparison, but it does show that we accept way higher failure rates for rockets than we do for cars (aside: that also is the reason I don’t see space tourism become popular soon. If, say, the 20th or 30th millionaire who books a flight dies, the market will dry up rapidly)
Seriously? Well then you just don't understand machine learning, robotics and the tyranny of the rocket equation. If you did, it would be easy to see that landing an orbital rocket is much harder than autonomous driving. The only problem is that nobody will pay 300M to get one fully self driving car after 13 years of research. And selfdriving needs tons of data which first need to be collected, which is what Tesla is doing at the highest rate than anyone in the industry by far.
Edit: one way to realize this is true is if you consider that the rocket already IS fully self driving. Everything after 1 minute mark before the liftoff is fully controlled by onboard computers, people are only there to push the big red autodestruct button if anything goes wrong.
Anyway, my point was something else. That something might seem impossible, and then after just 5 years it can be considered mundane. And I think that's what we will see with self driving too. Unless oil industry manages to manipulate public opinion in a way that stops Tesla before that.
I don't know, you tell me...
"The SpaceX ORBCOMM-2 Mission successfully landed the first stage of a rocket during an orbital launch, a feat never before accomplished."
"full autonomy" means lots of different things to different people.
Some people think of it as being able to drive anywhere at any time in any condition. This is unlikely to ever happen before AGI. What matters in Tesla's case is more likely being able to drive in some small number of places in specific circumstances without a physical driver in the vehicle (but possibly a remote one to handle unusual circumstances).
Now I don't think Tesla is going to even get to that in 3 years, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Waymo there.
I think we're in agreement, but Tesla has a lot of customers buying into the "Full Self Driving" promise. If you look at the "Full Self Driving" package currently available for $5k on their website, you'll notice that it doesn't even claim to be able to drive without a driver. It talks about doing what EAP can do today + doing it on city streets. What EAP can do today is basically adaptive cruise control with lane keeping and automatic lane change (which also requires you to hold the steering wheel).
The primary cause of the ambiguity is that "Full Self Driving" is a marketing term that Tesla uses and not a unconditional promise. It is just like how cell phone companies promise "Unlimited Data" with a variety of caveats. So there is a question of whether people are talking about the primary definition of "full" or Tesla's marketing definition of "full".
How could that ever work? The "unusual circumstances" that matter will usually require either action in less than a second, like an improvised detour sign, or situational awareness, like a human directing traffic around some random obstacle. At best, Google will be making cars that pull over to the shoulder and call for help in a few years.
> ...some small number of places in specific circumstances..
Airport parking/shuttle service. They could even augment the AI by using markers in the roadways. That's about as autonomous as we're going to get in the next decade.
Driving through airport terminals is possibly one of the most chaotic possible environments, with people almost suicidally throwing themselves in front of you, not to even speak of the cabs, double lane parking, security guards telling you to move and other things. It's probably one of the harder environments to automate for outside of inclement weather.
Some airports have shuttles on private circuits to take you from one wing of an airport to another wing of the airport. The ones I've seen that have this either have a rail system, or a human driver. It would be much cheaper to just throw a bus with some software to track digital route markers and some visual matching for unexpected situations than to build a dedicated point to point system rail/track system (and maybe marginally cheaper than hiring someone, depending on other costs).
I generally agree that the lack of automation for seemingly simpler problems is good argument. However, there are a number of automated subway systems:
You can’t compare EV-1 to Tesla. GM would have had a liability tail for the EV-1 (injuries and Magnussen-Moss parts/repairs). Tesla doesn’t have that problem since they already sell cars outright.
Tesla sells a good number of S and X models that are used. People still buy used Leafs and some of those were notorious for battery issues. Unlike Nissan Tesla packs are liquid cooled and managed. So for the most part what many have to move on from is the stereotype incurred by one brand having battery longevity issues affecting the perception of the industry.
However I think it is a good idea to state they have a use for the off lease cars which gives them an out with having to expense new vehicles for such a risk venture; I am not a believer in anyone's autonomy programs.
Also, lots of cars come off lease with under 50k miles on it, so no reason to think the car would just be discounted by the relatively small amount of lowered battery capacity at this mileage.
Battery degradation is largely a matter of use + thermal management. Since cars have thermal control systems installed (unlike your phone), you should expect a car battery to last a lot longer than a cell phone does.
The idea that Tesla could get fully auto vehicles out of the existing Model 3s their building today is laughable. Even top-tier AV companies, with larger teams and far more advanced sensors, can't. There's a huge difference between working 95% of the time, and working well enough for a full auto fleet, and Tesla won't get there with pure cameras and a single front-facing radar. It's possible they could retrofit the old cars with new hardware, but other AV companies have suggested that retrofits aren't automotive-grade enough to last over time (sensor mounts drift too much, etc).
So more of the mostly deluded, same old, same old, Elon hype.
There's so many indicators that FSD is ages away from being safe, and so many stories of Tesla's just randomly steering in towards barriers and needing quick action from their drivers, even as recent as last month.
That's not very indictive of Tesla. The driver ignored multiple signs posted with a 25mph limit, yellow 'tight curve ahead' signs and all, with plenty of time to spare.
Also was there a mention of the car following the dirt line? It seems to me it loses traction way before that, and most likely disengages.
Who was driving? Autopilot or "the person in the driver’s seat [who] is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."[1]?
That's a red herring, full self driving is not enabled in any car and drivers are fully aware. I failed to find any more information on this video. The dashboard is not visible, there is no sound, no way to tell if Autopilot was engaged or not, or if the car is even a Tesla.
Also, I believe off-ramp functionality was only added recently with 'navigate on autopilot', if someone tried this without taking over as instructed, well...
Tesla’s self-driving promises are reaching Theranos levels of sheer implausibility. The frustrating part is that they don’t need to make these absurd claims about self-driving; they already have a successful electric car business.
Except that they actually have a limited form of self-driving, which has proven successful over millions of miles of driving?
Comparing something to Theranos only works if that something doesn't have a working product. You can see that Tesla's autopilot works. It isn't perfect yet but it is a real thing.
It's becoming hard to believe anything that Tesla puts out or Elon says. It is a real shame the $35K 3 turned out to be a lie, the amount of PR that phrase has generated over the years is on par with all of SpaceX.
Leases are rentals. A true lease always has a residual, but nothing forces the lessor to sell it to you.
It's yet another red flag for buying a Tesla, as if you have something happen that is an uninsured liability to the car, or won't be resolved in the timeframe at the lease, you're stuck.
This quote serves three purposes: (1) It emphasizes the value in software, not the car's 'carcass'; (2) It hypes a future marketplace and business model for Tesla's stock purchasers; (3) It tells the customer that they are better off buying the good instead of renting.
I agree that it seems to be a rental. If the business expects to continue to make updates to the car's software assuming that it will be determining factors for its value, it will be difficult to determine the residual value at the end.
Does that mean that leases will cease to exist? That we will find a way to price the software updates? or that older cars will stop being updated the same way cellphones & OS systems are?
This has nothing to do with FSD. Tesla can now set the lease rate with a very artificially low residual value so they can charge more monthly (but is offset somewhat by the capitalized cost deduction of the tax rebate), and then actually sell the car at market value after 3 years.
It's one way to double dip on the same vehicle and get more than 100% in revenue in respect to the original MSRP.
But sure throw that line in to cash in on the hype of ride sharing IPOs and FSD so they can raise a nice equity round in the near future.
When would they be able to book the monthly lease, and the subsequent sale to their bottom line? It seems like a lease wouldn’t be the best method to help the short term finances.
Tesla seems to be coy about the terms - for example, how much does it cost to exceed the annual mileage cap? At the end of a lease, would you get a discount on a subsequent lease or purchase?
This is all probably moot, as I imagine Tesla's lease has a clause allowing it to unilaterally change the rules at any time, and it has displayed no reticence in doing so over other issues.
It’s also interesting that they would even give the context that they plan on using these cars as part of a self driving network. Any other company could and would only say that there is no option for buyout and leave it at that.
It’s not unreasonable to heavily critique the fact that Tesla deadlines are blown repeatedly, and yet who among us has gone from 0 to 300k+ vehicles manufacturer and sold per year in 12 years and delivered an EV into an elliptical orbit with a privately developed heavy lift vehicle?
Don’t say something is impossible while someone else is delivering, slowly and missed deadlines or not.
@sbov (deleted reply while I was replying)
> So are you saying Elon's statement was right? Or are you just saying "its hard, give him some slack for making statements he knows are complete bullshit"?
A pessimist’s “bullshit” is an optimist’s missed deadline and inaccurate forecasting.
It’s not unreasonable to heavily critique the fact that Tesla deadlines are blown repeatedly, and yet who among us has gone from 0 to 300k+ vehicles manufacturer and sold per year in 12 years?
Well, for starters the Korean automakers managed to go from 0 to several hundred thousand vehicles in under 5 years. Kia went from 26 cars to 95,000 in a year...
A pessimist’s “bullshit” is an optimist’s missed deadline and inaccurate forecasting
An occasional missed deadline is one thing. But missing every self-proclaimed deadline? That's not just inaccurate forecasting--at some point that crosses the line into fraud.
Aren't those solved problems though? Like, you're talking manufacturing and scaling up production, and there are other examples of heavy lift vehicles. While they are absolutely great accomplishments, it's tweaks on previous formulas.
There are no fully autonomous cars, he'd have to break entirely new ground for that.
> Aren't those solved problems though? Like, you're talking manufacturing and scaling up production, and there are other examples of heavy lift vehicles. While they are absolutely great accomplishments, it's tweaks on previous formulas.
Not at all. I'm unaware of any other heavy lift vehicles developed by a non-government entity that fly for $90 million (versus Delta Heavy's $350 million cost) and are completely reusable besides the second stage and the fairings. I'm unaware of any auto company created in the last century in the US, besides Tesla (and the ghost of GM shepherded through bankruptcy by the Obama administration), that is still in business [1].
So to answer your question, these are "solved" in the same way if you proposed to yourself, "Hey, I can build an iPhone because Apple can build and iPhone". Could you? Absolutely. Are you discounting the enormous amount of work and capital necessary to pull it off? Absolutely.
Your defense against Tesla’s missed deadlines is that its CEO is busy doing things with his other companies? The Obama administration also “shepherded” the massive EV subsidies that Tesla baked into its pricing.
All automakers receive the EV subsidies you mention, not just Tesla. If you want the subsidy, make EVs! If you don't, buy ZEV credits from those who do (many thanks California and the EU) when you don't meet your fleet emissions targets. Will the US government support Tesla if they fail in the same way GM did? Hardly, because the GM bailout was a jobs program.
My defense is hard problems have deadlines that will be blown passed, and it's not uncommon unless the problem is incredibly well scoped or you're just lazy and set the bar low by design (ie most automakers).
This is not to say Tesla and Musk don't have problems; they do, but credit should be provided where due.
There seems to be more than a few auto companies made in the last century[1]. I'm not saying he's not making these things better, but they existed previous to his invention - which bits of the lifter are completely novel? Complete automation would be entirely novel - it's not just a matter of finding a cheaper/better way to do it.
Novelty doesn't define success. No car company has previously existed that is scaling towards 500k EVs delivered per year, with the capability to manufacture 135GW of energy storage per year. The Horndale Power Reserve in Australia has not only saved Australian energy consumers tens of millions of dollars, but proved that utility scale energy storage could be rapidly deployed and is cost effective.
If these problems are easy, why is Tesla the first to seek solutions to them? Why did Tesla have to struggle to prove the validity of EVs to the public while European car makers committed fraud with diesel emissions? If you're an established car maker, how bad at manufacturing, supply chain management, and product development do you have to be that you can't compete against Tesla with EVs? Questions are rhetorical.
Again, not saying the problems are easy, and that Tesla hasn't had success, I'm just saying in the case of the self driving car, novelty WILL define success. I'm saying this is a different category of problem for Tesla to solve compared to others.
Perhaps, although I think full self driving will be how my kids develop. They crawl, they walk, they observe, they mimic, they vocalize, they can associate faces with people. They've become inquisitive. They reason. They update their world model with input. Slowly, but eventually, become a full blown adult. But there is no switch that causes it to happen overnight, and I think full self driving will be the same. You will see a feature here (lane keeping), a feature there (red light detection), an improved feature (automatic emergency braking reliably using the camera and structure from motion to assist front facing radar in discriminating potential obstacles), and all of a sudden you find yourself in a full self driving car (just as one day I'll look at my kids and think, "you're people now!").
fairings will be reused from this FH launch, so the only part not being reused is the second stage.
Who cares that the "promised" deadline for Falcon Heavy and rapid reusability was also blown several times. This result is something completely unimaginable couple of years ago and nobody is currently able to match it. It will be similar with Tesla, only much more people feel entitled to talk about cars than rockets, so they forget the bigger picture.
I think it's part of the strategy. These deadlines are eventually blown, but even then what we get in the end is pretty remarkable. I guess the hyper ambitious attitude actually attracts people who then make it work. Plus the obvious media buzz.
Musk funded its startup, and was the driving force in building their own engines after getting laughed out of Russia [1]. Shotwell does great managing the day to day, and deserves credit for Falcon Heavy, as she was the one who told Musk they should still test fly the first one and offer it as a service (instead of going straight to BFR).
> The third and final meeting happened back in Russia. Musk flew there with Cantrell, prepared to purchase three ICBMs for $21 million. But to Musk’s disappointment, the Russians now claimed that they wanted $21 million for each rocket, and then taunted the future SpaceX founder. As Cantrell recounted to Esquire:
> “They said, ‘Oh, little boy, you don’t have the money?”
> This insulting event, however, played a part in inspiring Musk to found SpaceX, which in 2017 alone has successfully launched nine rockets into space and has twelve more launches on the docket this year. On the flight back, Musk turned to Cantrell and said:
You can get from one coast to the other entirely on a single interstate highway (e.g. I-80), and do it in dry weather and clear conditions. It's the easiest possible thing for an autonomous car to do and is basically just adaptive cruise control.
The hard part is making it work with crazy cyclists on city streets and blizzard conditions and defending against malicious adversaries who purposely try to confuse the car into crashing into something.
"Given the popularity of the Standard Plus relative to the Standard, we have made the decision to simplify our production operations to better optimize cost, minimize complexity and streamline operations. As a result, Model 3 Standard will now be a software-limited version of the Standard Plus, and we are taking it off the online ordering menu, which just means that to get it, customers will need to call us or visit any one of the several hundred Tesla stores. Deliveries of Model 3 Standard will begin this weekend."
"Its range will be limited by 10%, and several features will be disabled via software (including our onboard music streaming service, navigation with live traffic visualization, and heated seats). Similar to other software-limited vehicles produced in the past, Standard customers will have the option to upgrade to a Standard Plus at any time. Similarly, anyone who has already bought Standard Plus and wants to convert to Standard is welcome to do so, and we will provide a refund for the difference in cost."
It's pretty confident to offer both upgrade and downgrade options between the two.
The downgrade offer is only for those who had already ordered. Not that you can downgrade at any time. It makes sense to offer this as your choice might have been influenced by the "permanency" of the decision.
They use the cheapest model to try to lure customers in and upsell them. That is why it is not available online. They don't want to sell the SR; they are likely losing money on it.
They were originally going to sell a physically different Standard Range model. Manually adjusting cloth seats, fewer speakers, a more basic center console, etc.
The update is that they won't be making a physically distinct Standard Range model, it will be physically the same as the $39k model with software limitations.
I thought they were saying they're going to stop selling the current standard one, and the new "standard" will be the software limited plus, and that it will only be available at a store and not online.
As far as I know they never delivered any of the Standard Range cars with cloth seats, and this sound like they don't plan to for the forseeable future.
I get the strong impression that even as a loss leader, the $35,000 figure was based on some back of envelope calculations. We know that they have had to expand or increase the cost in several ways since they started production.
I know they really want to make the Model T of electric cars, but it took about a decade of development for Ford to deliver one under $500. And I don't think Tesla has quite mastered the science of car production yet.
Maybe unrealistic in the end but I think they realized it was cheaper to not change up the assembly line too much and instead just build them all with the same interior options. Removing extra speakers is easy, not installing all the ambient lighting is simple, swapping out a leather interior with cloth isn't as that not only is a large item it means you need to secure supplies for an option that may not have sufficient uptake to get a good discount.
plus the added bonus is that you can yourself choose to buy features you skipped out on earlier. It also would be a boon for resale as well. Letting the buyer decide to add options you passed on.
35k base model should probably been adjusted for inflation but Musk's ego boxed Tesla. Let alone that its one thousand or twelve hundred in delivery plus taxes on top of that 35k price so there never really is a 35k car. In the end I look at it this way, if your budget is so inflexible that less than a five percent change in price is make or break you should not be buying it in the first place.
Getting to 37k isn't a bad accomplishment. It may not be the big number, but its still a pretty good price point. Hopefully this is the end of the chaos pricing has been the past few weeks.
I wonder if there will ever be a sub 30k car by Tesla someday. The average new car is around 37k now, so about half the market is under that.
Maybe if Musk actually listened to the people he hires, they could have, you know, foreseen these kinds of things. The kind of things that car manufacturers forecast on a daily basis. Why is Tesla so uniquely chaotic?
I believe it was an outright lie, an effort to solicit deposits and lure people into a bait-and-switch of higher priced models. All evidence to date suggests I'm right. Of course, they're never going to come out and say 'we fooled you' but I don't know what level of evidence people need before they reach the conclusion for themselves.
The evidence that 3 years later, no base models have actually been delivered, those that were finally able to order them were bait and switched into upgrading or face even longer delivery timelines?
Ah, another Tesla announcement that's backtracked after a couple of weeks.
Purely as an outsider looking in it seems like there's a lot of caveat emptor about buying a Tesla: wait times seem apt to increase, models seem like they'll be arbitrarily subject to conditions, and random conditions seem to get attached about which models can and can't use chargers.
There also seems a high likelihood of waiting a long time and paying $2,500 deposit for something which never arrives. And if you do get stiffed, there seems to be an attitude of 'it's your fault' (usually for not spending even more money with Tesla).
Not the kind of consistency I'd want when making an investment in a car, to be honest.
If you were buying a car, would you not judge it by its merits, such as its handling abilities, safety, fuel costs, pollution, and ability to get you from A to B? That is the kind of consistency which most people look for when buying a car.
Maybe if they hadn't included $5,000+ worth of (fake) "full self-driving" hardware by default into all Model 3s, they wouldn't have needed to do this, and maybe they would've been able to make the base Model 3 a little cheaper, too, which I'm sure would've positively impacted its popularity (I think a $29,900 base Model 3 would be far more popular than Standard Plus).
I could understand all the other carmakers being lured by the bells and whistles of "self-driving" marketing blitz over turning their cars into EVs, but I expected more from Tesla.
Making great EVs that are also affordable should have always remained Tesla's #1 priority. Last I checked, Musk said he wanted the world to switch to EVs and the way to do that is through them making cheaper EVs with each generation. The priority shouldn't be to keep adding gimmicks to those Teslas and keeping them more expensive than they need to be. Has he forgotten that?
I don't know if the cost is ~$5K to Tesla, but I for one am sold on their EV business and less so the 'self-driving capabilities'.
I think all these self-driving options are being bundled into it because other car companies already add various forms of adaptive cruise/lane-keep to their base models so Tesla wants to have these things to stay competitive (prob adding the 'advanced functionality' to seem like they have a competitive edge).
I wish that Tesla did have a non-smart car option. On the flip side, that makes me sound like one of the tech late-adopters who didn't "need" a smartphone, where a regular phone could have sufficed. In 5 years time, there may not be non-AI (not necessarily full self-driving) cars.
I've been considering a Tesla. Buying the base model with zero options just never really crossed my mind. Seems that's the case for a lot of Tesla buyers.
For me it's like buying a base laptop. For my personal one, I'll always max the SSD and memory.
Would love one with computers minimized and privacy as a first-class concern, just like Adama did in the newer Battlestar Galactica, haha.
(I do like the feature where the car slows/stops when it encounters an obstacle directly ahead. As far as I know it shouldn't require machine-learning/privacy invasion, but it is harder and harder to get one without the other.)
Automatic emergency braking is a pretty standard/available feature on a lot of cars.
Not sure about the privacy invasion part? I believe a lot of cars with AEB don’t have cellular connections so how could they invade privacy? I’m thinking of stuff like Honda Sensing or Subaru EyeSight here, or whatever Toyota puts on the Prius.
Not an expert on car hardware. However, I do know it is difficult to buy a car without computers in everything. Computers that record tons of data. Just because they don't have modems doesn't mean they don't spill everything at the dealer/smog-check when the cable is connected.
In electric cars such as Tesla, all this has been accelerated. In a recent thread, folks told stories of buying a used car, and receiving the PII and driving history of the previous owner.
It is also used against you, but never for you in regards to law-enforcement. Good reason to be skeptical.
Once again I gotta say the negativity is astounding. People are so stoked to be rooting for this American tech company to fail. I really don't get it.
The main gripe I see is that Tesla misses deadlines or makes promises they cannot fulfill. Is this not super common in nearly every industry? Have none of you missed deadlines?
I remember this article[1]from last year stating GM would release fully autonomous cars with no steering wheel in 2019! Yet clearly that is not going to happen and I never heard any backlash, but I guess it's not cool to hate GM.
I also am astounded to see people constantly saying Autonomy is a decade+ away. They already have cars driving people 95% of their miles, which would've seemed impossible 6 years ago, and yet here we are, and the last 5% is going to take a decade? How many times are people going to doubt Elon before they realize they're betting against someone whose done the impossible many times over.
>Once again I gotta say the negativity is astounding.
How do you figure what they did should be something that is considered a positive? They are raising the price of the base car that was supposed to be for the masses. Now granted to a degree it was a bait and switch anyway given that most people interested in the car want the bells and whistles that they don't get on the base model anyway. Raising the base price to me seems to be something that should be considered a negative no matter the auto maker.
>astounded to see people constantly saying Autonomy is a decade+ away.
Because in all likelihood it is. What they've done in the last 6 years is impressive but wasn't impossible. Even if 95% of their miles can be done autonomously the other 5% is not to be snuffed at as being just as easy. I look at it as 80/20. They've done the 'easy' 80% of it, but the problem is now you're stuck with all the difficult next steps (ie one off situations, roads with no markers, construction, user driving mistakes, ect) as well as the potentials for legal liabilities if they go fully autonomous.
>They already have cars driving people 95% of their miles, which would've seemed impossible 6 years ago, and yet here we are, and the last 5% is going to take a decade?
"The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."
>I'm skeptical. I'd be surprised if more than 40% of my miles were freeway.
I didn't mean this was the average but I probably should have said commutes. My commute is nearly all highway and I basically don't touch the car from on-ramp to exit-ramp.
>Call me when we have fully autonomous trains and then I'll start thinking about losing my skepticism about autonomous cars.
People don’t want them to fail. Some are frustrated by the overpromises and Self Driving vaporware Elon has been pushing for years. I’d be fine with Tesla saying they will be the best electric car company in the world with best in class Driver Assist but I guess that’s what CEOs do.
I plan to buy a Tesla in 2-3 years I just hope they can get their pricing and production streamlined before I do otherwise I’ll buy something German.
> So people want the whole company to go bankrupt and for 50k people to lose their jobs and we have no one leading the charge towards electric vehicles?
Some people wanted that for the big 3 auto makers too when they were looking to be bailed out. I'd say very few people fall into that category, but I think more so people are fed up with being over sold on Tesla. Personally I'd be more concerned if there wasn't people being critical of these companies.
Regarding the negativity towards Tesla: IIRC the specific author, Edward Niedermeyer, has had this same type of tone before (which is why I remember). So I'd say this is not representative of some general attitude, but of this particular guy.
Ahh, I actually understand the hit pieces. There is a lot of money to be made on Shorts if Tesla fails. I just don't understand the community of people who some how make being anti-Tesla a part of their identity.
GM didn't take any money for those cars did they? FSD is scammy vaporware, and they are selling it now. Tesla is a dishonest company run by a narcissist.
Spending 90% of the money or time, on the last 10% of performance, is common in my experience. The ratio may be not that extreme, but that’s the crux of it.
So I guess jailbreaking Teslas will become a thing at some point in the future. If all the limits are software only people will find ways to use the car they own in the way they want...
Which is probably why they haven't built any. They did the math and knew they can't make profit on it so they "announced" 35k model is available but tried to upsell all people who ordered it to more expensive models, and now they quietly cancelled the 35k model without delivering a single one. So they can say "hey we released 35k Model 3 as promised" to save face. But I don't think they can make profit from it so they are forced to sell more expensive models.
I remember reading alleged whistler blower reports about damaged cells going into packs. Perhaps this is the most cost-effective way to utilize the stuff they built in tents.
This article makes the change sound negative and confusing.
But reading the original Tesla announcement [1], it all seems reasonable. People were buying the Standard Plus model six times more often than the Standard model, so they got rid of it. Good.
Baloney. I'm sure lots of people who even wanted to buy the Standard model were put off because they never saw any actual deliveries of the 35k vehicle.
"Please note, customers who choose leasing over owning will not have the option to purchase their car at the end of the lease, because with full autonomy coming in the future via an over-the-air software update, we plan to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network."
Elon once again promising fully autonomous vehicles in 3 years.
Also, isn't this a rental? A lease normally has a residual, so you can choose whether to buy the car.