I don't think I said anything about hardware or whether FSD will ever be delivered in the lifetime of the current fleet.
Myself, I am skeptical of Elon's timelines. But I also understand they are not his promises, they are just his (foolish, imho) expectations.
He admitted he vastly underestimated the problem… but what he might not admit is continuing to do so. I think he continues to underestimate it.
On the other hand, the power of compounded returns of improvements over time is counterintuitive, and he probably understands that better than most of us. Maybe he used that understanding to get overconfident, or maybe it's still beyond reach. We really don't know. It's still possible that at some point, his team might just crack it. Not just with vision, though. They will need a world model for things like predicting the behavior of a group of children occluded by a bus near a crosswalk.
The money back thing is another question. I hope Tesla offers money back to ease the experience of those who are bitter, but I probably won't take it back myself, because I don't mind supporting the effort even though it seems like the results are far away. I don't think money back was an option previously. As a matter of company survival (which in Elon's mind equates to humanity's survival, take it or leave it, but suffice it to say he doesn't treat it as a normal throwaway company) Tesla just didn't have the money. Now, they probably do.
> I don't think I said anything about hardware or whether FSD will ever be delivered in the lifetime of the current fleet.
You said "Yes the actual finished FSD software release does not exist and Tesla does not claim it exists." (emphasis mine).
Even if you didn't say it, the whole false advertising investigation revolves around the difference between FSD being a software or a hardware problem. Tesla marketing and Musk personally have stated clearly (at least in the past) that all cars sold with the FSD option are FSD ready on the hardware side, and that FSD will be delivered as an over-the-air software upgrade to all of them once it's ready.
If they can indeed enable (working) FSD without a hardware upgrade, then they have not lied (even if the timelines they suggested were wildly optimistic). If they in fact need hardware upgrades to support FSD on the cars sold with this option, then they have lied in their advertising, and people who bought this are entitled either to a refund or to a free upgrade when the feature is available.
Myself, I am skeptical of Elon's timelines. But I also understand they are not his promises, they are just his (foolish, imho) expectations.
He admitted he vastly underestimated the problem… but what he might not admit is continuing to do so. I think he continues to underestimate it.
On the other hand, the power of compounded returns of improvements over time is counterintuitive, and he probably understands that better than most of us. Maybe he used that understanding to get overconfident, or maybe it's still beyond reach. We really don't know. It's still possible that at some point, his team might just crack it. Not just with vision, though. They will need a world model for things like predicting the behavior of a group of children occluded by a bus near a crosswalk.
The money back thing is another question. I hope Tesla offers money back to ease the experience of those who are bitter, but I probably won't take it back myself, because I don't mind supporting the effort even though it seems like the results are far away. I don't think money back was an option previously. As a matter of company survival (which in Elon's mind equates to humanity's survival, take it or leave it, but suffice it to say he doesn't treat it as a normal throwaway company) Tesla just didn't have the money. Now, they probably do.