
Tesla quietly drops “full self-driving” option as it adds $45,000 Model 3 - okket
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/10/tesla-quietly-drops-full-self-driving-option-as-it-adds-45000-model-3/
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rconti
This strikes me another aggressive price discrimination move. The RWD Long
Range 3 has been out the longest, so there should be 0 'pent up demand' for
it. By getting rid of the RWD LR option and pushing all LR buyers into the AWD
version (and Performance), they squeeze extra money out of buyers at the top
end (assuming the profit margin is the same or higher on AWD models).

Then, they bring in this new mid-range model to try to shave off a few more
short-range (SR) holdouts and push them into a more expensive model; maybe you
weren't willing to pay $9k for the bigger battery (plus $5k for premium) but
you can be talked into $5k for a bigger battery (plus $5k for premium, I
presume).

It's also interesting how often they've changed the price on the AWD model;
it's jumped up and down a thousand a bunch of times. There's no reason this
couldn't be replicated by a manufacturer with a traditional dealer model,
except the dealers would tend to be annoyed at having on-lot inventory that
fluctuates in 'value', although I think traditionally dealers don't actually
pay for their inventory until it sells, regardless. And obviously price
messaging is harder in a dealership model.

The $35k Model 3 was always going to be the hardest to produce profitably;
we're either not there yet, or Tesla sees no reason to produce the lowest
profit margin vehicle until they absolutely have to. The backlog of US orders
must be low enough that they may as well squeeze the remaining holdouts --
although the demand certainly doesn't seem to be tailing off too quickly.

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kennysmoothx
I agree with you entirely.

The RWD LR model 3 was my go-to and the one I was considering.

With this change, they have now essentially replaced that model with one that
has 50 mile less range with very little savings on price.

Now the long range version looks so much less appealing as the price is now
over $60k for an AWD upgrade I have absolute no use for.

~~~
rconti
Well, if the numbers are correct, the LR RWD was $49k and this MR is $45k, so
that's 4000 less.. and the LR battery upgrade was $9000 more than the SR is
supposed to be, so they're effectively splitting the difference. But I agree,
it doesn't sound like a lot. (I'm assuming the $45k price assumes the $5000
premium upgrades that the LR forces you to buy at this point in time as well).

As another comment mentioned, you can still get the LR RWD this week. We've
got one, very happy with it.

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jijojv
This is really frustrating as someone who bought a Tesla just for the FSD.
This means the Oct 2016 FSD video was a scam and won't come to fruition this
decade.

~~~
andrewmunsell
I'm predicting that they are temporarily eliminating this while they work on
the HW3 suite. If they kept offering FSD, that would be more AP computers
they'd have to replace for "free". They already know the 2.5 computer isn't
good enough for what they want, so why give away the new hardware for free
when they can just bring FSD back later for a higher price to make up for the
difference.

~~~
nradov
Even if the computers are good enough, they don't have the software to make it
work. Realistically they're still many years away from software that could
legitimately deliver Level 4 autonomous driving on every road in the US.

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ceejayoz
Good. The idea that you could know what hardware would be required before
successfully getting all that hardware to _actually do the thing_ was always a
bit laughable.

~~~
tjoff
Agree, a big turn off. The whole "interior is ground breaking because it isn't
focused around a human driver" made me cringe so hard.

The car is good enough to stand on its own.

~~~
village-idiot
That center console _is_ designed around self driving. If they had planned on
the car being human driver for its entire lifecycle from the beginning, they
would have put in a regular instrument cluster or a heads up display.

There's no other reason to put all the vehicle information so far away from
the center other than planning on eventually phasing out human drivers.

Edit: to be clear, I believe that Tesla was way too optimistic on when self
driving would be available, and that over reliance on the center console is a
bad design.

~~~
tjoff
It was designed to be hyped and cheap.

Do anyone actually believe that any car massproduced today will _ever_ be
self-driving? (Without major modification).

I'm not bashing on Model 3, I want one. But I'd rather see it didn't have any
self-driving hardware in it at all. It just isn't ready for that.

~~~
LoSboccacc
I too believe it's quite not there and won't be in a while, but sneaking the
hardware on the running fleet allows to gather load of real world training
data.

~~~
ghaff
Are you suggesting that Teslas send a live running stream of all their sensor
data while autopilot is on, including video, back to HQ and that data is then
analyzed to find errors so the software can be updated? Because that's what
getting value from all those cars driving around would imply.

~~~
antsar
Nice straw-man. The cars might send summarized metrics, maybe even video
snippets of extraordinary events. That provides plenty of value while being a
far cry from live-streaming _all_ sensor data including video.

I'd still be pissed if my car did that without explicit opt-in, but it doesn't
have to be nearly as bad as you make it sound.

~~~
ghaff
I'm not sure what metrics it would summarize though. As I understand it, self-
driving systems mostly use supervised learning for feature detection. If
someone isn't flagging anomalous events/detections when they happen, I'm not
sure what having summarized data is buying you for the most part. (Sure if
there's an actual accident. But that is hopefully a rare event.)

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dang
Discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18252513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18252513)

~~~
Judgmentality
This really isn't the same discussion.

Edit: Actually I guess you could say they are, although the titles are so
different I think it will attract different people into the comments. I would
not have clicked on that link but I immediately was interested in this story.

~~~
dang
Yes, that's why we haven't marked it as a dupe. It's a quasi-dupe though.

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kennysmoothx
Why would customers pay for the unreleased FSD if its available for an upgrade
at any time?

Why would you pay for an unreleased product before is available having the
option to upgrade to it when it is available?

Tesla has been selling FSD for years now and it has never been available, why
would you buy it on the Model 3 knowing that?

These 3 questions are essentially the same, just worded differently.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
Someone
You might buy it now if you think it will be more expensive in the future, or
if you think it won’t arrive unless users send money to Tesla now, so that it
has money to create it (a kind of Kickstarter, or an investment that may or
may not end up being a wise one)

(If the latter, you probably are better of buying Tesla shares than buying the
FSD option now. If Tesla reaches the point where it sells a fully self-driving
car, those shares probably will be worth more than the price of that feature)

~~~
lathiat
Or because you can finance it if you order it now.

