I've recently been reasonably happy with FSD. But. I paid for it with my car 4 years ago, but I didn't actually get it until ~2 years ago, and even then, it's been fairly sketchy, and only getting a bit less sketchy with recent updates.
I believed their initial claims about what was then simply called "Autopilot", and I'm kind of mad at myself for doing so.
I'm also mad that FSD development has been switched to a new version of the autopilot hardware that my car doesn't have, and apparently can never be upgraded to.
The irony is, I would at least consider a new Tesla, were it not for Elon's antics and interference in US politics. While he's still there, I will never buy another Tesla, and I won't keep this one when the warranty runs out, at the end of this year.
I love the basic autopilot for freeway stuff. It's fanstastic at it and basically NOTHING ELSE. I can't trust it not to do weird stuff any other time. When it does weird stuff on the freeway, it seems way less risky.
I'm just sad Tesla isn't willing to go LIDAR, this is where they're going to lose. They had such a leg up as an early mover and all the advantage is gone. China's starting trials in SF and it's just a matter of time before I buy a Waymo licensed car.
Ive had FSD run stop signs. Like doesnt even recognize them and goes full speed through them its wild. I'm too scared to try it on the freeway because if it phantom breaks going 75mph I imagine it ends in pain, lawsuits, and possibly deaths. It is all so bad and I definitely feel lied to. Tesla told me in their app they dont offer refunds :(
I was doing FSD on a rural new mexico road going 80mph with a pickup hauling a boat behind me, and tailing pretty close. It phantom broke and I had to slam on the accelerator to not get pancaked. One of the scariest moments of my life for sure, glad I was paying attention.
Yeah this is what I mean by "doing weird stuff" on freeways the phantom breaking is pretty crazy, but it's quite manageable once you expect it/experienced it a few times. Usually like once a week/two-weeks on average usage.
The scarier one is in construction zones where the lanes have been moved. During dry it's pretty easy to tell apart, but combine night and wet, it starts doing weird stuff fast. I don't think Lidar would fix this problem.
I saw a Tesla Model 3 do this at an intersection in my city and I wondered if it was FSD or not. Went through going 25-30 without slowing down at a 4-way stop.
I love navigate on autopilot, but every time I try FSD once, something goes close to wrong that I have to take over and say I'll try again next year. Last time I tried it was when it was updated a month ago (I had a version from 2023 and recently got the latest FSD update).
I won't buy one new, only used and 3rd party if I was to buy another.
We all get to choose who we want to open our wallets to and I'm definitely not going to open it to Elon.
> I believed their initial claims [...] and I'm kind of mad at myself for doing so.
Such optimistic claims were inappropriate, misleading, unprofessional and traded long term trust for immediate gain. But in a legal sense, speculation about future events never compels anything unless there is a specific agreement; it's foolish to assume follow-through especially without (but also with) much history. So direct your anger at both parties respectively.
I feel like something is off with Elon and he is not well. Nowadays he's basically going against everything he stood for so long: freedom of speech (trying to suppress views that he does not like), climate change (now he does not have problem with oil companies), Negative impact of AI (liking/sharing fake AI posts to promote Trump), etc.
It is a sad story actually that his potential is wasted like this way.
It's just becoming visible for everyone now. Truth is, he was always like that.
Freedom of speech ? Tesla pretty much survived thanks to Elon's deal with China to build the Shanghai factory. He never ever said anything about freedom of speech there.
He also actively tried and succeed to shut down people pointing out online that Tesla finances were in a very dire state at the time (2018). Lookup 'Montana Sceptic' case - he found out the guy, personally called the office he worked in, and threatened with lawsuits, which would include his employer.
EDIT: I shared your point of view until quite recently.
My theory is some life extension or mind hacking thing he got into was tainted with heavy metals, and hes suffering from relatively severe lead or mercury poisoning
O rly, so when he announced full self driving in 2014 which would make cars by other manufacturers uneconomical ... He wasn't just taking out of his arse?
Or when he peddled his hyper loop, the concept from the early 1900s that is unachievable without revolutionizing basic science to a degree, that this hyper loop would become a mere sidenote in comparison
Or the solar roof village, which didn't have even a single roof tiled with working panels back then.
His whole history is just him making things up and simps believing him on his tall tales
Making purchase decisions based on a company executive’s personal political opinions is dumb. It’s a self own to buy an inferior product for political reasons.
5 years ago Tesla was a no-brainer if you wanted a EV. In 2024 it seems like competition has caught up and every year their lead grows shorter. Why pay extra to fuel their CEOs crusade about whatever culture war issue pops into his head next?
I wouldn’t say they have caught up. The self driving features alone are in a league of their own. Supercharger network is also unmatched for reach and reliability.
It's a rhetorical wedge trying to establish value without actually doing so. I'd assume they're a stakeholder of some measure.
People and their choices attribute that value. Not snide people judging the decisions of others.
Tesla or anyone will sell you a golf cart. Most of the decision is personal style, categorically subjective.
Nearly all of the people I know don't buy new cars or lease. They're at least five or more years from ever seeing an EV because of used car affordability.
Case in point: the boots theory. The car they have is better than the one they could maybe get.
I edited it endlessly lol, not sure how much makes sense to be fair. I actually deleted this post and sent it again, realizing I was making the same mistake.
The 'self own' depends on the idea that one is selecting against their interests due to distaste for a given CEO.
First, who are they to say this? Something not objectively the best must be evaluated to find where it lands. Merits aren't universal, this falls to the individual. You did well to get to this point in your post.
Second, let's pause for a minute and think of how contrived this is. Outside of social media, how often does this happen? I get the feeling this is a distinctly Elon+Tesla problem. However, we can't completely separate the man from the companies.
The "boots theory" talks about how it costs more to be poor, many cheap boots instead of a more expensive pair. This tries to explain some counter-intuitive decisions people have to make.
In this light, maybe people rank their opinions over dubious features in an overpriced appliance.
Knowing it's a loose attempt, I'll try to say something equally silly: anyone wearing a belt clearly can't buy pants or is trying too hard to impress.
Elon's been on quite the information suppression run this week. Adding a dislike button, telling his followers to bury left content, and stories about his attempts to "win at nuclear war"
I don’t know about the first two, but if we could build a missile defense system using American space capability that’s decades ahead of the rest of the world, is there any reason that isn’t an excellent idea?
No amount of wishful thinking is going to un-exist the thousands of Russian ICBMs. Personally, I like the idea of my existence not hinging on the mood of a dictator half a world away.
Because submarines. Submarines provide the sneaky vertex of the nuclear triad, and essentially serve as both the "dead man's switch" and first strike capabilities. We may be able to account for most ICBMs, but there is no effective technological deterrent for all possible attack vectors.
In the end, diplomacy (and the power to back it up) is truly the best way to go.
Great podcast, also Russia will just stage nukes in orbit so they can't be intercepted during their vulnerable boost phase. In fact they recently built this capability to do so.
There used to be a Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between US and USSR. Then Donald Rumsfeld pushed for a withdrawal from the treaty, and the US did so in 2002.
Then China had an anti satellite test in 2007.
Basically what I am saying is that your idea is not new, and it is not getting anywhere either. Trying to weaponize space is just more war-mongering.
>is there any reason that isn’t an excellent idea?
yes. Missile shields threaten the ability of an enemy to retaliate, they're first strike enablers (so despite the name, effectively offensive weapons). The only rational choice for an opponent would then be to strike immediately before they're rendered defenseless. You would have effectively bought yourself an immediate nuclear war once Russia perceived that threat to be imminent.
Your existence hinging on a dictators mood isn't nice, but what's worse is making it game theoretically necessary for them to glass you immediately.
I'd like this to be built by the US government, not a person who turned off Ukraine's starlink access on a whim based on his personal opinion of an international event.
> not a person who turned off Ukraine's starlink access on a whim based on his personal opinion of an international event
I marked this story to follow up on when it broke, because it interested me.
I'm no Musk fan, but I did find his telling of this story credible: Starlink was initially disabled in Crimea due to sanctions, the Ukrainian uncrewed surface vehicle team assumed coverage would be available all the way to their target, and Musk declined to extend coverage when they asked at the last minute, in the context of a specific, planned military operation. I happen to be a lawyer familiar with those sanctions---and how businesses tend to address them---but you could cross-reference stories about GitHub and others freezing accounts of people logging in from Crimean IPs for a sense.
Either way, I'd be careful with words here. I don't recall any reports of Starlink being shut down for Ukraine or Ukrainian forces overall. There was another news arc some time before about Musk insisting the government pick up the tab for continued service. But as far as I know that never resulted in any major service disruption. I vaguely recall it's now on Department of Defense contract, but you'd want to check that.
> not a person who turned off Ukraine's starlink access
That never happened. SpaceX was giving Ukraine Starlink access for free to the tune of 100 million dollars during the war while it was unprofitable to help against Russia and for that crime Musk has been demonized by false information and propaganda. Sad to see this misinformation even on HN.
Starlink was never active in Crimea because it's an occupied Russian territory and Starlink was enabled only in Ukraine controlled territories for obvious reasons.
SpaceX got an emergency request from Ukraine to enable Starlink over Crimea so they can bomb Russian warships, SpaceX refused since Musk was afraid of nuclear escalation. They can't turn off something that was never turned on.
Recently the Pentagon praised SpaceX for blocking Russians' illicit use of Starlink.
Wasn't it more like, "Here's some hardware don't use it as a weapon system", "Hey can we use this to blow up some russian ships?", "No", internet goes on collective Musk hates Ukraine and loves Putin tirade even though his company is actively enabling Ukrainian battlefield communications since day 1.
He’s gone on multiple Pro-Putin screeds in the past, and said in the past Ukraine should just give up and let Russia have the land they previously seized in the war in the interest of ‘peace’.
> Ukraine should just give up and let Russia have the land they previously seized in the war in the interest of ‘peace’.
Is it really that wild of a take though? The argument as a I understood it was, there's almost no progress being made for Ukraine in taking back that territory. Prolonging the war causes suffering to the young men who have to fight it. So exchange land for peace while still in a strong position instead of current policy of no peace unless a return to original borders.
I don't really see a realistic argument that a Ukrainian counterattack will recover that land.
It’s an incredibly bad argument, and anyone making it has no business opining on the situation in a public forum. To understand why, you need to read some history. Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
Its Russia's collapse that will give Ukraine its land back and make it safe from further predations. Russia has a tendency to hide its weaknesses especially from itself and all those corrupt government officials and militaries are robbing Peter to pay Paul and make everything look hunky-dory. And then somebody invades Kursk.
Putin has one tactic and one tactic only. Double or nothing and push painful consequences down the road. Well, there is an end to this road and it is mighty foggy.
I don't disagree and I don't think anyone is making the argument that Russia and Putin will be great neighbors from now on.
But no one ever seems to propose that there's still a possibility Ukraine can retake that land. I would definitely like to hear it, but for the most part the border has very slowly been moving in the wrong direction.
They’ll retake it at the current pace, but it takes time.
Part of the reason why it isn’t discussed though is 1) Russia gets really freaked out about it, and 2) it’s (somewhat) in Western interests for Ukraine to not ‘win’.
The longer this drags out, the more fucked Russia is. (Also Ukraine long term, but eggs need to be broken to make an omelette!). And from a western perspective, this is a remarkably cheap proxy war.
If we don’t count the damage Russia is doing to us through propaganda and social media manipulation anyway.
Yeah, that's basically how it went. And they wanted to use it to strike a location that the US was, at that time, still not letting Ukraine hit with US supplied weapons.
SDI was super destabilizing the last time ICBM interception was a serious discussion item is my understanding: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative Deploying a defense system creates a closing window that encourages a 'now or never' first strike.
The problem is that it's total nonsense. Even a cursory look at the problem will show you how futile attempting to build a missile defense system against Russia is.
The US has wasted over 350 billion dollars on this with nothing to show for it. And that's an attempt to stop one ICBM with one reentry vehicle.
Russian missiles are far more sophisticated and their launchers are all over the place. You can't stop them on the ascent phase where this would be feasible.
After that stopping a modern ICBM is impossible. A single missile contains up to a dozen warheads (MIRV) plus decoys all moving at several miles per second! There's no hope.
No amount of wishful thinking is going to overcome basic physics.
If we don't like the dictator we should depose them and support democracy everywhere. Instead we worked with Putin, we helped install him, Europe helped legitimize him. It's on us that we're in mortal danger again.
The titan missile museum in Tucson has a good poster illustrating this. Soviet rockets were less reliable but they had so many more of them that they had a 99.9% probability of reaching the target. The USA had/have less but they were/are more reliable.
I think they given the known manufacturing issues, and poor customer support at the time, whoever bought a Tesla wouldn't sue even if instead of having a car delivered, Musk would take a dump on their driveway.
I don’t know about Tesla but I know that Elon Musk is very careful to qualify all of his obscenely optimistic timelines with “I think that…” or something to the same effect. Most likely to shield himself from lawsuits. He was saying Tesla cars would be a self driving fleet back in like 2018. He was saying autonomous Teslas would be printing their owners money. Somehow investors don’t give a shit that he just keeps making up bollocks then never delivers.
My understanding was that people did sue them and got reimbursed for FSD purchases.
It's not a class action though - it's arbitration on a per case basis.
What is the average lifespan of a car? If the service is not delivered during the useful life of the vehicle I would assume it already qualifies as misrepresentation. 2016 is 8 years ago, I am sure plenty of those vehicles have put over 150k miles on them and have deprecated into nothing.
I feel like with the warranty usually lasting 50k or so, it’s reasonable to say many people wouldn’t keep a car, or have ever planned to, past 150k, even if the car is perfectly drivable 8 years on with that mileage.
My car is that old, and I expect to keep it at least 8 more. But many would have traded in by 8 years especially if they drive so much more than me.
Well after looking, there aren't any good reliable sources for an easy number. But comparing what state data I could find, it seems like 12 years and 200k mileage is the median.
So I maintain my original statement. 8 years and 150k miles for a car that is sold as a simpler (mechanically) and more reliable because of that mechanical simplicity is kind of crappy.
As is usual in these type of class actions, you’ll probably get coupon for 10% off the heated seat upgrades in a new Tesla after 10 years of litigation.
This should be unsurprising to anyone who saw through the lies from Tesla and Elon over FSD (Fools Self Driving) after the California DMV already went after Tesla over their false advertising. [0]
The worst part was that the customers paying for the system didn't even know they got scammed, as put eloquently in this HN comment. [1].
Intent matters little, consequences matter significantly. Strong argument exists that your comment focused on the intent instead of the perceived outcome.
This. Someone probably migrated the backend from Django to Jekyl and manually migrated a few years of blog posts and decided that anything older than 2020 was no longer relevant.
Very recently they forked hardware 4 and hardware 3 FSD versions… I wonder if they’re about to attempt to claim older HW3 capable vehicles can’t actually do “actual” FSD and only HW4 “can”. Or maybe only HW5.
Either way, they’re gonna get a line of lawsuits ready if they do.
The longer they wait to make such a statement, the cheaper it becomes (due to more cars being taken off the road, or sold 2nd/3rd/4th hand to new owners who don't care).
At that point, they can decide if it's cheaper to settle all the lawsuits and refund all the angry owners, or if it's worth making an upgrade adapter to fit HW4/5 into the slot designed for HW3.
Probably will happen, the unions hate Tesla and the administration was so scared of them that they didn't even invite Tesla to the presidential EV summit in 2021 where Biden praised GM's Mary Barra as the EV leader when Tesla had delivered over 115,000 electric cars in the United States, while General Motors produced just 26 EVs.
So won't be a big surprise if Musk is thrown into jail on some trumped up charges for giving optimistic timelines like a typical techie, meanwhile politicians lie all the time and face zero punishment.
Tesla & SpaceX have both made the government look like absolute fools. From taking advantage of tax credits for sold vehicles that no other company can even come close to, to building rockets that blow anything Boeing and NASA have been doing out of the water.
Why was it called an EV summit and not a union summit then?
Only UAW companies were allowed at an "EV" summit despite barely having EVs for sale because it was a quid pro quo for the UAW endorsing Biden early in his campaign.
It was a government event and not to include an American company that pioneered EVs made it a very political move.
Anyone who is still thinking to trust Tesla AP/FSD should watch this video [1]
Most of the Tesla's high stock valuation depends on them executing Robotaxi biz plan and seeing how Waymo cars are self-driving in some cities for so long and now beginning on highways, I still wonder why is taking them so long to understand the proven first-principle that LIDAR and Radars are essential hardware components to solve self driving and they just can't rely on cameras alone.
I get the sneaky feeling the idea of fsd with cameras is just an idea that is WILDLY ahead of its time. The technology isn't there yet, but will be eventually.
It's the middle part that's scary (where we are now I guess)
If camera based self driving doesn't happen at first, it never will later.
That's because it would be a safety downgrade, and the public never accepts new technology which does the same as a previous one, yet drops a safety feature.
For example, requiring a handbrake separate from the main brakes in cars. There hasn't been an engineering reason to keep these separate for 50 years, the main brakes already are doubly redundant. But people won't adjust laws to reduce safety, even if the safety reduction is so vanishingly small so as to not matter.
The issue with vision only, especially without IR is that even if it becomes safer than a human, it won't ever have the awareness of vision+IR/Lidar, thus be less safe.
People haven't forgotten the promises. I expect that Tesla will be forced to upgrade older cars with a new autopilot computer. It will probably happen after their next chip release. In fact, that's why I purchased FSD in the first place. It was only $3k at the time and already included one guaranteed computer upgrade (which I did later get); I suspected a second computer upgrade would eventually be required. Possibly a camera upgrade as well.
Tesla's "Fake Self Driving" is looking pathetic compared to Waymo's real self driving. Tesla was going to announce their self-driving taxi a few weeks back.[1] Now that's "slipped" to October. If it really worked at all, there would be Tesla robo-taxis with safety drivers visible on the roads right now. We'd see them slowly going fully autonomous, like Waymo and Cruise did. Nobody is reporting seeing such test cars on the road. We got to watch Waymo get slowly better for years, with public reports to DMV of every incident. Each year, the stats got better, and eventually they got DMV approval for full autonomy carrying paying passengers. Now, they're a routine part of San Francisco life.
So they finally stopped lying about their deceptive advertising over their Fools Self Driving (FSD) contraption?
That system was indefensible and has put the lives of drivers on the road at risk as I have said many times before. [0]
At least for FSD it is time for the fanatics to snap out of Tesla's lies over this scam as well as the 'promises' which Elon repeatedly claimed to deliver. [0]
After 8 years of cashing in on the hype. Better late than never. Especially when there are no penalties, and umpteen FSD subscribers sending Tesla money.
I believed their initial claims about what was then simply called "Autopilot", and I'm kind of mad at myself for doing so.
I'm also mad that FSD development has been switched to a new version of the autopilot hardware that my car doesn't have, and apparently can never be upgraded to.
The irony is, I would at least consider a new Tesla, were it not for Elon's antics and interference in US politics. While he's still there, I will never buy another Tesla, and I won't keep this one when the warranty runs out, at the end of this year.