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I find it extremely unethical for Tesla to sell its customers a $6000 option to "Enable full self driving mode" some time in the future. Does anyone really thin

I find it extremely unethical for Tesla to sell its customers a $6000 option to "Enable full self driving mode" some time in the future. Does anyone really think that this will happen before their car is totaled/broken/old/end of life (10-15 years)?

rainyMammoth 7y ago
People seem to drink enough marketing PR to buy it. That whole company is built as a cult and as a PR playbook. Any other company would not be able to pull that type of dirty tricks.
- system2 7y ago
  *Any other company without an Elon Musk type of frontman. Maybe Richard Bronson could do it if he were a little younger. No one else comes to my mind.
FireBeyond 7y ago
"some time in the future"... ... while Musk promises "you'll be able to self-drive, coast to coast, this year" (haha, no).
- standyro 7y ago
  For a bunch of "tech visionaries" that Hacker News is supposed to embody, this thread is full of such shortsightedness. I self-drove from Southern California to Phoenix, Arizona, so I guess that's like 1/10th of the way. I couldn't have imagined that ten years ago. Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    Highway driving in SoCal on nicely maintained highways in the summer is the easy part of self-driving. Winter driving on local roads in Pittsburgh is the less easy. > Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away. He literally said you would be able to do it _this year_. That's after he said you would be able to do it in 2018. And that's after he said you'd be able to do it in 2016. And all the while charging thousands of dollars for the promise of it "coming".
    - standyro 7y ago
      You're right. SoCal summer roads are definitely the easy part. I bought a Comma Eon for a few hundred dollars and it does most of what Tesla's Extended Autopilot does. It's a solved problem, that's relatively inexpensive. However, if people are willing to pay Tesla $7k for the promise of a "coming" full self driving product that doesn't exist yet, I don't really feel bad for them. It's kind of Tesla's business strategy at this point. I don't think they're acting in bad faith to their customers, because they have a track record of (eventually) delivering great products, but their leadership is unreasonably optimistic. I worry for the future of the company. Whether Musk's isn't living up to his fiduciary responsibilities to investors, I have a lot of issues with... that's a whole separate topic.
  - javagram 7y ago
    Elon’s predictions have been wildly out of touch with reality when it comes to self-driving. In Jan 2016: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 “In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY” Four years later, summon works in parking lots at 2-3 mph, while a person is supposed to be monitoring and watching the car the entire time and holding a button to keep it moving.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      Whilst either "being distracted by a fussy child" (if you listen to their marketing copy), or "paying full attention to the vehicle" (if you listen to their legal disclaimers).
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    I use autopilot between Seattle and Portland regularly. It requires intervention a half dozen times or so, each way. Sometimes my wife makes me switch back to TACC-only, because she finds the interventions unnerving.
rootusrootus 7y ago
Agree 100%. It is now $7000, by the way. At some point in the not-to-distant future I expect them to bundle most of what they currently package as FSD and sell it as enhanced autopilot again, for a whole lot less than $7K. Then I might buy it.

rainyMammoth 7y ago

People seem to drink enough marketing PR to buy it. That whole company is built as a cult and as a PR playbook. Any other company would not be able to pull that type of dirty tricks.

system2 7y ago
*Any other company without an Elon Musk type of frontman. Maybe Richard Bronson could do it if he were a little younger. No one else comes to my mind.

FireBeyond 7y ago

"some time in the future"... ... while Musk promises "you'll be able to self-drive, coast to coast, this year" (haha, no).

standyro 7y ago
For a bunch of "tech visionaries" that Hacker News is supposed to embody, this thread is full of such shortsightedness. I self-drove from Southern California to Phoenix, Arizona, so I guess that's like 1/10th of the way. I couldn't have imagined that ten years ago. Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Highway driving in SoCal on nicely maintained highways in the summer is the easy part of self-driving. Winter driving on local roads in Pittsburgh is the less easy. > Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away. He literally said you would be able to do it _this year_. That's after he said you would be able to do it in 2018. And that's after he said you'd be able to do it in 2016. And all the while charging thousands of dollars for the promise of it "coming".
  - standyro 7y ago
    You're right. SoCal summer roads are definitely the easy part. I bought a Comma Eon for a few hundred dollars and it does most of what Tesla's Extended Autopilot does. It's a solved problem, that's relatively inexpensive. However, if people are willing to pay Tesla $7k for the promise of a "coming" full self driving product that doesn't exist yet, I don't really feel bad for them. It's kind of Tesla's business strategy at this point. I don't think they're acting in bad faith to their customers, because they have a track record of (eventually) delivering great products, but their leadership is unreasonably optimistic. I worry for the future of the company. Whether Musk's isn't living up to his fiduciary responsibilities to investors, I have a lot of issues with... that's a whole separate topic.
- javagram 7y ago
  Elon’s predictions have been wildly out of touch with reality when it comes to self-driving. In Jan 2016: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 “In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY” Four years later, summon works in parking lots at 2-3 mph, while a person is supposed to be monitoring and watching the car the entire time and holding a button to keep it moving.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    Whilst either "being distracted by a fussy child" (if you listen to their marketing copy), or "paying full attention to the vehicle" (if you listen to their legal disclaimers).
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  I use autopilot between Seattle and Portland regularly. It requires intervention a half dozen times or so, each way. Sometimes my wife makes me switch back to TACC-only, because she finds the interventions unnerving.

rootusrootus 7y ago

Agree 100%. It is now $7000, by the way. At some point in the not-to-distant future I expect them to bundle most of what they currently package as FSD and sell it as enhanced autopilot again, for a whole lot less than $7K. Then I might buy it.