Tesla Quietly Drops 'Full Self-Driving' Option As It Adds $45,000 Model 3 (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Elon Musk took to Twitter on Thursday evening to inform his followers of a new addition to the Model 3 lineup. This is not the long-awaited $35,000 version, however; the mid-range Model 3 starts at $45,000. Musk also revealed that the Model 3 ordering process has been simplified and now has fewer options. One that's missing -- from all new Tesla orders, not just the Model 3 -- is the controversial "full self-driving" option. The reason? It was "causing too much confusion," Musk tweeted. The mid-range Model 3s will be rear-wheel drive only, prompting some to wonder if the company was using software to limit battery capacity on existing RWD inventory in order to get it out of the door. But Tesla says it's able to build these slightly cheaper cars by using the same battery pack as the more expensive, longer-range cars but with fewer cells inside (so no future software upgrades can increase their range at a later date). While Tesla is promoting the car as costing as little as $30,700 by factoring in "gas savings" and all federal and local tax incentives, it did also announce last week that any new Tesla delivered after October 15th might not ship before the beginning of next year. As Ars Technica notes, "Any new Tesla delivered after January 1st 2019 (but before July 1st 2019) is only eligible for a $3,750 IRS credit."

Comments

Too much confusion?

[110010001000]

You mean "it doesn't work". Autonomous driving is a joke and will never happen. I can't wait until the new Tesla "AI chip" arrives though.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Spy Handler]

Elon is correct, it was pulled because of too much confusion. The autopilot kept getting too confused by white colored objects and pedestrians.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was never an option, it has never worked well enough to be a viable product feature. Pushing it before it was proven ready was a massive mistake and almost fatal for the entire company. It was retarded, but he did learn. Kudos.

Re:Too much confusion?

[alvinrod]

The real issue was that the name was a poor choice. People put far too much confidence in it. Maybe that was going to happen no matter what since people are lazy, stupid fools, but the name probably exacerbated this greatly. Call it “Driver Assist” or something like that. It’s not supposed to drive you around or be flawless, but to react to a dangerous situation before you can when it’s capable of that.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Koby77]

Of course, if they labelled it truthfully, how many people would have bought "Driver Assist" instead of "Autopilot" ? It seems like a classic bait and switch to me to gain market share early, and then walk back the name later.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Mr D from 63]

It was a carrot on an infinitely long stick.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Rei]

It was an option, it was never "pushed", and it was in no way shape or form "almost fatal for the entire company". Furthermore, contrary to bad reporting (including this article), you can still get FSD. What you can't do anymore is preorder it for a $2k discount; you can only add it in your Tesla account for the full $5k.

As a full self-driving pessimist, I have no interest. But of course it's always ever only been an option for optimists. If you think there haven't been endless discussions on the Tesla forums between the pessimists who think the optimists are dumb for giving money for a feature that's still in development, and the optimists who feel they're taking part in leading the way to a self-driving future.... well, drop by some time.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Rei]

No. You're confusing EAP and FSD. EAP exists, is usable, and is a driver assist, not full self driving. FSD is in development, cannot be activated by users, and is what it says on the tin - full self driving, not a driver assist.

Re:Too much confusion?

[AmiMoJo]

They Prunella probably realised that the upgrades they need to add to the cars are going to cost more than 2k.

Plus the date keeps getting pushed back, and people are going to be pissed off when they have waited 5 years for a beta and hardware upgrade after having pre-paid.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Rei]

Additionally (apart from noting that Slashdot hasn't bothered to report on Tesla's land purchase, hiring spree, and capital raise in China for the Shanghai Gigafactory): The $45k price includes PUP, which was from the very beginning announced as $5k. That slots the base price of the MR in at $40k (vs.the SR at $35k and the LR at $45k). PUP is, of course, non-optional at present, but they're steadily working their way down through the list.

I do however fully expect the same people who previously were shouting "WHERE ARE THE CHEAPER MODEL 3S???" to now start shouting "SEE, DEMAND FOR MODEL 3S HAS COLLAPSED", because of course, no scenario will ever make them happy, even when Tesla takes steps in the direction that they've been demanding.

The reason for this change is obvious, and the introduction of smaller battery pack Model 3s this fall had been a big topic of speculation on the Tesla forums. The reason is that Tesla's main limiting factor is no longer Fremont, or pack production at Giga, but rather the Panasonic cell lines at Giga. While Panasonic is accelerating their construction of three new cell lines (adding to the 10 that already exist; these are also supposed to be a new generation of faster lines), they are the holdup. By producing smaller pack vehicles, Tesla can produce about 20% more of them. This also means about 20% more customers get the full tax credit. They make it very tempting for people who were waiting on the SR to upgrade to the MR.

I, of course, don't like them stretching out the US market; I'd selfishly rather that they come straight to Europe where they haven't even started touching the demand for heavily optioned out vehicles ;) But it's understandable, given the tax credit situation. That said, IMHO, I don't expect that situation to last. I either expected it to be repealed or reformulated (there are bills in congress to do both of those things). I think there's very few people in either party who are happy with the US credit as it stands, as it's increasingly going to be working against US companies (Tesla first, then GM, then Nissan and Ford; three of the four closest to expiry are US manufacturers).

One last note is that their margin target for Q4 is 20%. With a 50:50 mix of MR:LR and a $2k manufacturing cost difference, and reasonable ASP assumptions, that means Tesla expects about 0% margin on an unoptioned MR, about 10% at the MR's ASP, and about 30% at the LR's ASP.

Re:Too much confusion?

[MachineShedFred]

Full self-driving != Enhanced Autopilot.

Enhanced Autopilot is still and option, and drives millions of miles without issue.

Re:Too much confusion?

[saloomy]

Well, lets get a few things strait. Autopilot and Full Self Driving are two completely different products Tesla sells.

Autopilot: Is available today, you can pay for it still, and it will work just as advertised. It is getting better and better with software updates (lane merging is smoother since 9.0, it detects objects around you more accurately, and will soon have "Drive on Nav" which will enable the Tesla to move between freeway to freeway intersections, weave through traffic to get around slow drivers, and find your Freeway exit.

Autopilot (for those of you who have never been in a cockpit), is a perfectly valid name for what the technology does, almost too perfect. Why?

1. Like autopilot, the actual pilot is required to be at the controls and aware 100% of the time. Pilots do this. They do not turn on autopilot on a 12 hour flight and go to schmooze with the hot flight attendants.

2. Like autopilot, its primary use is major causeways for the majority of the trip, not all of the trip. Sure. Autopilots could handle takeoff and landing, but pilots do this manually. Just like Tesla. Tesla say to use Autopilot on freeways. Tesla Autopilot doesn't handle stop signs and red lights yet, so surface driving (like when a plane taxis around the airport and takes off) is specifically in the hands of the pilot. See the similarities?

3. Like autopilot, it can help you avoid impacts. It isn't perfect, and can warn the pilot of impending crashes ("Pull up!", "Terrain").

Full Self Driving: This is a separate and independent feature of making the Autopilot handle self recharges (through equipped Supercharging stations), allowing it to handle itself on the vast majority of roads (including surface streets), and ultimately allowing someone to call their car to them from across the country with no driver required. This is the product Tesla took out of their "new car ordering" system, but allows you to add later (just as those who purchased a Tesla without the FSD option were and are still able to do.

Just thought I would clear all that up :)

Re:Too much confusion?

[Rei_is_a_dumbass]

Enhanced Autopilot is still and option, and drives millions of miles without issue.

Except for issues like driving into the back of bright red fire trucks.

Re:Too much confusion?

[drinkypoo]

They Prunella probably realised that the upgrades they need to add to the cars are going to cost more than 2k.
Plus the date keeps getting pushed back,

The latter is a real problem, but I suspect that more than the price of the hardware, the elimination of the discount is about having enough money to pay for the R&D phase they were in at the time.

Re:Too much confusion?

[dgatwood]

They Prunella probably realised that the upgrades they need to add to the cars are going to cost more than 2k.

You Vulgaris seem to be a little confused. The hardware upgrade might cost more than $2k, but the $2k was the discount over the "add it later" price, which is $5k. So the cost is $3,000, all of which can ostensibly be used to pay for the replacement AP hardware, because that's the only difference. I would be surprised if the AP computer were really that expensive.

The FSD package was offered at a discount because it was a long way from being done, and it was used to help fund the development of the feature. Now that the first FSD-only features are about to start rolling out, albeit in a limited form, it arguably doesn't make sense to offer it at a discount anymore.

Also, this will likely significantly reduce the number of Model 3 owners trying to get upgrades to their AP hardware during the first few months after they start upgrading them early next year, thus reducing the chaos a bit.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Kjella]

As a full self-driving pessimist, I have no interest. But of course it's always ever only been an option for optimists. If you think there haven't been endless discussions on the Tesla forums between the pessimists who think the optimists are dumb for giving money for a feature that's still in development, and the optimists who feel they're taking part in leading the way to a self-driving future.... well, drop by some time.

Don't we have Kickstarter for that? In any case, take what Google is doing in a tiny, easy, dry and sunny geofenced 3D-mapped corner of Phoenix and extrapolate how long it is until your average Tesla customer can have a self-driving car they can practically use in their neighborhood in most normal weather, for a fraction of the cost of Waymo's sensor package. I feel like they're selling where Waymo hopes to be in ten years, so they're not only have to leapfrog past Waymo they'd have to leapfrog again way ahead if any of those Tesla customers are going to get it delivered before their cars turn to rust. But as long as people don't care about being stuck on the infinite back burner waiting for that $35k Model 3 that they'll maybe eventually sell some day...

Re:Too much confusion?

[misnohmer]

The real issue was that the name was a poor choice. People put far too much confidence in it. Maybe that was going to happen no matter what since people are lazy, stupid fools, but the name probably exacerbated this greatly. Call it “Driver Assist” or something like that. It’s not supposed to drive you around or be flawless, but to react to a dangerous situation before you can when it’s capable of that.

You obviously never read the feature description for Full Self Driving feature (FSD) described here. It was not a poor choice of a name, it was actually named very accurately for what it was supposed to. Here are some quotes of the said description which appeared when ordering it:
"All you will need to do is get in and tell the car where to go."
"Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densly packed freeways with cars moving at high speed. When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you."
"Please note that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine,"

Then Elon added tweets saying how you will be able to sleep on the back seat while the car drives you, or how you will be able to summon your car from across the country.

I would not call the ability for my car to drive by itself from Boston to L.A. a "driver assist".

Re: Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a joke, and he's an idiot: adding more deaths to the tally with tech that isn't even close to being ready is not going to do them any favors. Musk is a freaking moron.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Cmdln Daco]

Panasonic is building a gigafactory in China? I thought they already had a lot of production there.

Re:Too much confusion?

[LynnwoodRooster]

So, selling things that don't exist - and still don't exist - in an effort to raise money to continue operations? In most jurisdictions, that would be considered false advertisement at best, and fraud at worst.

Re: Too much confusion?

[MachineShedFred]

Except for every product that has had an option to pre-order, ever.

You are not a lawyer or law enforcement officer. Don't act like you know things you clearly do not.

Re:Too much confusion?

[Kristoph]

There are autonomous Waymo vehicles on the road today - people take them on a regular basis. The question isn't if 'autonomous driving will happen'. The question is really how quickly it will become pervasive, and that is partially dependent on how well autonomous vehicles will perform in 'challenging' cities like New York and Boston and not only in places like Phoenix.

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Re: Too much confusion?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Ordering a Tesla is done online, and thus is subject to mail-order and online-order laws. Deliveries of items ordered delayed past the original stated date must be refunded, or at least you must seek the approval of every customer who pre-ordered to allow the order to stand. Failure to do so opens you up to $10,000 fines for each and every violation and up to 3 years in prison.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Rei]

Giga = Gigafactory 1 = The factory in Sparks, Nevada. The one they're building in Shanghai is Giga 3, and they haven't even broken ground yet (hiring for construction and the signing ceremony was only in this past week). It has not been confirmed that Panasonic will be involved, but it's strongly suspected, as they've expressed interest.

Panasonic does already have a lot of production in Sparks - combined with their 18650 supply it makes up over half of the world's total EV battery capacity, in terms of kWh per year. But it's not enough. Tesla's been having to rob cells that were allocated toward Powerwalls and Powerpacks just to be able to do 5k vehicles per week.

If you want to know who's going to be producing - and thus selling - EVs, just follow the batteries.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It has not been confirmed that Panasonic will be involved, but it's strongly suspected, as they've expressed interest"

Given that Tesla is planning to build this factory without a local partner and has no real experience doing business locally in China, it's in their best interest to accept help from Panasonic

Re:Too much confusion?

[AmiMoJo]

They stopped pre-orders for two reasons.

1. They will have to upgrade every car that buys it. They are currently on V2.5 of their autopilot hardware but have already said that V3 is coming. Everyone who pre-ordered gets a free upgrade. When you factor in labour and hardware, loan vehicle, the fact that thousands of people will be queuing up for it then the $3,000 they are charging probably doesn't even cover their costs.

2. They don't know when it will be available and are worried about lawsuits. The current estimate from Musk is 2020 (bumped up from the original 2017). If you bought FSD back in 2016 your car will be hitting 5 years old by the time the feature enters beta, and who knows how old before it's really working as they described on their web site.

Re:Too much confusion?

[AmiMoJo]

Sorry, I typed on my phone and screwed up. I did mean $3k. I think that won't be enough for the upgrades they will need, particularly when they realize they need to add lidar and self-cleaning capability for the cameras. Wouldn't want your Tesla to get stuck 2000 miles away because it picked up some dirt from a passing truck.

I expect the charge port will be upgraded too, to help it plug in automatically. The snake thing they showed off was totally impractical.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Joce640k]

Deliveries of items ordered delayed past the original stated date must be refunded, or at least you must seek the approval of every customer who pre-ordered to allow the order to stand.

Tesla allows you to cancel your order at any time.

Re: Too much confusion?

[c6gunner]

Yes, congratulations dumbass, you've just discovered that every elecronic system in existence has some limitations. Pretty soon you might even figure out that the computer thingy you bought isn't actually powered by magic smoke.

Every driver assist system in existence has problems with stationary vehicles under some circumstances:

https://www.wired.com/story/te...

Re:Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Causeway? Freeways or highways. Causeways are another thing.

Re: Too much confusion?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Note that per law the seller must inform the buyer and offer a refund. The action is a requirement of the seller, not the buyer. And cancelling (which seems to be happening more than new orders) can take months to resolve as well. But when you're funding operations on deposits, things get dicey when people want their deposits back. Losing hundreds of millions of dollars a month doesn't help the situation at all.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, moron, this is exactly why the adults here keep reminding the sci-fi reading Star Trek loving Elon Musk worshipping basement dwellers that there is no form of useful driver assist/auto pilot that can be trusted not to kill you or some innocent pedestrian. Not now and maybe never.

Providing the excuse that computers are flawed (no shit, Sherlock, that is the point here) does not excuse the very same flaws of computers!

Omfg you are just dumb.

Re: Too much confusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations dumbass you have reading comprehension problems. The original claim was that autopilot had zero issues. That’s completely proven false.

Re:Too much confusion?

[drsquare]

Oh look it's Slashdot's resident Tesla pumper. Maybe you could sell us why Saint Elon is selling people a technology that doesn't exist.

Re: Too much confusion?

[drsquare]

Who else allows pre-orders of products which will never exist? I mean other than dodgy kickstarter projects.

Re: Too much confusion?

[c6gunner]

Yes, moron, this is exactly why the adults here keep reminding morons like you that we rely on technology every day which has the potential to kill us. You think brakes never fail? Bolts never shear? Roofs never collapse? Aircraft computers never malfunction? Bridges never fall? Traffic lights never go out? GPS guidance never gives false directions?

You're surrounded by technology which could fail at any moment and kill you, but you either don't give it a second thought, or you understand the potential failure modes and are ready to compensate for them. The only time that fuckwits like you flip your lid is when the subject at hand is a technology which you are very passionate and completely ignorant about. Then you're suddenly super concerned and OMG it's the end of the fucking world.

Re: Too much confusion?

[c6gunner]

Irony.

No, jackass, the original claim was that it can drive for millions of miles without an issue. That's not the same as having no issues. It has now driven well over a billon miles. The data so far shows that after the autopilot feature became available accidents were reduced anywhere between 13 and 40 percent, depending on which numbers you go with. Even if you want to be a complete fucking pessimist and dismiss those numbers out of hand, we know for a fact that accidents haven't INCREASED. So yes, autopilot can drive for millions of miles without issues. If there was any truth to your rabid predictions of doom you would be able to present actual data to support your position rather than screaming about a handful of anecdotes.

Re:Too much confusion?

[haruchai]

Don't we have Kickstarter for that? In any case, take what Google is doing in a tiny, easy, dry and sunny geofenced 3D-mapped corner of Phoenix and extrapolate how long it is until your average Tesla customer can have a self-driving car they can practically use in their neighborhood in most normal weather, for a fraction of the cost of Waymo's sensor package. I feel like they're selling where Waymo hopes to be in ten years, so they're not only have to leapfrog past Waymo they'd have to leapfrog again way ahead if any of those Tesla customers are going to get it delivered before their cars turn to rust. But as long as people don't care about being stuck on the infinite back burner waiting for that $35k Model 3 that they'll maybe eventually sell some day...

Telsa has the advantage of have sensor data from hundreds of thousands of cars under a variety of road & weather conditions and through several generations of hardware.
The issue is whether they have the software & skillset to turn all that data into useful reliable autonomy. At this point I'd say they're still a long way from the end goal.
However the new Autopilot firmware v9 is a big step forward even if the most desired features were held back - and no one knows how long it'll be before those features are ready.

Re:Too much confusion?

[dgatwood]

Sorry, I typed on my phone and screwed up.

Yeah, I figured that you were typing on a phone, what with the plant reference in the first sentence. :-)

I think that won't be enough for the upgrades they will need, particularly when they realize they need to add lidar and self-cleaning capability for the cameras. Wouldn't want your Tesla to get stuck 2000 miles away because it picked up some dirt from a passing truck.

I don't think they need LIDAR, necessarily. LIDAR just reduces the complexity of the image recognition by giving you a depth map for free (computationally) and, if you have sufficient historical data, a very accurate notion of your car's position. But even if I'm wrong, it wouldn't be that expensive or difficult to install one of the newer, smaller LIDAR units (e.g. Quanergy) in lieu of Tesla's existing RADAR hardware, just in front of the front grille.

And as long as the windshield wipers can clear at least one of the three front cameras, it should be able to at least limp home at a slow speed even if the other cameras are thoroughly blocked. With two cameras, you have depth info, and it shouldn't even be limping.

I expect the charge port will be upgraded too, to help it plug in automatically. The snake thing they showed off was totally impractical.

I don't think that any charge port design would help much with that. The ports are at different heights on different models of car, and even with different tires on the same model of car. And you'll never get a car to line up the charge port to within a fraction of an inch where you could do something simple. It is far easier for the arm to just find the charge port and line itself up. The snake design is pretty bizarre, though. You could do it just as easily with a basic motorized arm or, for that matter, a pair of motorized sliding rails mounted at 90 degrees with a telescoping arm attached, and a single rotational motor on the end. *shrugs*

Re:Too much confusion?

[AmiMoJo]

I think they vastly underestimated the processing power needed for their vision system. Even with stereo vision you really need temporal spacing to do decent depth perception. At the moment their neural nets only consider one image at a time and the hardware is barely powerful enough for that.

That's where LIDAR really helps. The processing power needed to get the depth and motion information is vastly reduced.

As for charging, I don't know what they can do really... They won't want to put something in the ground because that is expensive, but it might be a solution. Maybe something on/under the rear bumper so they can back up to the charger.

Time machine

[p.g.king]

"any new Tesla delivered after October 15th might not ship before the beginning of next year."

To all those doubters as to Musk's genius he's only gone and invented a time machine, shipping cars weeks after they get delivered.

no, it was not just a naming problem, that's silly

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a flawed design from inception to execution. The idea that people "wouldn't drive, but would be ready to take over from a computer in an instant when they 'sensed' that it wasn't functioning safely" IS RETARDED, PERIOD.

In no way is that a naming problem.

Re:Que the law suit

[Rei]

Yes, we always love to hear the views of people who want to "que a law suit".

Re:blind item at CDAN

[Rei]

Yes, I always get my news from "CrazyDaysAndNights.net". It's almost as good as "www.geocities.comm.cz:8081/~globalpatriot/TeslaTruthNews"

Re:Que the law suit

[ishmaelflood]

TSLA closed at $260 today - get out while you can!

... That's not how cost savings work...

[Anonymous Coward]

>While Tesla is promoting the car as costing as little as $30,700 by factoring in "gas savings" and all federal and local tax incentives ... Can someone please explain this logic to me? I thought TCO cost considerations were Upfront Costs + Operational Costs. My interpretation of gas savings were based around this.

Federal tax incentives are $7,500, California gives another $7000 in incentives which makes your upfront cost of an M3 to $31,000 absolute best scenario. How do you get a TCO of $30,700 unless someone is both covering all your operational costs and paying you?

Just an example with made up numbers; If another ICE sedan costs me $22,000 with a operational cost of $0.15 per mile, and an M3 costs me $31,000 with a operational cost of $0.01 per mile, then you break even at roughly 64,000 miles with a TCO of $31,624 at that point. If you keep the car to 100,000 miles or so, then the ICE TCO is $37,000 vs the EV which is $32,000.

In no case does the TCO drop below the initial upfront cost.... Did I miss something?

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Rei]

California gives another $7000 in incentives

The California incentive is $2,5k.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Rei_is_a_dumbass]

You missed the interest you’ll pay on the loan. For a $45,000 car let’s assume a 20% down payment. That gives you a loan amount of $36,000. Rates for a 60 month loan right now are 5%. So your $45,000 car actually costs $49,762.

Since you can presumably afford a $9000 down payment for the Tesla, we will assume the same down payment amount. So the ICE loan is only $13,000. Also since you can presumably afford the $679 monthly payment for the Tesla, we can shorten the ICE loan term to 20 months. Making your total interest paid $576 and change. That puts the total cost of the ice car at $22,576.

The difference in upfront cost at $27,186. At current gas prices of $2.50 per gallon, that extra difference will buy you 10,874 gallons of gas. At 30 miles per gallon, you break even at 326,232 miles. Long after you will be sending that car to the junk yard and long after you will have to pay for an extremely expensive replacement battery on the Tesla.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops, yeah you're right. It's fuel cell cars for low income residents that get $7000. Core question remains though, how do you get a $30,700 TCO from a car that is upfront $35,500 in a best case scenario with full incentives?

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's the same TeslaMath that says you can lose $717 million each quarter - but you still make a profit!

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see where they've said it's TCO. You're saying
Total Cost of Ownership = Cost to buy + Cost to operate.

this seems to be total cost of buying Tesla compared to whatever ICE car. And they're figuring it as
Cost to buy - savings in operation. Which could easily go below the original purchase price.

Also, getting rid of cheap autopilot is obvious. They're turning the corner and no longer need to borrow $2k from a larger number of suckers, they're ready to start charging $5k from a smaller number of suckers.

And a point on the other reply about 717 million... Well, apparently LR missed the part where they were paying a lot of one-time costs, and were holding a lot of cars back (13k or 18k, I forget which) from sale to delay hitting the limit. This isn't a business 101 widget factory made simple for the peanut gallery to follow along.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I don't see where they've said it's TCO. You're saying Total Cost of Ownership = Cost to buy + Cost to operate.

I'm assuming they're talking about TCO as Musk talks about 'fuel savings' which is an operational cost, not an upfront one. Last time I check Tesla's Design Studio website does the same thing; the car selector shows the purchase price with gas price subtracted off of it.

>this seems to be total cost of buying Tesla compared to whatever ICE car. And they're figuring it as Cost to buy - savings in operation. Which could easily go below the original purchase price.

Which seems really wrong to me.

Let's say both the EV and ICE car costs $35k upfront and use the same numbers before ($0.15c/mile ICE, $0.01/mile EV). At the 50,000 mile mark it's fair to say that you're saving $7,000, but that means that cost coming out of your pocket is $35,500 instead of $42,500. It's not fair to say that your out of pocket cost for an EV is $28,000 as it implies that you're somehow generating revenue driving an EV that is not present in an ICE.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[q_e_t]

You also need to take into account repairs, which are likely higher for an ICE as it's more complex mechanically. It still probably doesn't eat up the cost difference, though.

Re: ... That's not how cost savings work...

[c6gunner]

Let's say both the EV and ICE car costs $35k upfront and use the same numbers before ($0.15c/mile ICE, $0.01/mile EV). At the 50,000 mile mark it's fair to say that you're saving $7,000, but that means that cost coming out of your pocket is $35,500 instead of $42,500. It's not fair to say that your out of pocket cost for an EV is $28,000 as it implies that you're somehow generating revenue driving an EV that is not present in an ICE.

Nobody is saying any of that. They're simply saying that the price of the car is X, the savings over a given time period are Y, and therefore if you factor in the savings then the effective price over that time period are X-Y. There's nothing unusual about that; I'm not sure why you're so confused about it.

It's the same math as if you're thinking about buying, say, solar panels. The panel costs X, the monthly savings will be Y, therefore the effective cost of the panel after number of months N will be X-(Y*N). Only difference being that, if all goes well, the panels will eventually pay for themselves so that your "cost" compared to the alternatives will be zero, or even negative. It's still costing you money to buy and maintain the panels, but eventually the savings are greater than the original purchase price.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Rei_is_a_dumbass]

Tesla’s have higher repair costs than ICE vehicles.

Re:... That's not how cost savings work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, all the insurance companies I've spoken to say that BEV's require higher insurance costs compared to an ICE due to higher repair cost. Maybe that'll change in 5 to 10 years once there's a stronger supply chain of spare parts and there's more technicians qualified to work on BEV's, but for now ICE's still are cheaper to repair.

Tell me something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you LIKE licking your own butt-hole all the time? Please, for the sake of us all, take your tongue out of your butt-hole. Or, at least, stop eating mounds of cheese and laxative first.

Re:Que the law suit

[Rei]

In the past week and a half, Tesla has gone up 4% while NASDAQ has gone down 4%

Should have put your money in TSLA.

Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Anonymous Coward]

It was pushed. It was advertised as a selling point. Rei your Musky-cocksucking doesn't change the reality, "autopilot" is misleading and the feature was rolled out before it was ready and is flawed from inception, both types.

You're a cheerleader. You should be bouncing your tits around to the music, something useful. Breathless shilling accomplishes nothing here.

I like Elon too, but the concept was flawed and the execution was flawed. Deal with it bitch. It's not our problem, it's yours for continuing to vouch for flawed products pretending they have no issues. You are wrong. Period.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saudi-journalist-jamal-khashoggi-confirmed-dead_us_5bbf833ce4b0bd9ed5580498 - And I bet Trump's dumb ass buys this excuse too. You ought to go hang out with him sometime.

Exchange bullshitting tips.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[MachineShedFred]

Autopilot is still available. The full-self-driving option was buying vaporware.

They've taken away the vaporware option until it actually exists.

If you think they aren't still working on it, then you aren't very smart.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Anonymous Coward]

If you assert it would be safe for them financially to roll out before it's proven ready for anything, you're a fucking moron risking your entire company on a single feature upsell. Musk is smart in ways, very dumb in others.

I'm sure you're on that graph somewhere also.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[LynnwoodRooster]

Will they refund those who bough the full-self-driving upgrade, now that is is no longer offered and has no timeline?

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Rei_is_a_dumbass]

They aren’t even refunding the $1000 deposits people put down to reserve a reservation.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Rei]

Reservations are fully refundable. The $2,5k deposit when you lock in config when it goes into production is not.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Rei]

It is, of course, still offered (see above). As always, news coverage of Tesla is terrible. What Tesla removed is the $2k discount for buying it early. You can only buy it at full price ($5k) via your Tesla account.

It never had a timeline. And everyone who purchased it knew that. Some people are more optimistic than others about its timeline. I personally am not in that category.

Re:Rei you need to get a life off Elon's e-peen

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that Tesla isn’t refunding the "fully refundable" $1000 deposits.

Re:blind item at CDAN

[MachineShedFred]

Until it's coming from a reputable source, and I certainly don't mean SeekingAlpha, it's shortsville FUD.

Most likely, this is about repricing the full-self-driving option to be more realistic about what it will take, now that they have to replace the computer to get it done.

No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerleader

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They didn't confuse that, you're a cheerleader pretending Tesla has zero issues when the opposite is reported daily in the news. You are retarded for attempting it under the same name all the time at the very least. We notice that.

Face it, autopilot is a flawed feature in both iterations, auto and assist. If you can't admit that basic fact, at least shut up and let us enjoy watching the cars pile up.

Re:Que the law suit

[Anonymous Coward]

TSLA varied from 266 to 254 today. You're gambling (or shilling)

Re:No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerlea

[Rei]

Gotcha. The system that Consumer Reports rated as the most capable driver assist system on the market and easiest to use is, quote, "a flawed feature" causing "cars [to] pile up".

CR did mark other systems (namely, SuperCruise) as better than EAP in three categories, which were all different variants of "how much it nags you". SuperCruise was so limited that they couldn't even turn it on on their test track (they apparently liked this). Indeed, your living room couch would have rated better than EAP in this regard. But in terms of both capability and ease of use, they found EAP was the best system on the market.

This matches up with the IIHS results, which found that Model 3 was the only vehicle that they tested which never crossed the lines on any of their curve or hill tests and never required manual intervention to avoid a collision in their real-world test. It also had the gentlest braking profile, starting braking before others did. It didn't get perfect marks, mind you - it had several false negative events in the real-world, and in one of their track tests (not real world) it only reduced the severity of impact with their mockup rather than preventing it. But overall its performance was class-leading.

Note that neither CR nor IIHS were using the latest version of EAP (V9), which was a huge upgrade. All cameras enabled now, camera-agnostic processing, full resolution rather than half resolution, and 400% more processing power utilized.

Do you fly much?

[raymorris]

Do you have to fly much, perhaps for business?

If so, I'll just leave these statements alone and let you think these things if you want to:

--
1. They do not turn on autopilot on a 12 hour flight and go to schmooze with the hot flight attendants.

2. takeoff and landing, but pilots do this manually. Just like Tesla.

3. Like autopilot, it can help you avoid impacts... warn the pilot of impending crashes ("Pull up!", "Terrain").
--

Re:No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerlea

[Rei_is_a_dumbass]

Let’s compare the body count of Tesla's inferior system vs. the superior super cruise. Tesla: 3 dead. Countless accidents. Super Cruise: 0 Dead. 0 Accidents.

FSD option gone

[crow]

The removal of FSD is probably a mix of a number of factors:

• Most people aren't buying it
• The current price doesn't cover the hardware upgrade costs
• They might be afraid of lawsuits if FSD isn't available soon

I don't see Tesla worrying about the last factor much--not because it isn't an issue, but because it's just not how the company operates. The real issue is probably that they are expecting the hardware upgrade to cost $5000, and the FSD package was only $3000. They were probably seeing a significant uptick in FSD orders after they announced the hardware upgrades would probably cost $5K for people who hadn't ordered it.

I would also note that the FSD option has gone away for the Model S/X purchasers, too, though the reporting has focused on the Model 3.

Re:Que the law suit

[LynnwoodRooster]

In this month, Tesla has gone down 12% while NASDAQ is down 7%.

Should have put your money in a NASDAQ index fund.

Re: no, it was not just a naming problem, that's s

[Cmdln Daco]

The idea that people who have fallen out of the practice of even normal driving will be able to alert-up and be ready to maneuver through a driving emergency is so far gone that it's amazing it can exist as hype.

Just another fraud

[fozzy1015]

The feds finally told Musk to stop selling snake oil. Let's see how well the people who got scammed by FSD will do getting their refunds as unsecured creditors during bankruptcy. They'll have to get in line with the others who never will have gotten their Model 3 refunds. And even those poor sods who paid for their car in full and have yet to receive it.

So many different interests will feel screwed when Tesla implodes. I fear the biggest fallout will be the damage done to the true environmentally sustainable movements in this country. Solyndra was a drop in the bucket compared what's coming.

Re:blind item at CDAN

[fozzy1015]

Yes, I always get my news from "CrazyDaysAndNights.net". It's almost as good as "www.geocities.comm.cz:8081/~globalpatriot/TeslaTruthNews"

Funny thing is, this person was the first to call out that Weinstein was finally going to get busted for being a serial rapist and that Solena Gomez has a substance abuse issue. The guy has true cred. Especially compared to you. The cock gobbling you did to cover for Elon's 420 tweets and the Saudis coming to his rescue are still worth reading over for a chuckle. Have you ever been right about anything?

Re:No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerlea

[Rei]

Autopilot: 1,2 billion miles driven as of June.
Supercruise: "hundreds of thousands of miles" driven as of January.

Gee....

Re:Que the law suit

[Rei]

Thank you for demonstrating my point about cherry picking stock start and stop points.

One enters into a long position with an exit horizon based on their thesis. My exit horizon doesn't even begin to open until after the Q4 report. Until then, all this is noise.

Re:blind item at CDAN

[theskipper]

Credit where it's due, back in February he nailed the fact that the SEC had an investigation open:
http://www.crazydaysandnights....

Doesn't look like the girlfriend thing panned out though.

Re:No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerlea

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow, the user above you is right. You are a dumbass.

Re:No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerlea

[Miamicanes]

And... how many accidents do you think Tesla's system PREVENTED? Let's be honest... most of the people who use Tesla autopilot wouldn't exactly be the world's most attentive drivers WITHOUT it, either. Even IF they were going through the motions and pretending to pay marginally more attention, we're talking about a group that's generally oblivious to anything that doesn't capture their immediate interest, tends to daydream a lot, and are almost the textbook case-study poster-children for highway hypnosis.

Let me repeat. At least with Tesla Autopilot, SOMETHING is paying attention to the road while they're behind the wheel, which is generally more than you could say about the "drivers" themselves in real life. Forget driver's-ed fantasy and propaganda... in real life, Tesla Autopilot is a life-saver (or at least, a major paint-saver and dent-preventer) for the majority of its daily users. It's not 100% perfect... but the drivers themselves are FAR worse. And that's why insurance companies grudgingly tolerate it... they know that at the end of the day, drivers likely to use Autopilot are going to have fewer accidents overall than they would have had if it weren't available.

Re: No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerle

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, ignore what I said; I'm the dumbass.

Re:blind item at CDAN

[Dragonslicer]

Credit where it's due, back in February he nailed the fact that the SEC had an investigation open:

Wait, he knew in February that the SEC was investigating a statement that was made 6 months later? That dude isn't a journalist, he's a fucking Time Lord.

Re:blind item at CDAN

[theskipper]

They were under investigation long before the 420 tweet, and the denial in the Q2 call was legal needle-threading to avoid disclosure to investors:

"The action by the S.E.C. is solely related to events surrounding Mr. Musk’s comments on Twitter. But regulators had been investigating Tesla even before the tweet, and are more broadly examining whether Tesla misled investors about its production goals."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

Re: No one is as confused as your FUD, REI-cheerle

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure speculation. We know for a fact the intentionally badly named auto pilot had murdered 3 people, so far.

How many has it saved? You say lots. I say zero. You have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Teslas auto-murder-mode has improved safety one iota.

Re:Que the law suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you member Rei for getting up to post on slashdot at 02:47AM (local Iceland time)!
Preceded by four other posts at 02:40, 0241, 0243, 0245!
You must have awaken from your sweet dreams of that stiff 3 inch South African penis rubbing against your own 3 incher!

Re:Que the law suit

[drsquare]

If you don't cherry pick, and look at the market over years, Tesla is way behind the market. And that's despite being propped up by millennial retail investors and accounting fraud.