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

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?

[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: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.

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.