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Comment by nullc | Hacker News Reader

I recently commented to a new Tesla buyer that their car seemed nice but I couldn't see myself ever spending so much money on a car. They responded by gushing that self-driving would be available within a couple years and then the car would be making money and would pay for itself in no time so the car was actually better than free.

I asked why wouldn't they just wait until it was actually available and the claimed that at that point tesla would raise the prices to hundreds of thousands per car because of all the income they earn.

It took me a little effort to not respond by backing away slowly.

Are these beliefs widespread and is tesla promoting them? Or was I just talking to an isolated weirdo?

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That view is consistent with Elon Musk's statements on the matter:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1151163201569972225

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1117116982778679297

https://twitter.com/FredericLambert/status/11171180686547845...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1182826581070245888

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1151180650033995776

Whether he's right depends almost entirely on how effective Tesla's heavily AI-focused approach to self driving turns out to be. If they can indeed reach the point where Tesla vehicles can operate fully autonomously with no one in the driver's seat, he may very well be right. It would be a long time before Tesla would be able to make enough cars to meet demand and a robotaxi service would be highly profitable in the mean time, so market rates may very well reach upwards of $200k per car.

That's all conditional on Tesla being able to develop and deploy a L4 driving system before everyone else though. So far, early results on that front have not been encouraging. I suspect Elon has underestimated the difficulty of training modern AI systems to reach the level of consistency and reliability necessary for safety critical real-world applications.

anecdotal evidence with n=1, but I'm a Tesla owner who refuses to pay for the "Full Self Driving" tech, expressly because I think it's way further off and overhyped compared to what I'd actually want for the cost.

I especially think the "your car becomes a taxi and pays for itself" gimmick is beyond fantasy. I chalk it up to Musk being an actually mildly insane CEO, which has benefits to go with its downsides.

As for the cost of the car, I wanted an EV with more range than other manufacturers provided. (I also make use of the longer range on a regular basis--probably about 2 times a month?) (edit:) I also wanted a car that Went Fast. Not practical in any real sense, but a lot of fun.

There are around a dozen Tesla owners at my company. As far as I know, none of them are banking on their cars being a taxi and earning tons of dough. At least one has the FSD upgrade, and uses it primarily to back his car out of the garage on its own so his kids don't bang up the doors when they get in.

Also a Tesla owner (Model 3, have the FSD upgrade). I think Elon has a particular way of seeing the future. There are people that say FSD will never happen. But do they really mean that? Will people in 10,000 years be using a steering wheel?

Elon sees FSD happening between 2020 and 12020. There is no know reason that it can't happen. Well let's assume if we work real hard we can do it in 5 years instead of 5000. If it takes 15 or 50 or 100 years, no matter. That's basically the same, but the earlier we start the sooner we have it.

Of course, there are those who think there is some spiritual/religious component to true AI that we'll never be able to simulate. But Elon either disagrees or things that level of AI isn't required for FSD.

That's fine. Then don't say "your car can self drive" and don't accept money for a "full self driving package" till you can actually DELIVER that. Or at least add a disclaimer saying "* this may never happen, no promises but thanks for the money, lol"

In the US customers have the option to cancel the order: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/bus...

Is tesla accounting for this liability correctly?

To be fair, they do state that FSD features will be released in the future based on achieving better reliability than humans over billions of miles and after regulatory approval has been obtained.

All new Tesla cars have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances.

...[blahblahblah FSD features]...

The future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving capabilities are introduced, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.

https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

If FSD as described doesn't happen, I'm sure there will be lawsuits and refunds just like there was with AP1.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-autopilot-lawsuit/t...

But the refund after settlement was $ 20 to $ 280 while these people paid $ 5000 for a previous version of Autopilot (now it's even more).

The settlement was for the delays in delivering features, not because Tesla didn't deliver features. I'm sure Tesla would have had to much significantly more had they not delivered the features promised.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/25/tesla-settles-class-action...

But that's not how his loud public claims are structured. He says it will be done on this hardware in this single digit number of years.

I'm sure self driving will happen. But on that hardware, in a short time, and it's going to pay for the cost of the car??? This seems quite unlikely to me.

Any early taxicab self-driving (e.g. no responsible operator present) is almost certainly going to be bristling with additional sensors for safety CYA.

That may be the most forgiving interpretation of a person's actions that I've ever seen.

I've seen people rationalize Hitler, so I'm at least second ;)

> Elon sees FSD happening between 2020 and 12020.

Elon has been quoted, multiple times:

"FSD will be available, this year, 2016".

then:

"FSD will be available, this year, 2018".

and the latest:

"You will be able to FSD, coast to coast, completely hands-free, by the end of this year [2020]".

Turning it into him just "visioneering" is an entirely overly-complimentary viewpoint of what he has said and done.

Ok, that's a fair criticism of my reply. I think I'm preconditioned to take any date Elon throws out with a huge grain of salt, enough to not really put any faith in it. Others could definitely be misled.

I especially think the "your car becomes a taxi and pays for itself" gimmick is beyond fantasy.

And if it really did happen the way these people imagine, competition in the market against everyone else who has a Tesla would likely slash taxi fares down to within a few percent of your operating costs.

Yes, those beliefs are widespread. Just spend a few minutes in r/teslamotors. Lot of folks there believe self driving will be available not just in a couple of years, but this year and FSD for $7000 is a bargain because Tesla might increase prices.

I can't help but feel like that $7000 is an interest-free loan to Tesla for a feature that's only promised to be delivered in the future.

To be fair to the r/teslamotors crowd, there are at least as many people who recommend skipping the $7,000 FSD option as a waste of money.

I've run into people who believe those claims. I've also run into people (on Reddit) who believed that some wealthy billionaire was buying a lot of Teslas in 2019 and hoarding them in parking garages in plans of launching a self-driving car once the software can do it. When I pointed out the absurdity, I was shocked by how many disagreed. It took time to even realize how many were legitimately not joking.

Thankfully, this line of thinking is far from the majority.

Oh have a look at Twitter. There is a circle of Tesla Zealots that don't drive their Tesla . . . they go outside to "train the neural net". You see, it's not driving for a purpose or for fun. They're driving because they want their car's data to be uploaded to Tesla and used to train the neural net.

These are the same people who volunteer their time to help a multi-billion dollar company deliver cars. The same people who devote every waking hour to viciously attacking anyone who is merely neutral about Tesla or Elon Musk, instead of excitingly approving and encouraging of Tesla and Musk.

It's an absolute cult and I honestly think this is worst than the Glasshole scenario from a decade ago.

I paid $3k for the FSD, but not really because I expect it to work - FSD does include some features that are not included in regular autopilot (like navigate on autopilot, and automatic lane change).

I think Elon is underestimating the complexity of actually shipping FSD and I don't think the Tesla robo-taxi idea is likely to work anytime soon, but in a world where FSD did work I think the robo-taxi idea makes sense as an extension of what's possible in that world.

I suspect part of the reason Elon remains optimistic about this is because pretty much everything he's done has been done while a choir of people around him and in the press go on about how it can't work and will fail. The automation at the factory, the gigafactory for batteries, EVs in general, the model 3 etc. If I was in his position I'd discount what all of these people think too.

When you say everything will fail all the time people just ignore you. Eventually you may end up right about something, but it's not because of any ability to predict outcomes.

I'm happy to pay the $3k though even if it's an interest free loan because Elon and Tesla pulled EVs from an uncertain future to the modern day while building up supercharging infrastructure. In addition to that the software/UI of driving the Tesla is leagues ahead of anyone else in the industry.

We need more of this kind of 'failure', not less.

There will always be products and companies with crazy fanboys. This just reminds me of Apple with followers like John Gruber and others.

Gruber is a crazy fanboy? I mean, he's generally positive on Apple and likes them more than not but he's thoughtfully critical of them at times as well.

I agree with your broader point. I just don't think that's a great example.

Gruber has mellowed out a lot. Early Gruber was definitely _not_ "thoughtfully critical", but slavishly defensive, "Apple is playing 4D chess", etc.

At one point Musk was suggesting the fair value of a Model 3 would end up being north of a quarter million each because they'd make so much money self-driving.

Like a lot of things Musk says it's unclear whether it was a lie, whether he believed it, and whether that particular idea lasted more than half an hour.

Long before Musk said that, in 2017, I did a back-of-napkin calculations for economics of robotaxis.

Here are the numbers: https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/ac23f6cdd3b543b3b89d9f68...

With very conservative numbers I got yearly profit of $20k. Over 5-10 years it's $100-$200k. This is after paying off the car, insurance and operating costs.

So yeah, a car that potentially makes you $200k is worth at least $100k + $30k price of the car, given that it's money for almost no effort and you also get to use the car for yourself.

You're free to disagree with some of my assumptions but those are the numbers that other people are getting as well, when they bother to actually do an analysis as opposed to argument-less dismissals.

How many robotaxis need to exist before the market is saturated?

Probably on the order of the number of taxis, delivery trucks and semitrailers in existence, plus some more to allow for increased demand when the cost of taxi transport gets closer to the marginal cost. It's a big potential market, and extremely lucrative if a single company gets there some years before the second-fastest competitor.

The fact that your numbers suggest 10 hours of constant chargeable activity with only one 15 minute clean suggests they are nonsense.

And I don't really feel the need to treat every brain fart of Musk's seriously. After all, he was supposed t deliver cars that could drive themselves from the factory to the customer in 2016.

Edit: Oops, 2017. My mistake; I sometimes lose track of CEO fantasies.

How would you react if say, within the next five years, Tesla actually manages to implement level 4 autonomy (geofenced to regions shown statistically safe), raises the autopilot cost to $30,000 and takes for themselves 40% of all revenue earned on autopilot-operated taxi missions?

I don't know if you're about to back away from me slowly, being an isolated weirdo, but this is the company's stated ambition. Not with these specific numbers, but with the same broad strategic ideas.

It's probably a bit premature and in the region of fanboyism to buy into this vision with certainty today. Tesla certainly has its share of fanboys. But there's been many naysayers claiming impossibility of technological progress only to be proved hilariously wrong in hindsight.

Don't know whether you would accept a 1% or 50% probability of the above scenario happening in the timeframe I specified. But it's not zero, and the payoff would be huge if near-term robust self-driving turns out to hinge on sufficiently diverse, long-tail training data for computer vision neural networks. Tesla would basically replace Uber, sans diver payouts, with no near-term competition. No other company is near a similar position to gather real-world training data on a similar scale.

Tesla is currently betting their autonomous driving strategy on this. Obviously a big gamble, but not lunacy.

But the initial stated ambition was self driving by 2016, then 2018 and now "by the end of 2020".

They very cleverly formulate it, and you fell for it, because their ambition has been adjusted to "being able to drive coast to coast with no hands on the wheel" and you took it as "create a robot taxi".

What it really means is that their car can do lane-following and adaptive cruise well enough to follow a few highways coast to coast. With a driver fully awake and responsible sitting in the seat.

That's miles and miles away from a robot-taxi and they know it.

> you took it as "create a robot taxi"

I didn't take it anywhere - this is the company's stated ambition. Timeline - meh. Everyone knows Elon Musk overpromises on super-optimistic timelines to drive his teams harder. Especially on things that have never been achieved before. It's practically a textbook management practice at this point.

Maybe it's impossible and your derision will be warranted, we'll see. I love a good drama, especially when it comes to technology.

I have heard several stories (from nee owners) of Tesla salespeople saying almost exactly this, although it’s usually “within the year!”

I first heard it on an unrelated youtube video from a popular videogame streamer who was talking about their new purchase. I’ve since heard it several other times.

I am guessing the salespeople at the test drives have learned saying it gets them sales and, since nothing is in writing, it won’t come back to bite them.

> I am guessing the salespeople at the test drives have learned saying it gets them sales and, since nothing is in writing, it won’t come back to bite them.

Wonder if they learnt that from their CEO, who said "this year" in 2014, 2016, 2018 and again about this year?

> is tesla promoting them?

Well selling something called "full self driving" sure sounds like it promotes that view.

Isolated weirdo, but driven by the most aggressive comments Elon has made.. so, isolated weirdo with a lack of skepticism.

Have a look at the move from selling software to providing software as a service. You can make more money, more steadily, if you do not sell a product once but by one having recurrent payments and two by extending the user base to customers who could not afford the cost of the product otherwise.

Applying this line of thinking here: paying 50000 € for a Tesla might not be affordable to a lot of people ever. Paying a low amount to be driven by a Tesla taxi service? Absolutely possible.

Autonomous driving means no drivers to pay, also no driving times to observe or cars to transfer between drivers when shifts change. Provided there are enough customers, such an autonomous taxi car could drive all day long, except for charging and maintenance. Depending on the price of rides and the lifetime of such a heavily used car, it might indeed be a lot more profitable to include it into a pool of autonomous taxis instead of selling it to a customer at current prices. The prediction of this acquaintance might not be too far off if Tesla ever manages to make full self-driving work.

The problem is that most people do know about how much they drive each year. In the US, its likely to be at least 12,000 miles, and probably closer to 20,000 miles. With many of these subscription car services attempting to get $1/mile, that works out to $12,000 to $20,000 per year. That is actually a tough sell compared to a car loan.

You've just described the general mindset of every super early adopter. With virtually every early version of revolutionary technologies, there's just a lot of bugs to work out and polish to add, and yes some of these defects will kill people, but that's the price of progress. Personally, I'm extremely thankful that these people have the long term vision to see what something could be, fund it, and QA it for me.

Yikes, I had no idea Tesla's kool-aid was so effective.

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