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Comment by mholt | Hacker News Reader

Is this about Autopilot or Full Self Driving? The article is talking about accidents in 2019. But then it says:

> Self-driving capability is central to Tesla’s financial future, according to Musk, whose own reputation as an engineering leader is being challenged with allegations by plaintiffs in one of two lawsuits that he personally leads the group behind technology that failed. Wins by Tesla could raise confidence and sales for the software, which costs up to $15,000 per vehicle.

The $15k software is Full Self Driving, which is still in beta and has very clear customer warnings and consent screens before using.

But the initial versions of this beta software wasn't even released for consumers until October 2020, a year after the crashes.

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The context depends on if it's the PR and legal team talking or Musk's mouth flapping.

Is there a PR team? I thought Musk companies typically have Musk as sole PR.

The internet hive mind is the PR team. They’ll flood the zone with FUD better than any PR group because they aren’t accountable.

It’s almost as bad as gun people arguing about gun minutiae. Was it autopilot? enhanced autopilot? Vaporware FSD that was sold but people didn’t realize does not exist? Real FSD that is in “beta”?

Just like how reporting of some dude shooting up a nursery school will get derailed about mansplaining semi-automatic vs burst fire, anything Tesla must dissemble through the various bullshit.

(Gun laws deal in minutiae, so this is what you get in discussions concerning those laws.)

You're basically correct.

Both accidents happened prior to the release of FSD so were using Enhanced Autopilot. However, in 2019 Tesla had stopped selling the EA add-on and only sold FSD. They started selling EA again in 2022.

The claimants here could well have bought a FSD package even though they only got access to EA features. Either way, a loss here that shows Tesla knowingly lied about safety features or negligently didn't fix known problems would probably hurt FSD sales, even of the specific judgement only relates to EA.

> The $15k software is Full Self Driving, which is still in beta and has very clear customer warnings and consent screens before using.

The price makes this so much worse. If it were free and plastered in warnings, people probably wouldn't trust it. But because people first pay $15k for it, they now have 15 thousand reasons to want it to work and want to trust it. Paying for it creates a strong cognitive bias for disregarding any warning.

First buyers I believe got autopilot for free in some versions (I know for sure the X owners did) as well as unlimited charging. Still even those who paid for it, $15K isn't a fortune for everyone, particularly those throwing $80-100K on a car.

AP is not FSD, and aside from some early years it has been a standard no-extra-charge option on every Tesla produced.

And 15K may not be a fortune for some people, but wealthy people don't get that way by being frivolous with their money and a 15-35% bump in the cost of a car is definitely going to be noticed.

Dude. "it's okay to get ripped off, it's only 20% of the price of the car, no biggie". Elon must be a smoother ride than a Tesla.

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