Tesla is refusing to do the right thing about ‘Full Self-Driving’ package transfers and instead holds its own incapacity to deliver the package over the head of its owners.

I just had a conversation with Tesla about doing the right thing about FSD transfer. I got an answer: a “categoric no”.

Tesla is literally using its own incapacity to deliver a feature it promised and sold to people, unsupervised self-driving, as a demand trigger to get people to order new cars.

The Context

For those who are not aware, Tesla has been selling since 2016 something called “Full Self-Driving package”, FSD for short, that includes advanced driver assist features, and the automaker has been promising that it will eventually result in unsupervised self-driving capability through over-the-air software updates.

At first, Tesla claimed that all cars produced since 2016 would be able to achieve that. However, Tesla quickly found out that it was wrong and introduced a new computer called HW3 in 2019 and retrofited vehicles with it.

In 2023, Tesla introduced again a new computer, HW4, but the automaker claimed that it would just add more computing power to improve capacity in the future, and it was still confident that it could deliver on its self-driving promises with HW3 cars.

In fact, Tesla CEO Elon Musk even claimed that software updates on HW4 cars would lag 6 months behind updates on HW3 cars as Tesla focuses on delivering on its self-driving promises on the older vehicles.

That lasted less than a year. Since last year, Tesla has been focusing updates on HW4 as it is reaching the compute limits of HW3. As we previously reported, Tesla is now using both nodes on the HW3 computer – meaning that it doesn’t even have any compute redundancy, which is required for level 4-5 autonomy.

Late last year, Tesla finally signaled that it might be reaching the limits of HW3 and said that it would provide computer retrofits if needed, but there’s no retrofit in sight despite HW3 falling now months behind HW4 cars.

With the questionable hardware situation and the even more questionable data pointing to Tesla being way behind schedule on its self-driving ambition, Tesla FSD owners are asking for a simple thing from the automaker, and it can’t even do that.

The Problem

With the situation looking dire for HW3, Tesla owners have been asking the automaker for years to link the FSD software package to the owner rather than the car – meaning that if you upgrade your car to a new Tesla, you can transfer your FSD software package, which you paid up to $15,000 for and Tesla never fully delivered, to the new car.

Doesn’t this sound fair? Tesla sold you a product they never delivered, and you are only giving them another shot on the newer hardware with a new car, which has a higher chance of success.

It doesn’t cost Tesla anything since it’s just a software package that it transfers to hardware that is standard on all cars.

Yet, Tesla has refused to do the right thing here. Musk was asked several times by Tesla owners about doing that and refused. Instead, he devised a plan to use Tesla’s own inability to deliver self-driving capability as a demand trigger.

In the summer of 2023, Musk finally agreed to allow FSD transfers, but not because it was the right thing to do. Instead, he said it would be a “one-time amnesty” for a single quarter. Tesla used this to boost sales in the quarter.

Tesla ended up bringing back the incentive four more times when it needed to boost orders, making Musk a liar for saying it would only be for a quarter. By claiming it’s only for this one time, Tesla is creating urgency in trying to get people to upgrade – instead of doing the right thing and offering everyone who bought FSD the ability to transfer until Tesla actually delivers on its promise.

Currently, Tesla is not offering it because it doesn’t need to. There are plenty of other factors boosting demand right now including the new Model Y, the fear of losing the tax credit in the US, and in Canada, Tesla just announced a price increase coming next month – pushing people to take delivery this month.

I reached out to Tesla about transferring my FSD on a new car this week, and I was told “the FSD transfer window is closed right now”. After explaining all this above to the salesperson and highlighting that it’s the right thing to do not to charge me $11,000 for a software package that I already bought and they never delivered, they agreed to run it up the chain.

The next day, I was told that upper management responded: “a categoric no.”

Electrek’s Take

It’s such a simple thing to do. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s also smart for Tesla as it reduces the obvious liability of having HW3 cars that paid for FSD.

At this point, it’s clear that Tesla will never be able to deliver on its promised unsupervised Full Self-Driving capabilities on HW3 cars. Should we really be surprised? Tesla was wrong before and had to upgrade cars from HW2.5 to HW3, which is now 6 years old.

Tesla didn’t know what hardware it needed to deliver self-driving then, and there’s a good chance it doesn’t know now. But even then, would anyone seriously believe that Tesla would deliver unsupervised self-driving capability on 6-year-old hardware? I think not.

Therefore, every HW3 vehicle Tesla sold with a FSD package is a liability. It makes for them to remove the packages from those cars and move them to more recent vehicles with a higher chance of ever delivering on their promise – even though there’s plenty of room for doubt with those cars too.

Regardless, It’s about doing the right thing for your customers instead of using your own inability to deliver a product you promised as a demand lever for more orders. It’s worse than the tactics used by car dealerships that Tesla despises so much.

As usual, I want to highlight that I think FSD is an incredible product, and if it was developed without Elon Musk claiming that it would achieve unsupervised self-driving by the end of every year for the last 5 years and Tesla selling the product to customers before it is ready, I think it would be much more celebrated.

But instead, Tesla and Musk are doing those things, and many people see it as a fraudulent and dangerous product. It doesn’t help when the CEO grossly misrepresents data about the program.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is putting the new, 600 km Volvo FM Electric semi truck through its paces as they work to decarbonize their emergency vehicle fleet and keep Australia safe from the devastating effects of wildfires.

The Volvo FM Electric is on loan to the NSW RFS for an extended test drive as part of a broader effort to understand how low- and zero-emissions vehicles can be integrated into the agency’s emergency services fleets in the future — and the early results are positive!

In an impressive display of capability, the electric semi truck tackled the 550 kilometer route (340 miles) from the services’ Glendenning NSW logistics headquarters to the border city of Albury with a loaded up RFS water tanker in tow. The truck and trailer arrived just in time to be displayed at the NSW RFS Championships in the suburb of Thurgoona.

The truck was operated by a two-man driving team consisting of Inspector Brendan Doyle, RFS Logistics Manager, and RFS Logistics & Transport Supervisor Peter Duff, who shared driving duties over the route to asses the performance Volvo FM Electric, as well as the heavy vehicle charging experience at each side of the trip.

“This drive presented a great opportunity for us to touch, feel and experience an electric prime mover on public roads,” explained Doyle. “It also allows us to consider where a vehicle like this could fill roles within our logistics fleet in the future.”

Doyle’s partner on the ride concurs. “The driving experience was sensational,” added Duff, “One of the key takeaways for me was that you could take anyone familiar with an existing Volvo truck and they’d be able to drive this without additional training at all.”

The truck averaged 88.7 km/h on the trip, with an energy consumption of 1.24 kWh/km — a figure comparable to the Tesla Semi, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims uses 2 kWh of energy per mile. The big Volvo required less than 2 total hours’ charging to complete the 6 hour and 15 minute trip with stops at Goulburn and Tarcutta.

Electrek’s Take

It’s great to see electric semi trucks being used in real-world heavy haul applications, as opposed to the easy-to-criticize potato chip hauling performances we’ve seen other brands put up in the recent past. As Volvo’s deployed electric truck fleet knocks on the door of 100 million miles driven, it’s hard to believe Tesla will be able to catch up.

That said, it’s happened before — who among us though the Model Y would be the best selling car in the world back in 2014? If you did, scroll on down to the comments and let us know.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Trucks.

Last week’s inauguration of President Trump stole the headlines, but it wasn’t the only big election news — a supermajority of workers at BlueOval SK voted to file a petition last week with the National Labor Relations Board to unite with the UAW.

The supermajority vote by workers at BlueOval SK occurred after attending a town hall-style meeting in Elizabethtown, Kentucky with UAW members from Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio last month. The Lordstown Ultium plant makes battery cells for GM and Honda electric vehicles and, like the BlueOval SK (BOSK) project, is a joint venture between one of the Detroit 3 and a Korean battery brand (in the case of Ultium, GM and LG; in the case of BlueOval SK, Ford and SK On).

The similarities were apparently enough to convince the majority of BOSK workers of the UAW team’s credibility in the traditionally union-opposing south. The move is expected to yield immediate improvements in working conditions at the Kentucky plant.

“We’re forming our union so we can have a say in our safety and our working conditions,” explained Halee Hadfield, a quality operator at BOSK. “The chemicals we’re working with can be extremely dangerous. If something goes wrong, a massive explosion can occur. With our union, we can speak up if we see there’s a problem and make sure we’re keeping ourselves and the whole community safe,”

Those safety concerns were echoed by other BlueOval SK employees who voted to join the UAW. “I have worked both union and nonunion jobs and have seen the power of a union firsthand,” said Andrew McLean, a logistics worker in formation at BOSK. “Right now, we don’t have a say at BOSK. With a union, we’ll be on a level playing field with management. That’s so important when you’re getting a new plant off the ground. The union allows us to give honest feedback without fear of retaliation.”

Ford paid its shareholders more than $3 billion in dividends, on a gross profit of over $24.7 billion for the twelve months ending September 30, 2024. That $3 billion would be enough to pay each of Ford’s 177,000 global employees a one-time bonus of $16,950. According to Ford’s 2024 proxy statement, Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, earned a total compensation of $26,470,033 in 2023 — a nearly $6 million raise from 2022.

The growing unionization movement among nonunion battery workers across the country, and especially in the South, builds off the success of the UAW Stand Up Strike at the Big Three, as well as the victory by Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, who became the first Southern autoworkers employed outside the Big Three to join the UAW last April.

SOURCE | IMAGES: UAW.