Live data from Hacker News

Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

arstechnica.com

161–170 of 388 posts

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#161

Tesla's autopilot was so clumsy that I stopped using it and forgot about it years ago. I like the adaptive cruise control though, it is more transparent and decidedly more of a benefit, except for its phantom braking moments. Autopilot's requirement that your hands be on the wheel (and do nothing) is a strain over time, definitely boring, and a terrible interface. I don't understand why people would pay for such an a…

Musk is a true genius: You were paying first for the hardware and then to conduct training supervision for the AI while taking full responsibility if something goes wrong.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#162

These sort of shenanigans for even basic lanekeeping makes a very strong case for more open source solutions like comma

My Comma 4 arrives today, and I think it will be great (using it with my Lightning, not my Model 3), but I think it is just a temporary solution that is effectively a dead man walking. The latest cars are not usable with a Comma and likely will never be, with manufacturers locking down the CANBUS with encryption.

Literal anticompetitive behavior in the name of safety. The more of them that move to subscription services the better the chance the scheme gets legally challenged I figure.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you can just buy it?

In this case, they bought and currently own the sensors and hardware that the ML model is stored on. Moreover, the software runs locally. It's a silly example, but you can think of it as buying a house and the ceiling lights requiring a subscription to turn on. As an aside, I wonder how long this can keep up before it begins affecting laws around theft and property damage if the person operating, storing, insuring, a…

I mean they surely knew this before they bought their car and bought it anyway. So I don't get the complaint

Are you sure they bought the ML Models?

The Hardware is inside because it's required for the emergency lane keeping, but I wouldn't be surprised if the OEMs would have a deal with the supplier where they are paid more if this feature gets enabled

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#164

Do BYD and other Chinese EVs have this insane subscription scheme for basic features on their cars, or is that only a feature of North American/European manufacturers?

It looks to be completely free on most BYD models - as in no one time fee or subscription fee, but just part of the car:

https://insideevs.com/news/750244/byd-smart-driving-cheap/

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#165

Our 2020 Model S came with Autopilot. It was part of the purchase price. We don't use FSD, we don't use Autopilot either. But I'll be goddamed if he tries to take away something I paid for.

This is only for new cars sold, as they can't take away features that were included in the advertised price for a car when it was sold.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#167

This is part of the long con. They promised FSD almost a decade ago and as their competitors eclipse them, it's clear Tesla is a) behind and b) will never catch up. So instead of admitting they were wrong all along and doing what's necessary to catch up (add LiDAR to their sensor stack), they are going to quietly "pivot" Tesla to a "ai and robotics" company, with the monthly fee they'll continue to bilk anyone who is…

I'm not any kind of Elon fan, but I think it is a little more nuanced than that. FSD is definitely more advanced than any regular competition. It is not as capable as Waymo, that is for sure, but that is not a car you can own.

Apart from the technical limitations of FSD, Elon hasn't thought through the business model. Claiming that Tesla cars will be capable of turning into robotaxis seemed plausible a decade ago before all the negative externalities of Airbnb became widely known.

Waymo isn't just the Waymo Driver technology and sensor suite. It's charging and cleaning depots. It's product support both for the customer and the vehicle that scales. It's an insane amount of LiDAR acquired 3-D mapping data, plus real time data from Google maps and navigation.

Meanwhile Tesla has replaced some of the drivers sitting in the front seat with chase cars. Just to make the technically correct claim that the cars are no longer supervised by someone in the car.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you can just buy it?

They already bought the car .

Yes, despite knowing that it's not included. It's like hitting yourself and complaining afterwards about it

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#169

$99/month plus tax is a pretty fucking steep price for any kind of subscription! Holy cow!

If you have do a lot of driving, $99/mo. seems like a decent price to have the car drive itself, especially if it got to the Waymo point where absolutely no driver attention was needed and you could watch Netflix the whole time. The issue with FSD isn't the price, it's that no matter what Elon and his fanboys say, it doesn't bloody work and Waymo is blowing them out of the water in capability.

The “if” here is lifting many metric tonnes of assumptions.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There's a CA lawsuit against the FSD name, Tesla has to fix it by Feb 14th (the last day FSD is being sold). I wonder if it'll just be a rebrand for the new service. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/news-releases/d... 2. Elon's Trillion Dollar Payout is tied to a certain number of FSD Subscriptions. 3. Some consumers were sold that they would get hardware upgrades for FSD. I'm pretty sure Tesla would l…

> 4. Subscriptions drive our economy, I don't know the details but it seems like every company wants subscriptions over one time purchases. Every person I know wants a subscription, too. Who wouldn’t want a nest egg throwing off passive income?

> Every person I know wants a subscription, too.

You mean consumer? I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would buy a car or a bed or a fridge that requires a subscription. That's beyond me.

I do understand why companies want to screw consumers, obviously.

Post reply on HN