Comment by bastawhiz
1 day ago
I simply won't believe they'll sell a version that leaves the ground until I see someone who obviously isn't working for Tesla with one. I'd be surprised if the FAA didn't have something to say about it. I just don't believe for a second that a stiff wind or a low ceiling or a power line (public road or not) or a very obese driver with nobody in the passenger seat isn't going to turn a very expensive car into a very expensive upside down piece of scrap. SpaceX has had enough explosions resulting from COPVs that I can't imagine these actually getting into the hands of people with more money than sense. It's a compelling marketing gimmick that can't be real.
But practicality aside, you have to be an absolute fool to believe any promises Elon makes at this point. Whether it's the automatic charging cable snake, or your car picking you up and dropping you off at the airport, or renting out your car as a self driving ride share, or your cybertruck also being a boat, or the dozens of other empty promises that he's made, there's just no reason to think he's telling the truth about anything until you can try it for yourself.
>Whether it's the automatic charging cable snake, or your car picking you up and dropping you off at the airport, or renting out your car as a self driving ride share
While I can appreciate, and he has joked publicly about having "pathological optimism," that he is more aggressive with timelines than the reality of the alignment between technology, practicality (cost, etc.), and regulations, most of what you have listed continues to be progressively released.
Is he careful with his speech in terms of distinguishing a "big audacious goal" from a shipping reality in the near term? Absolutely not.
So going through some of your list..
>automatic charging snake (you left off hot swappable batteries btw)
So prototypes were made and demoed, but ultimately they landed with wireless charging pads.. they are already starting to deploy this for real world testing.
https://www.teslaoracle.com/2026/08/19/tesla-tsla-gears-up-f...
>your car picking you up and dropping you off
I'll preface this that I'm nearing 99% FSD on my Tesla, and most of that 1% was the early miles when I first got it.
Robotaxis exist and hundreds of them in multiple cities are autonomously driving passengers every day. They continue to scale those numbers monthly.
They also have 14 billion FSD miles and growing.
I use summon every day to have my Tesla unpark itself and pick me up at the front door of my office. Short of me holding down a "come to me" button on my phone, it performs this action fully autonomous.
Banish (the opposite that sends the car away) exists but is not publicly available due to safety, operational and regulatory reasons (for example where does the car go if it can't find a parking spot?)
Currently this tech is limited to line of sight (~200 Feet) but the speed and distance continues to increase over time with updates.. again as the tech and regulations come together. Eventually, as we see with Robotaxi, the ability to drive you to work, drop you off, go back home and park and return when you're off work is not science fiction. The end to end solution exists today, the technology and laws/regulation need to come together.
If your complaint is that cars purchased in 2016 can't do this, sure I'll concede.. but modem HW4 is more than capable and the tech and laws are continuing to adapt.
>renting out
A far future vision sold as near term, for sure.. but it's not a matter of if but when as tech and regulations close the gap. Robotaxis are essentially doing this today.
These are not "empty promises" more so than long term visions (that do manifest) sold as short term shippable options.
> These are not "empty promises" more so than long term visions (that do manifest) sold as short term shippable options.
By that logic any lie is simply a promise that hasn't been fulfilled yet.
> cars purchased in 2016 can't do this, sure I'll concede.
He made the promise in 2019! HW3 will almost certainly never have unsupervised FSD (let alone FSD without a human in the car), and HW4 didn't ship until what, 2023? There's more model years in existence where that promise is flatly broken than there are where it's maybe a possibility someday down the road.
But he also promised FSD rideshare in 2016, which arguably makes it even worse of a broken promise. Ten years later not only is it still a broken promise, they're actively working to ship a product that isn't what they promised.
>By that logic any lie is simply a promise that hasn't been fulfilled yet.
He has a long enough track record of actually delivering. Elon is not a new entity with an unknown track record. He's been active in running and growing companies for 31 years. He's been involved with Tesla for 22 years.
You're attributing statements as lies which I feel is too strong a term as it implies intent, which as far as I can tell, doesn't exist.
>He made the promise in 2019! HW3 will almost certainly never have unsupervised FSD
In the same vein of calling something a "lie", you anchor to another strong term "promise", which is also not applicable in this case.
What Elon actually said is that HW3 "had everything needed for Full Self-Driving"
In 2016, Tesla officially announced that all vehicles then in production had “the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”
Elon followed up that "All Tesla cars being produced right now have everything necessary for full self-driving. All you need to do is improve the software."
Both of those statements are true and HW3 is active with FSD today.
He went on record stating:
"Anyone who purchased full self-driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free. This is the only change between Autopilot HW2.5 & HW3. Going forward “HW3” will just be called FSD Computer, which is accurate. No change to vehicle sensors or wire harness needed. This is v important. "
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1111762533520531456
He also honored this. Customers that purchased HW3 and the FSD package were provided upgrades when needed to support the modern 14.x FSD releases.
You're correct that they stated that HW3 would provide unsupervised self driving, when it was technically and legally possible and did publicly reverse course on that.
"Unfortunately, Hardware 3, I wish it were otherwise, but Hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD. We did think at one point it would have that, but relative to Hardware 4 it has only 1/8th of the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4. And memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD."
This isn't a "lie" to plan for something and have those plans fall through, the intent was to deliver and it didn't happen.
He followed up that HW3 owners who bought FSD would get options like a discounted trade-in toward HW4/AI4 cars or a computer + camera retrofit (which would require special facilities). HW3 cars continue to receive supervised FSD updates (including a “Lite” version of later software), but unsupervised FSD is off the table without new hardware.
So providing monetary compensation in terms of trade in options or retrofits in support of transitioning them to unsupervised when available.
If we've already established that he makes ambitious goals and sometimes delivers late or pivots as needed due to technical or legal limitations, I'm not sure what you're on about.
Your tone suggests he is selling snake oil and never delivering, which just isn't the case. His companies have been years ahead of the competition in space and electric vehicle tech and self driving.
>But he also promised FSD rideshare in 2016, which arguably makes it even worse of a broken promise.
Saying something in 2016 does not make it a promise to deliver in 2016.
What he actually said:
"I think we are less than two years away from complete autonomy, safer than humans, but regulations should take at least another year."
He also described autonomous driving as "basically a solved problem."
Both those statements are true.. Tesla's are (and have been for years) safer than human drivers with FSD enabled, and those like me that are 99% FSD consider it full autonomous for all practical purposes. Yes I can't sleep in the car, but I get in, verbally say where I want to go and don't touch the controls.. it backs out, drives me, parks and I get out. Every day, thousands and thousands of FSD miles a month on a car I bought in 2023.
>Ten years later not only is it still a broken promise, they're actively working to ship a product that isn't what they promised.
To the contrary, again, what he actually said was:
"As the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability, meaning that any given system in the car could break and your car will still drive itself safely. When true self-driving is approved by regulators, it will mean that you will be able to summon your Tesla from pretty much anywhere. Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else en route to your destination. You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you’re at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost. In cities where demand exceeds the supply of customer-owned cars, Tesla will operate its own fleet…"
These are all factual statements.. given we've already established aggressive timelines that don't match reality, it really is just beating a dead horse.
Deriving statements like
"The basic news is that all Tesla vehicles exiting the factory have the hardware necessary for Level 5 autonomy… Every car we make… are shipping now with Level 5, meaning hardware capable of full self-driving, or driverless, capability. "
and
"Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to let’s say dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.”"
Most of that has already happened:
In 2025
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-fsd-successfully-completes-f...
And again in 2026
https://www.thedrive.com/news/a-tesla-actually-drove-itself-...
The Banish (drop you off and park) is not publicly available yet (regulations/operational) and wireless charging is just now being rolled out.. but again, the substance of his statement is true and will evolve over time to be fully realized.
So if you're arguing he has "pathological optimism" of overstating delivery times, I agree fully.
But suggesting he is lying or intentionally breaking promises within his control, I don't agree.
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