this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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Tesla (TSLA) has to replace computer in ~4 million cars or compensate their owners (electrek.co)
submitted 1 day ago by AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Tesla (TSLA) has to replace the ‘self-driving’ computer inside about 4 million vehicles or likely compensate the owners of those vehicles.

The liability could be more significant than the largest automotive recall in terms of cost.

In 2016, Tesla claimed that all its vehicles in production going forward have “all the hardware necessary for full self-driving capability.”

Tesla’s use of the term “full self-driving” has changed over the years, but at the time and for years later, CEO Elon Musk claimed that it would mean Tesla owners would eventually receive a software update that would turn their vehicles into “robotaxis” capable of level-4-5 self-driving, which means unsupervised autonomous driving even with no one in the cars.

Almost 10 years later, this has yet to happen and won’t happen soon in most of the cars Tesla has delivered over the last decade.

Archive link: https://archive.is/kJO23

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 11 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

The only people he's going to have to upgrade are those who purchased it. In the past there's been some small claims court cases where someone won about being upgraded for a subscription, but if that is truly a concern, Tesla could stop the subscriptions for a few years and let the cars age out. They have no obligations to offer a subscription, it wasn't a thing when the original promise was made.

Also, they only need to upgrade cars when it'd actually be capable. The promise is to upgrade cars to capable hardware, not upgrade cars with every hardware iteration, so as long as hw4 can't actually do it, they're likely in the clear as well.

Given most people don't think they can actually make fsd work, then they're in the clear.

If they somehow make it work, the upgrade cost is going to be peanuts compared to the insane amount of money they'd start printing.

So it's not much if a story.

Edit: also worth mentioning, he's been pretty clear over the years that FSD is going to cost a lot more money once it's available for real. So if he does have to upgrade everyone who pays for it (lets assume they stop subscriptions to avoid that issue), even if that means upgrading all HW4 cars as well because it needs HW5, he can jack the price up more to help cover the upgrade cost. No one should be under the illusion that purchasing FSD will be cheaper than it is today if they succeed.