No. of Recommendations: 9
I don't disagree with anything you have said, but what I meant is that FSD will eventually get to all Teslas, and then they can do what they want with it, including getting it to do rides for others.
I understand what you mean. It just might not be true.
It may end up being the case that FSD doesn't eventually get to all Teslas, for any practical range of "eventually." It may be that for the next ten years or so, cars can only get to Level 4 autonomy - enough to function as carefully monitored and heavily supported rideshare services for areas within 10 miles of the center of a major urban area, but nowhere else.
If that's the scenario we end up in, Tesla's very much put itself in a box. It told about two million Tesla purchasers in the U.S. that their cars would one day drive themselves. That one day, Tesla would be able to flick a metaphorical "switch" and "turn on" self-driving in all those vehicles. But if that's only partially true - if Tesla flicks that switch for some Teslas - and only when they're in certain areas - and not for any of the others or for other times, that's going to be very problematic for them. Legally and for their brand. If they can't flick the switch for nearly everybody, business considerations might prevent them from flicking the switch for anybody outside of their own fleet.
As sykesix put it upthread, Tesla's approach is to "solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times." But self-driving can't be rolled out until the "one hard problem" is solved. If all the multiple easier problems can be solved quicker, then self-driving may become ubiquitous in some areas long before Level 5 is acheived.
That's Tesla's dilemma. They might not be able to solve the Level 5 problem any time soon - it's a much harder problem. But they've staked too much on autonomy, so they also can't foreswear Level 4 systems and let Waymo have years to establish themselves in all the good-weather major cities. So they have to roll out their own Level 4 system, and hope that all the Tesla owners don't ask themselves why tourists in Austin get to take autonomous rides in a Tesla while the people who actually bought Model Y's aren't able to. But just because Tesla launches the Cybercab doesn't mean actual autonomy is rolling out to the rest of the Tesla fleet, certainly not anytime soon, and perhaps not even "eventually."
