Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss. The critical. Crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, and I'm your host Will Walden. One more thing before we start Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google. So if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please check us out over at YouTube Music. Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to find our podcast through Google
products. Thank you so much for understanding. I had no control over this. Google pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android and I want to let you know where to continue finding the show. Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk Podcast. Thank you so much. Tesla Motors has reintroduced its Full Self Driving Transfer program as a buying incentive this quarter. Now this is counter to CEO Elon Musk's previous assertion that such an offer would be a
singular event. The program permits existing Tesla owners to transfer their FSD package to a new vehicle upon purchase, which should a feature that has been highly requested due to Tesla's unfulfilled promise of complete self driving capabilities. They've been promising this for years and have not delivered on FSD, and people bought into this. They paid about $15,000 for full
self driving. It's never come to fruition, so people think that they should be able to transfer their full self driving license from one vehicle to another.
Considering that Tesla never gave them what they bought, customers have long argued for the ability to transfer the FSD passage price at up to $15,000, especially since the promised autonomous driving features have yet to be fully realized by Tesla. The rest now is that if Tesla can eventually provide these features via in software update, owners should not lose their investment when upgrading their
vehicle. Now despite the logical appeal of allowing FSD transfers to support customer investment in the technology, Tesla has historically been resistant to the idea. Companies eventual concession to allow transfers, but only for purchases made in the third quarter of 2023 was met with a Lunt of skepticism. Now Elon Musk said that the temporary nature of this opportunity. He said that he framed it as a one time amnesty for buyers to take advantage of during the
specific quarter. This move was not seen as a customer friendly initiative, but as a strategic attempt to just boost sales for Tesla within the limited time frame by leveraging the company's failure to deliver on its FST promises. Now let me ask you a question. If you invested $15,000 for full self driving and they didn't deliver, would you be upset? It's kind of like buying a house and you put an investment of a couple $100,000 into this house and the real estate agent never
shows up and give you the keys. You don't have a house, you don't have full self driving, so you spend a lot of money. I know it's a little bit different, but you spent a lot of money and you never got what was promised to you. Now, critics have accused Tesla of using the FSD transfer offer as a sales tactic rather than a genuine effort to do right by
its customers. The skepticism was further fueled by the belief that, despite Musk's statements, the offer would likely reappear in the future. Sometime. And in line with these suspicions, Tesla announced the future of the FSD transfer option in February 2024, available until the end of this quarter to encourage new vehicle purchases. This decision contradicts Musk's earlier claims of the offer
being a one off. Recently, Tesla expanded the FSD transfer offer to include all new Tesla vehicles, excluding the Cybertruck. This move is part of a broader strategy to stack incentives and boost sales, indicating a more flexible approach to FSD transferability than previously
communicated. Tesla has also provided updates to long standing FSD adopters with older Model S and Model X vehicles, shedding light on the company's efforts to extend the latest FSD capabilities to these legacy models. The rapid pace of Tesla's tech advancements means that newer vehicle models often receive the latest updates first, leaving older models waiting for enhancements.
This has been particularly true for FSD and Autopilot features, which are primarily developed for the more recent additions To test this fleete new computers, new architecture. They're going to get the latest software because of it. Think of your iPhone. The latest iPhone gets the latest update before all the other phones do.
Now Musk acknowledge this issue, noting that while the upcoming Hardware 4 will offer improvements, the company's current focus remains on vehicles equipped with Hardware 3. This left some early adopters of FSD, particularly those with older Model S and also Model X vehicles, feeling overlooked. They spent a lot of money on these cars and they should be getting what they paid for.
This frustration among these legacy vehicle owners stems from unmet promises regarding the vehicles potential for autonomy. Although Tesla has introduced hardware upgrade programs, they come at additional cost. With some owners are unwilling to pay, they should have full self driving. That's what they think with the current software that they were promised and the current hardware that they're using now.
The sense of exclusion among these early FSD supporters was highlighted in a post by Tesla owner Anthony Spina, who expressed concerns over the lack of updates and communication regarding the deployment of the latest FSD versions to older models. Responding to these concerns, though, Tesla Vice President Rohan Patel conveyed the company's efforts to bring full self driving capabilities to older models. It might take a little bit of
time though. Explain the challenges in validating the software for different hardware configurations reassured customers of the company's commitment to resolving all of these issues. Now. Patel's communication show that there's a lot of challenges here. Software with hardware, You don't just put a new version of software with older hardware. Or you could do the Apple root and make sure that it works with a bunch of versions before it.
Now there's a small segment of Tesla's customer base that faces these challenges, and they possess different hardware from the majority of the users. He said that there's rigorous safety validation processes that each software update undergoes and they aim to manage expectations regarding the timelines for these updates at Tesla. Now, the follow up communication from Tesla's executive team acknowledged the patients required from legacy vehicle
owners. It showed that the company's understanding of these frustrations and also Tesla reiterated the intense efforts made to extend the latest FSD features to all eligible vehicles, regardless of their hardware versions. They have to build different software for a different hardware. It's a big process. I know it is.
I'm a software developer myself. If you have to develop for one sort of code base on a certain sort of hardware and then you switch the hardware, you might have to reroute, rewrite thousands of lines of code. Now the situation illustrates the complexities that test the faces. As a tech driven company in the auto industry, they want to rapidly innovate, but it could lead to disparities in customer experience based on vehicle age and hardware capabilities of
older vehicles. And the reintroduction of the FSD transfer program along with the ongoing efforts to update legacy vehicles shows that Tesla's actually in this. They want to help and they have their efforts towards the older vehicles straight in line with the newer vehicles, but it's going to take them a little bit longer. They aim to balance the company's forward-looking technological advancements with the needs and expectations of its diverse customer base. Hey, thank you so much for
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