> - Around 40% of their cash in hand is from refundable deposits, from people who thought they would get a $35k car
Do you have a source on the amount of people who "thought they would get a $35k car?" Autopilot itself has always been an add-on feature that costs money.
> It is universally accepted that enhanced autopilot is worse than mobileye's system right now, and in general both are basically lane-keeping system with AEB. Waymo and GM/Cruise are far ahead with their FSD capabilities than Tesla(again, widely accepted)
What? It's generally accepted that AP2/2.5 is now in general better than AP1. From first hand experience, the lane keeping and the ability to perform on local roads/ramps is far better than what AP1 cars can do. I believe the only thing that AP1 does that AP2/2.5 does not yet do is read speed limit signs. AP1 also shows cars adjacent lanes on the dash, which AP2/2.5 does just fine when you use the turn indicators to do an Auto Lane Change
The Model S is in fact about as heavy as a Ford F150.
However, if this braking result is consistent across all Model 3 vehicles, that's a bit worrisome. I'm also a little concerned with the other issues they had (ergonomics, wind noise, etc). From everyone I know that drives or has driven a Model 3, they've had amazing experiences as far as actual driving
Yes? My 75D had an entire second shaved off of its 0 - 60 time. I was aware of the change and was able to deal with it just fine...
I'm also not sure what the alternative you're imagining here is. Take it in to a shop just to have them install the update for you? I also don't see how this is any different than changing worn out brakes on an old ICE car. I had the brakes changed in my old '97 Accord, and the difference was noticeable when I pulled it out of the driveway. I think you need to give people a little more credit...
Also, the Whats Changed prompt literally takes up the entire 17in touch screen. It's sort of hard to miss.
Well, yes. You get prompted to update your car (you can choose not to). And then after the update is complete, you get a Whats Changed prompt the next time you're in your car. Essentially a patch notes for your vehicle
We have brains (at least, I like to think most of us do) which are capable of many, many times the amount of processing power which currently exists in AP2 and AP2.5 cars. Elon himself has mentioned this delta in processing power on at least one occasion, which is why AP2.5 is even a thing.
Simply stating that "humans use eyes to drive, so car can use cameras to drive!" is foolish.
(For those who don't know - AP2.5 is the current hardware suite on Tesla's which, among some other smaller upgrades, doubled the processing power of AP2 cars. AP2.5 has two NVIDIA PX2 units as opposed to AP2's one)
"Is $5,000 what owners of other cars pay for similar driver-assist features?"
Although at its core, that's what Autopilot is (nothing more than Lane-Keep Assist and Adaptive Cruise-Control), to leave it at that is not giving it enough credit. Tesla's Autopilot is far beyond any other manufacturer's drive-assist features that I have personally driven (and I tested quite a few before purchasing my Model S).
In fact, a lot of people are saying that how well the assist features work is part of the reason why we saw the unfortunate fatality where the Model X ran right into a median. It is so good that people (wrongly) begin to place too much trust into it, and don't pay attention when they need to. When I first got my car (Feb 2017), it was shortly after the big MobileEye departure, and TeslaVision was still in its infancy. Never in a million years would I have taken my hands off the wheel or stopped paying attention when using this early version of TeslaVision AutoPilot. That thing tried to kill me more than once. The current version works very, very well and I'm totally happy with having paid and additional $5,000 for it.