2023 Tesla Model Y Owner Gets FSD Beta, Finds Out It Doesn't Work on His EV

Acquiring an all-electric vehicle can be a great move if you are willing to move away from fossil fuels. Even though they are generally more expensive than the few budget-friendly gas-powered options America still has, incentives or rebates can considerably bring the final price down.

If you can charge at home during off-peak hours and not own another car that has a fuel tank, the extra money spent on an EV might be offset by not paying for gas every 200 or 300 miles. Add a lower maintenance cost (unless you take advantage of the instant torque and chew through tires), and things only look better.

As such, it is unsurprising that the all-electric Tesla Model Y is considered the world's best-selling car in 2023 - so far. It fits most of today's customers' wishes. It's a crossover SUV with a higher driving position, has better ground clearance, comes with five or seven seats, and, thanks to no engine under the hood, it can hold more cargo than something like a BMW X3. It also helps that it's one of the most efficient EVs out there.

Moreover, if you live in North America, having guaranteed access to a Supercharger without needing an adapter or an app is great. That makes long-distance EV traveling almost feel like you're just stopping at a gas station for a quick fill-up.

This high-power charging network is also one of the reasons why major automakers have decided to ditch the CCS Combo 1 connector and move to NACS. They simply want the same level of charging reliability for their customers.

Improvements needed

Unfortunately, however, not everything is great when it comes to Tesla. At one point, the company's CEO said that the vehicles his brand produces are "computers on wheels" and made many outlandish promises that have yet to see the light of day. Besides that, there are many quality assurance issues.

Most recently, we have learned that Tesla appears to have a big problem supplying its service centers or other authorized shops with the needed parts to perform repairs. Besides representing an upgrade for motorists, EVs were also supposed to become a solution to our climate problems. Totaling cars for slight collisions or because the software glitched out and ruined an important system is not a good way forward when it comes to sustainability.

However, a big problem for Tesla remains selling features to customers that do not work as they are presented. And we have a recent example that should ring some alarm bells at Tesla and maybe even some government agencies.

A Model Y Long Range owner (who says the car is actually his wife's) took the crossover SUV for a drive from Florida to Connecticut. That's a trip of around 1,200 miles that happens mostly on highways.

Wanting to ease the pressure of constantly being in control, he decided to use 10,000 referral points to subscribe to FSD Beta. The points are worth a different amount based on what the customer wants to spend them on. In exchange for bringing others into the Tesla universe, he was able to rent this Level 2 ADAS for three months without spending any extra cash. It doesn't make the car autonomous, but it enables some safety features that can come in handy when cruising for extended periods.

Subscribing to FSD Beta costs $99 for customers who paid for Enhanced Autopilot and $199 for those who did not.

Technology for humans

But after spending the points and getting the software, the man remembered that FSD Beta, which costs $15,000 when acquired entirely, does not run on vehicles equipped with Hardware 4, also known as Computer 2. That's what the Texas-based EV maker calls its suite of cameras and software that enables the unit to recognize traffic signs and lights and to autosteer inside cities. FSD Beta also includes some cool features, like using an app to tell the car to drive itself to your location in a parking lot or to self-park when you don't want to maneuver it yourself.

However, he wasn't upset about spending his referral points on a product that did not work. His grievance is about Tesla not telling him that the Model Y has the latest parts needed for the vision-only self-driving goal. He claims the automaker shouldn't have allowed him to spend the earned credit since the brand knew it was putting customers into vehicles that couldn't run their most expensive ADAS.

He called the company to talk about it, and the customer representative said they could do nothing over the phone. He was instructed to email a department dealing with online orders.

He said he'd do that and pointed out that he was willing to compromise. The man would accept a solution that completely disables FSD Beta and reactivates it for three months when the suite actually functions. He'd also be willing to take a downgrade to Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) and get some of the points back.

"Hopefully, they'll work it out with me," said the Model Y owner.

It's still there!

We checked Tesla's Model Y configurator. When writing, adding the $15,000 Full Self-Driving option to the order is possible. In the automaker's defense, it lists the "autosteer on city streets" feature as coming soon. But why can someone pay for the software if it isn't ready to work with the radar-less Model Ys?

Remember that we first reported this situation six months ago when customers complained about being unable to use the Level 2 ADAS.

Since then, Tesla has also been caught exaggerating the range of its vehicles, and the company's CEO has been spending a good chunk of his time focusing on the social media he acquired after much back-and-forth last year.

According to the SAE J3016 standard of driving automation, a Level 2 ADAS installed on a car means the person behind the wheel is driving, liable, and must constantly remain aware of their surroundings no matter what features are active.

Tesla aspires to make FSD Beta at least a Level 4 ADAS, meaning that the automaker's camera-only system would equal those currently used by robotaxi companies like Waymo, Cruise, or Zoox. It also wants to license the system to other automakers.

Finally, does this ADAS mishap make Tesla's vehicles unusable or worth less? No. They remain great EVs. The issue at hand is selling pricey features that do not work yet. If you're willing to splurge now and get the ADAS later, then there's no problem.

I just did the biggest dumb ass move of the day. So amateur of me! I used 10k referral points to get 3 months of FSD beta. But this model Y is an HW4 car! What do you think Tesla will do about it? pic.twitter.com/KLlCjIq03X

— Out Of Spec Dave (@OutofSpecDave) August 20, 2023