Highway driving in SoCal on nicely maintained highways in the summer is the easy part of self-driving. Winter driving on local roads in Pittsburgh is the less easy.
> Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away.
He literally said you would be able to do it _this year_. That's after he said you would be able to do it in 2018. And that's after he said you'd be able to do it in 2016. And all the while charging thousands of dollars for the promise of it "coming".
You're right. SoCal summer roads are definitely the easy part. I bought a Comma Eon for a few hundred dollars and it does most of what Tesla's Extended Autopilot does. It's a solved problem, that's relatively inexpensive.
However, if people are willing to pay Tesla $7k for the promise of a "coming" full self driving product that doesn't exist yet, I don't really feel bad for them. It's kind of Tesla's business strategy at this point. I don't think they're acting in bad faith to their customers, because they have a track record of (eventually) delivering great products, but their leadership is unreasonably optimistic. I worry for the future of the company. Whether Musk's isn't living up to his fiduciary responsibilities to investors, I have a lot of issues with... that's a whole separate topic.
> Part of the job of being a CEO is to sell the dream, even if it's years or decades away.
He literally said you would be able to do it _this year_. That's after he said you would be able to do it in 2018. And that's after he said you'd be able to do it in 2016. And all the while charging thousands of dollars for the promise of it "coming".