California is one of, if not the largest EV market in the US right now. Consumers by and large don't care where a company has their HQ, but they will be upset if they don't have access to features. And this impacts people that aren't in CA that have FSD but road trip to/through CA. I can't imagine this is an ideal situation for Tesla to be in, and they'd prefer to avoid this as much as possible. There isn't a really good solution here for them.
I don't see how they can jurisdiction shop in any similar way to a credit card company in this instance, these are markedly different scenarios and services provided.
Not only that, but California EV transferable credits are a major part of Tesla's income stream. IIRC, if Tesla stops selling in California, their profits go down by more than 50% (assuming that the other states can absorb the extra Teslas, which at this point is a reasonable assumption.)
They’ll still sell FSD, they just won’t offer the beta functionality in (or if you traverse) California due to “regulatory constraints.” They’ll continue to run FSD beta testing in 49 other states.
In similar fashion, Autopilot has tighter operational constraints in parts of Europe versus the US.
Yeah, they will still sell it but it wont sell to people living in CA which is one of the larger US markets. that's a non-trivial market to close your doors to for something like FSD. The margins on FSD have to be some of the best on the whole car.
The EU regulations and standards are likely just as annoying for them, but they don't sell the same volume across the EU yet, and the regulations are a bit more consistent across the whole region. So getting a Tesla in one EU country will work the same in another. Which is just easier for a consumer.
I am not saying this would end Tesla, but I can't imagine a world where they want it to come to that. I think they would look at either properly complying or some other workaround before just drawing a fence around FSD in CA.
I think you're a bit confused about what's going on. Autopilot, FSD and FSD Beta are all different things.
Autopilot is advanced cruise control, built-in and sold everywhere with each car.
FSD is a software package you can add. It can do a few things, change lanes on highways, chime when the green light comes on and you haven't moved for a few seconds, etc. You can buy FSD anywhere, but not all the features are available everywhere. Overall, it doesn't do much right now. FSD Beta is a testing program you apply to and can join if you have a good driving record and are selected. Only in the US. There's at most low-digit thousands of people who have access to this, fewer that actually use it.
Article is about the last bit only. Not being able to test FSD in California only is probably a pain, but won't impact much. Allowing people to test the beta only started a few months ago.
Tesla never enabled FSD in Europe. Currently it's only enabled in US.
FSD couldn't possibly have been shut down if it was never enabled there.
As far as Autopilot goes, EU limits how much software can steer the car that makes some of the Autopilot functionality not possible (e.g. to take a sharp turn you have, you know, turn the wheels).
For that reason some Autopilot functionality is limited in EU.
This is not anti-Tesla rule but one that affects every car maker and they are in the process of changing that rule.
I don't see how they can jurisdiction shop in any similar way to a credit card company in this instance, these are markedly different scenarios and services provided.