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Comment by popz41 | Hacker News Reader

Full Self Driving actually counts as deferred revenue to Tesla, and is reported as a liability on the balance sheet. They cant realize that income until the feature is delivered.

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They already recognized large part of that revenue. That was the main reason for them to release half baked party tricks, like smart summon, or weird ones like traffic light control (that will stop your on green light). They used it to recognize more FSD revenue. In 2020 they booked over $250M of that revenue, to help them boost profits.

Don't underestimate power of accounting, mixed with loose ethics.

Interesting. Do you have a source that confirms this?

I searched "Tesla recognizes FSD revenue" and found several immediately.

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-autopil...

https://loupventures.com/teslas-software-advantage-is-clear-....

Parent stated that Tesla is using party tricks to recognize a larger than merited portion of FSD revenue. Your links do not make this case.

A "full self driving" car does not exist in this universe, from any company, let alone Tesla, so the fact that they've recognized any revenue against "full self driving" packages does "make the case". If you think the name was meant to mean something lesser, when this $10000 option was added, Elon Musk was publicly saying that there'd be a million Tesla Robotaxis on the road by the end of last year, earning money driving people around while the car owners are at work.

>deferred revenue to Tesla, and is reported as a liability on the balance sheet

if it is a liability on their books, then i would agree with OP that it is an interest free loan.

They can still spend that cash though. It's just an accounting formality.

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