Anyone currently considering buying FSD post-delivery (Aug 16 price hike)?

[Sir Guacamolaf]

This $1k price rise is a demand lever. That’s all.
It costs tesla nothing to enable software they have already built. Also notice that certain features that historically used to be a part of autopilot, now require FSD. This is their ploy to sell a $35k car, eventually, but keep the real price high. Tesla has and will gimp features in non-FSD cars, even a car you buy today because of software updates.

Also FSD when rolled out, in my eyes, will mean AP on city streets with traffic signs and stop sign recognition. Summon, self park etc are too slow to use in real world situations.

But remember the game being played here. Entice you with an eventual future of robotaxis or nap while you are driven, and deliver you a reality of carefully peel a banana while praying the car doesn’t do anything stupid.

And when it does something stupid, the logs will show “no hands detected on the wheel” and the fanboys will hold you guilty. And those logs, are evidence produced by the suspect.

Is that worth $7k/$6k? In my eyes, a flat out NO. It is cool, it is neat, even has utility, but not $7k worth of utility to me. The way I see it, Tesla should be paying me to help develop a software by putting my life at risk. But the market decides the true price.

The real game here is simply for you to pay more.

 

[willow_hiller]

Price isn't actually a concern of mine. If Tesla actually solves FSD and it can drive me to work and go park itself at home, even if it costs $10,000 it will pay for itself in 3 years in commute savings.

My only concern at this point is: will Tesla ever stop retrofitting cars with HW3? Upping the price by $1000 while it's not even fully out yet is a pretty drastic demand level. An even more drastic one would be Elon saying "If you don't buy FSD by X date, we won't upgrade your HW."

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

Speaking of retrofit - have you seen how overloaded their service centers are? It takes them years to retrofit legally mandated free for them airbags, where in the priority list will be a non-legally mandated, expensive computer retrofit?

 

[willow_hiller]

Speaking of retrofit - have you seen how overloaded their service centers are? It takes them years to retrofit legally mandated free for them airbags, where in the priority list will be a non-legally mandated, expensive computer retrofit?

To be fair, we're the airbag replacements done by mobile techs? Or did they need to be brought into an SC?

I've personally popped the trim off my car to have a look at the computer, so it's a fairly simple job.

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

To be fair, we're the airbag replacements done by mobile techs? Or did they need to be brought into an SC?

I've personally popped the trim off my car to have a look at the computer, so it's a fairly simple job.

I’ll believe it when I see it. Their service is about the worst in the industry by far currently.

 

[Big Dog]

Speaking of retrofit - have you seen how overloaded their service centers are? It takes them years to retrofit legally mandated free for them airbags, where in the priority list will be a non-legally mandated, expensive computer retrofit?

Even if the retrofit is relatively easy, and can be completed in ~45 minutes, my concern is similar: how many 'months' will it take to retrofit all of the current FSD owners with HW3 (or whatever version its at when FSD gets officially released)?

 

[willow_hiller]

Even if the retrofit is relatively easy, and can be completed in ~45 minutes, my concern is similar: how many 'months' will it take to retrofit all of the current FSD owners with HW3 (or whatever version its at when FSD gets officially released)?

Someone on this forum posted that they were told by a service tech they're thinking of doing parking lot installs. Where they ask 10-20 owners to meet at a nearby parking lot and perform batch retrofits.

 

[Octo]

An even more drastic one would be Elon saying "If you don't buy FSD by X date, we won't upgrade your HW."

Pinky swear!

How anyone can trust what comes out of that joker’s mouth is beyond me.

He may say that to trigger the “OMGSH MY SHINY CAR WILL BE EXCLUDED” panic in certain types.

The week after this “drastic” change is implemented, he changes his mind because $7000 is a HUGE margin for HW3 so Tesla would be stupid to remove the “upgrade for cash” option.

I’d be more concerned if I had *already* paid for FSD but my car still doesn’t have the HW3 computer. Because then it is a true cost for Tesla without ANY positive margin. Good luck getting priority over other service issues.

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

@willow_hiller someone said something on an internet forum by some service tech who given probability won't work at Tesla in 12 months.

How can you take that seriously when the CEO himself has tweeted things that they never delivered upon?

Sorry, I'm sounding too negative .. gonna go enjoy my Sunday

- A happy ex-Tesla owner.

 

[Big Dog]

Someone on this forum posted that they were told by a service tech they're thinking of doing parking lot installs. Where they ask 10-20 owners to meet at a nearby parking lot and perform batch retrofits.

They could do something similar at Service Centers, but that is not the limiting function -- its service techs. Even with a drive-thru parking lot, one tech could likely do ~8 installs in a workday. Maybe 10-12 if s/he was extremely efficient (and lucky that no bolt strips). Pre-orders for FSD could number in the thousands around the world. That will be some large backlog.

 

[Phlier]

I’d be more concerned if I had *already* paid for FSD but my car still doesn’t have the HW3 computer. Because then it is a true cost for Tesla without ANY positive margin. Good luck getting priority over other service issues.

That last sentence sent a chill down my spine. I can totally see all of those cars with earlier AP's flocking in to get the HW replaced for FSD, as promised by The Man. And there's just no way they have the infrastructure in place to do it. Yikes. Hopefully, they'll plan for it, but if Elon really does deliver on his FSD time frame, there's just no way they'll have the capacity in place by then, even if they were working hard on building it right now. And we all know that adding service centers is not something he likes to do; it seems like ever since Tesla became "a thing", they keep the service center/cars ratio too low to even service the existing fleet.

 

[Sky-Pilot]

Price isn't actually a concern of mine. If Tesla actually solves FSD and it can drive me to work and go park itself at home, even if it costs $10,000 it will pay for itself in 3 years in commute savings."

Wait... how do you figure a $10K savings by it driving you home and to work? Do you pay yourself to drive yourself? And how did you calculate that alleged savings?

 

[dave999z]

The thing that bugs me is that they are waiting until the software is ready to even start thinking about the HW retrofit rollout. How about a little advanced planning? When you ask on this board whether anyone has heard anything about when HW3 retrofits will start, people instantly say there's no reason for them to do it until the software can take advantage of it. First, I don't think it's black and white as to when the software will start utilizing the power of the HW3 chip -- it will probably slowly start using it even for current autopilot features. Second, let's say the software starts using HW3 at the end of this year. Realistically it's going to take another year to do the retrofit on all these cars. So, why not get started NOW! Tesla promised HW3 to all of us who purchased FSD. HW3 is now shipping on new cars. Time to begin the retrofit process rather than waiting and delaying by a full year the time during which we'll get to use the software and hardware we paid for.

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

@dave999z - Tesla isn't doing this advance planning because it costs $$$.

The same logic could be applied when Tesla was increasing the number of cars on the road by 10x, while cutting back on service centers and little improvements in superchargers. Or not investing in repair supply chain. Or doing silly sh~t like not bundling the 240v charger or homelink with Model 3 or those cheap looking plastic hub caps on the 18" wheels, heck even a Honda civic comes with nicer wheels or incredibly overpriced accessories. Really makes you wonder what corners they did cut on things you don't see!

Tesla is in a survival mode, they don't burn gas, but they burn cash. They are investing heavily in China.
1. If they succeed, in 2 years, they'll make a cheap compelling electric car that nobody can compete with .. actually not just that, they'll also own the energy storage and generation, they'll be your new chevron except a practical monopolist.
2. If they fail, they will be sold for parts at 90% discount.

If 1. comes to pass, you are still screwed for 2 years, because money at Tesla has far higher priority than retrofit HW3.
If 2. comes to pass, you are screwed even more.

So Tesla may or may not succeed, and I think Elon will push it to success in some form or another, and China will be a huge part of it.
But as a Tesla owner it's going to be rough riding no matter what.

 

[Big Dog]

The thing that bugs me is that they are waiting until the software is ready to even start thinking about the HW retrofit rollout. ....

Not surprising, actually. At this point, Elon has no way of knowing if HW3 is the answer, or HW4 (yet to be designed), or if FSD really needs to be a mini IBM Watson.

 

[Mojito]

Sir Guacamolaf dont get your post above you end with happy ex tesla owner and below you state you are a tesla owner which is it dont understand. As for me im in it for the long run if you think trsla has no plan for the future all you have to look at is the supercharging infrastructure who else has done this. Do you think they have stoped inovating. Can you imagine a 700 mile range model 3

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

@Mojito .. I am an ex-tesla owner. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Spice]

It's not worth it for me. There are too many expenses in my life to justify dropping 6k on a promise. Personally I'm not sure if Tesla has any real interest on retrofitting any cars due to cash flow needs.

 

[BrandonLive]

It’s a clever if transparant FOMO tactic that Tesla is using. I initially fell for it but recently updated my order to have FSD removed. In it’s current “beta” state it’s unreliable at best and dangerous at worst. I don’t believe Tesla will make significant advances in the short term and the competition is closing in fast, so a drastic (structural) price increase seems unlikely.

This is not an accurate description of the state of AP. It’s not autonomous and you have to pay attention (just like with regular cruise control), but it’s not accurate to say it’s “unreliable” or that it’s dangerous when used properly.

 

[BrandonLive]

I decided to go for it and find the FSD kickstarter for 3k. My guess/hope is that this is the lowest price it’ll be offered at (I do wish I’d jumped on the earlier $2k deal though), and that it might get me some perks like earlier access to the HW3 upgrade. I don’t expect HW3-based software with anything interesting until next year, though I’d be happy to be wrong and see it show up late this year.

Maybe it wasn’t the wisest decision, but I’m bullish on AP/FSD, and eager to see where it goes.