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Devaluation of HW1?

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samiam

New Member
May 5, 2017
2
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Iowa
I am debating a CPO Model S with HW1 versus either a new Model S with HW2 or new Model 3. My concern is that vehicles with the older hardware will quickly lose their resale value once autopilot parity is reached and more HW2 vehicles are available? Do you think this is a real concern? Are the prices of older Teslas going to crash? Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Hw1 is the best tech available right now. Take it from a hw2 owner that probably should've saved a bunch and bought an inventory AP1 car. Parity looks far away and Tesla lives in la-la land about it's deficiency. Plus Tesla sucks at communicating. Model 3 is still a mystery but that might end in July.
 
HW2 was supposed to reach parity with HW1 more than 4 months ago. It's still not there. I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. Forget about FSD; it's even further out. At this point, I view my AP2 MS functionality as an expensive and dangerous toy.

With HW1, you'll also be getting lifetime supercharging. If Tesla can't get the HW2s cars to work, THEY may be the ones to lose resale value...right after the HW3s come out.

It will be interesting to see what AP/FSD hardware gets changed for the M3. Based on how difficult it seems to be for Tesla to get HW2 hardware to work, the M3 might have the equivalent of a HW2.5 or HW3.
 
HW2 was supposed to reach parity with HW1 more than 4 months ago. It's still not there. I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. Forget about FSD; it's even further out. At this point, I view my AP2 MS functionality as an expensive and dangerous toy.

With HW1, you'll also be getting lifetime supercharging. If Tesla can't get the HW2s cars to work, THEY may be the ones to lose resale value...right after the HW3s come out.

It will be interesting to see what AP/FSD hardware gets changed for the M3. Based on how difficult it seems to be for Tesla to get HW2 hardware to work, the M3 might have the equivalent of a HW2.5 or HW3.

Its an inevitability. AP1 customers waited as long as 1 year for what they have now. AP2 has more cameras and is thus capable of doing so much more. Elon's vision is FSD so Tesla is putting all their resources towards that, it would be naive to believe otherwise.

Personally if im buying a high priced car, i want it to be as future proofed as possible. Go HW2.
 
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AP2 ~ feature parity end of this year. Superior to AP1 - next year (will still require eyes on the road, hands on the wheel). Sleep while you drive - don't count on it.

So in that sense, I see AP2 as a superior AP1, you could ride the future proof boat, but you are paying 1-2 years of depreciation to ride that boat.

Over the life of the car, AP1 gives you 70-80% of the joy, for 10-20k cheaper.
If you must have 100% joy, and don't mind loosing 10-20k extra in depreciation, AP2 it is.
 
I am debating a CPO Model S with HW1 versus either a new Model S with HW2 or new Model 3. My concern is that vehicles with the older hardware will quickly lose their resale value once autopilot parity is reached and more HW2 vehicles are available? Do you think this is a real concern? Are the prices of older Teslas going to crash? Thanks for your thoughts.
They're already worth less - check out the huge discounts on inventory cars with ap1
 
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Hw1 is the best tech available right now. Take it from a hw2 owner that probably should've saved a bunch and bought an inventory AP1 car. Parity looks far away and Tesla lives in la-la land about it's deficiency. Plus Tesla sucks at communicating. Model 3 is still a mystery but that might end in July.
Take it from an owner of both hardware 1 and hardware 2 Tesla Model S's - AP2 has almost reached parity with AP1, has exceeded it in certain important safety metrics and has improved so fast that I think it will reach full parity within a month or two.
 
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HW2 was supposed to reach parity with HW1 more than 4 months ago. It's still not there. I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. Forget about FSD; it's even further out. At this point, I view my AP2 MS functionality as an expensive and dangerous toy.

With HW1, you'll also be getting lifetime supercharging. If Tesla can't get the HW2s cars to work, THEY may be the ones to lose resale value...right after the HW3s come out.

It will be interesting to see what AP/FSD hardware gets changed for the M3. Based on how difficult it seems to be for Tesla to get HW2 hardware to work, the M3 might have the equivalent of a HW2.5 or HW3.

100 pct different experience than you state, and also you can get hardware 2 cars with unlimited supercharging. Hardware 2 is already working and really damned well. The rate of progress has been stunning. And Elon himself just stated two days ago that model 3 has the same sensor suite.
 
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There is definitely still a market for pre AP1 cars with no autopilot at all, and I suspect that even as AP2 gains more features that there will still be a market for AP1 cars as well. Will a 2016 car with AP2 be worth more than a 2016 car with AP1? Yes, but you'll also pay less for an AP1 car right now, so in the end I don't think there will be a significant net difference.
 
HW2 was supposed to reach parity with HW1 more than 4 months ago. It's still not there. I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will. Forget about FSD; it's even further out. At this point, I view my AP2 MS functionality as an expensive and dangerous toy.

With HW1, you'll also be getting lifetime supercharging. If Tesla can't get the HW2s cars to work, THEY may be the ones to lose resale value...right after the HW3s come out.

It will be interesting to see what AP/FSD hardware gets changed for the M3. Based on how difficult it seems to be for Tesla to get HW2 hardware to work, the M3 might have the equivalent of a HW2.5 or HW3.

M3 is not get getting better tech than the S. People new to Tesla already have an osbourning issue with the Model S and 3. Last thing they need is an existing owner perpetuating FUD

Common sense also dictates that once you start making strides on maturing software on a hardware platform you don't rip it out and leave M3 with no cruise control at launch and 4 month delay for 80mph highway autosteer.
 
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@samiam

Historically, Model S prices have held up very well (better than ICE vehicles in the same class) despite Tesla constantly rolling out new technology. This includes the effects of AP1 rollout on pre-AP cars. Here is a discussion of one pretty good study and there are others that show basically the same thing:

Tesla Model S retains its value better than gas-powered cars in its segment, losing only 28% after 50k miles

Having said that, all things being equal, if you can find an AP2 car in your budget I would not be surprised if it depreciated less over time than a comparably priced AP1 vehicle given how quickly AP2's capabilities are improving based on reports of AP2 owners (I have AP1). If you can only find an AP1 car that fits your budget then based on Model S's track record I think it is a good bet that the depreciation will be less than ICE cars in the same class.
 
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when you buy a tesla you are buying a car and unlike most other cars on the road you are buying technology so I would advise buying whatever the latest version available is. the only fly in that sauce is that AP2 is not functioning the way it was intended to.
an analogy would be would you buy an Iphone 6 today when a 7 is available?
 
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All new cars face rapid depreciation at the beginning; luxury cars doubly so. If the depreciation is your concern as it sounds like, buying the CPO AP1 is a better choice - it's already lost a lot of that early money.

AP1 cars will probably depreciate a little more when AP2 gets better, but I doubt it'll be a big difference - and it certainly shouldn't be as big as the difference between a CPO and a brand new car.

The fact is, AP1 is still better than anything else on the road (except maybe AP2) - and will continue to be that for at least a few more years before the rest of the industry catches up.

Since most of the used Tesla buyers are folks coming to Tesla for the first time, AP1 will continue to be a big step up for them, even when AP2 is measurably better on all counts. They'll probably be will to pay more for a newer AP2 car - but not nearly as much more as you'd be paying for it now.
 
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Buying a Tesla - especially one of such vintage - with an investment perspective in mind is a losing proposition. They keep changing in price and feature set with such frequency that anyone buying one is in for an unpleasant surprise within days/weeks/months as far as perceived monetary value is concerned.

Buy it for the pleasures it provides to the task of driving, to suit your green mind, social status or something else, and you'll be happy much longer.

PS: I own an AP1 Tesla whose listed specs are as I got them. I love it. It makes my life a lot more enjoyable, in terms of how much it helps my commute. I also intend to keep it for a while, and don't see the point of checking out its resale value and feeling upset.
 
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New All new cars face rapid depreciation at the beginning; luxury cars doubly so. If the depreciation is your concern as it sounds like, buying the CPO AP1 is a better choice - it's already lost a lot of that early money.

^^This 100%

My concern is that vehicles with the older hardware will quickly lose their resale value once autopilot parity is reached and more HW2 vehicles are available?

Just remember that HW3 will be coming out eventually (maybe as soon as two years based on the current rapid update cycle), so whatever you buy will always become old hardware sooner than you might like. Cars take their biggest depreciation hit at the beginning, but after that it levels off a bit.

Non AP cars are still selling for pretty decent prices today 2 hardware releases behind.
 
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I first of all agree that HW2 progress doesn't seem as if it has been going all that fast. But when you realize they had to start from scratch building with all new sensors, cameras, and most importantly the computer and the deep learning algorithms - its pretty impressive what they have been able to accomplish. The problem is Elon expects it to be finished sooner than later - that could be changed, maybe he should give out a more conservative time table to the public and internally he can try to push for "sooner" releases. I agree that it might take up to another year or two to get to EAP, and who knows when they will start to roll out anything close to FSD. But the point is that you should be expecting less and maybe one day you will get more than you expected. AP1 is basically finished and not much can be added (except freeway 2 freeway, and nav integration) so what you see as a polished finished product of HW1 is completely different (including - computers, camera, sensors, etc) than HW2 which is an active work in progress. So that comes down to your call whether you want the latest and greatest with lots of updates coming your way or something that is mostly polished and won't be made any better in the foreseeable future (with the amount of things Tesla has in their hands I wouldn't be surprised if it is never updated).
 
Just remember that HW3 will be coming out eventually (maybe as soon as two years based on the current rapid update cycle), so whatever you buy will always become old hardware sooner than you might like.

Maybe sooner than that. We know NVidia will be shipping Xavier AP SoCs this fall, and with the obvious advantages it has for the application (60% more processing on 12% of the power, and quite possibly cheaper since there's so much less hardware involved,) I'm expecting Tesla to adopt it more or less immediately, assuming the DNN ports right over like it should.

That'd be a logical time for them to reevaluate their sensor package if they've learned that they'll eventually need something they don't have now or if something they always wanted became available or cheap enough to be practical.