First-Time Buyer: Must-Have Options?

[scharlesjr]

Great post and good food for thought. Here's my order before reading this post.

 

[scharlesjr]

After!!!! Dumped FSD will add it down the line when it's full functioning. I'm not an audiophile and had the Bang & Olufsen audio upgrade in my Audi A7 and really couldn't discern the difference between the stock system. $6k saved!!!! Tempted to go for the 21" turbine wheels and buy the additional "19 wheel package for winter driving.

 

[Footer]

The new price model sure changes things. PUP won't be as popular since power liftgate is standard. Same for Pano over glass roof for $2000.

I bought PUP mainly for the liftgate. I wouldn't get PUP now.
I've had SAS and coil and I prefer coil just for long term maintenance.
I've had premium and standard stereo and for slacker it doesn't make much difference. Definitely makes a difference with a hi-fidelity source but I wouldn't pay extra for UHF.
I've had sub-zero and no sub-zero and I can live without it. I wouldn't mind the heated steering wheel though.
I rarely open my sunroof. Too loud. I wouldn't pay extra for Pano.
I didn't like multi-pattern seats in the showroom cars. It's a personal thing. You should try it. Get leather if you don't like it.

I'd definitely get EAD and I'd probably spend the extra for FSD too if I planned on keeping the car for 4 years. Even if it doesn't work as advertised, I bet you will at least be able to drive hands free on the Interstate for a few hours.

Check out EV-CPO.com and see if there are any inventory cars that you like. There are some nice discounts and you may get a few things for free. For example:

Model S 90D 5YJSA1E29GF167670 | Tesla

 

[D.E.]

I just ordered an S 75D, I'm still within the allowed order modification window.

I dropped the cold weather package yesterday, I didn't realize before I read the manual that heated front seats were already included as standard. We're moving to a cold weather state. I don't know how valuable the heated wipers and fluid would be. Can anyone tell me?

I went with the leather, premium sound, and the carbon fiber.

I got the enhanced autopilot, I skipped the FSD until they implement it, then I plan to add it.

I'd like to pick up the car in California, see the factory, and drive it back. California makes that option punitive by charging sales tax even when the car will be registered in another state. There was a bill to change that but it was vigorously opposed by one of their apparently less gifted politicians.

 

[Footer]

I didn't have much luck with the wiper defroster and nozzle heaters so I stopped trying to use them. I would only get subzero if I regularly had back seat passengers. I would take the heated steering wheel if it were free but I wear gloves in the winter anyway so I didn't really miss it.

We use the front seat heaters all the time. Nice that it's included in the base price.

Yeah, you don't want to pick it up in California. Looks like you got a build you'll be happy with.

 

[Zero CO2]

Just went through the the whole process of buying an EV inapril2017
1. looked across entire EV market... Conclusion must go with EV only company, ICE companies Ford, Gm etc don't want to sell EVs (ugliest cars ever designed ....see Nissan Leaf)

2. Tesla has good looking high performance EVs started with model 3 and I figured it would be 2019 before I would get a model 3.

3. Model s is a financial stretch for me (college payments) but wanted to get off fossil fuels ASAP.

4. Went with model s 75 with no extra options.... I don't have the MS yet but my guess is it will be better than any ICE at the same price point........

5 model s is a software defined car ....basically a computer that you drive and when I am ready I can purchase AP and self driving if it makes in the future.

6. Can't wait for 5/23 my delivery date ....yahoo

 

[whttiger25]

I thought long and hard about this. I went over all the options in detail, and combined with my previous experience of owning a tesla, here is my order. Got it in before the 100D price increase and SAS requirement. I may have one of the cheapest 100D's ever produced

 

[GasKilla]

Hi, I'm looking at a new S90D, but it's a major purchase for me so I'm looking to save where I can. But, I'm willing to spend if it's a good investment in terms of enjoyment and longevity of the car.

So far I'm thinking AP and full self-driving, which are big appeals of the car. Are any of the other options considered must-have? On that note, are there are any options that are a clear waste of money? For example, I'm buying in CA so the sub-zero package isn't useful at all.

As someone who lives in SoCal I find a heated steering wheel very useful in the winter driving through the canyons. Basically to each his own. But the one thing every Tesla owner should have is autopilot! It almost makes LA traffic tolerable.

 

[D.E.]

Correct me if I am wrong, but FSD @ 3000 now versus a 1000 extra when ordered later on when the FSD is actually working, say in Two years time.

That means ordering now will be a 16.5% interest rate on that investment.

That doesn't apply when Tesla never delivers. Since I plan to keep the car for at least 4 years, I take my chances on it, so I did order the FSD.

Hold on there, Bucko. That 16.5% figure needs a critical look.

It is actually less than $1000 extra to wait. If it is added at the time of purchase, you pay sales tax on that $3K increase on the car price. If you add it later, you don't pay sales tax on the $4K. So if I pay 8% sales tax on the new car, that is $240 or so on that $3K. My net cost for waiting is now $760. Those financing the car purchase are also paying interest on that initial $3K for the year or two until they'd have upgraded, so their net cost of waiting to upgrade would be even less. The fly in the ointment is if the FSD upgrade price changes.

The other point is that a new car isn't an investment, it's a wasting asset.

 

[whttiger25]

Hold on there, Bucko. That 16.5% figure needs a critical look.

It is actually less than $1000 extra to wait. If it is added at the time of purchase, you pay sales tax on that $3K increase on the car price. If you add it later, you don't pay sales tax on the $4K. So if I pay 8% sales tax on the new car, that is $240 or so on that $3K. My net cost for waiting is now $760. Those financing the car purchase are also paying interest on that initial $3K for the year or two until they'd have upgraded, so their net cost of waiting to upgrade would be even less. The fly in the ointment is if the FSD upgrade price changes.

The other point is that a new car isn't an investment, it's a wasting asset.

They still charge you sales tax on these items when you add them on later. And if you are financing your car hopefully you are doing it at 1.49-2%, so over two years it's really negligible. But your point at a new car being a depreciating asset as opposed to an investment is a good one for not getting FSD because the longer you have to wait, the less the car using FSD is worth, and the shorter amount of time you have to actually use the features on the vehicle before you are expected to replace it.

For the previous poster, Jack Tripper, If you want to make an investment comparison, you need to factor in the risk of the investment paying off.

Buying FSD now with the car will "return" $1000, or 33% on an investment of $3000 (taxes ignored because they exist on both) in some, but not all, scenarios. You've stated a time horizon of 2 years, however it could be longer before FSD features reach what would be good enough to warrant a total investment of $3000. The longer it takes, the smaller your "annualized" investment return, and the more it makes sense to keep the $3000 in other investments, such as real estate, stocks, or even bonds (which won't yield as much as this "FSD Investment" but are much more likely to pay you what you hope/expect, and don't have nearly as many "loss" scenarios"). We've talked about a 33% divided buy number of years as a rough return, but that doesn't include the scenarios for which you take a 100% loss, which includes FSD takes so long you are buying another car anyway, or it never reaches your expectations. When you include the probabilities for those outcomes the true expected return on this $3000 investment is actually much less than 16.5%.

In the end, investing and this type of analysis is complicated. My personal opinion is that it will take longer than 2 years for FSD to really be meaningful, and it's better to spend $4000 on something you know you are buying vs $3000 on something that will take years to materialize and which contains doubts about what exactly it will be. Out of all the possible "sets" of FSD features that will be available in 2, 3 years, which of those sets are acceptable value for $3000 today? I work in the investment industry so the line of thinking above is how we look at stocks and bonds, but it also works in real life - but to a limited point. You can't place probability weighted expected value on everything, it would be far too draining. For me this is more intuition.

Jack, if you are only planning on keeping the car for 4 years, I think ordering the FSD is a horrible idea. What if the feature set you are desiring is only available for the last year you own the car? Would you pay $3000 for one year of use of a self driving car? Or would you rather wait one more year, and get it on your next tesla, and get 4 years of FSD for the same price? We should all know by now that Elon overpromises, not out of malicious intent, but rather a somewhat overly optimistic view of how long it takes to program complexity. He has a view that all programmers are fully optimizable, in a sense, and he underestimates unanticipated problems and their time to resolution. He's admitted it, but has yet to show true restraint in actually adjusting his timelines. Look at EAP... I don't blame him, as a software developer myself, I understand how hard it is to look at those judging you and say, "well this problem will take 6 months to solve" and have them look at you and say, "why? it seems like it shouldn't take that long". It's hard to respond with, "Well I think it will take 2 months to program and 4 months to work out all the bugs." but it's the truth.

 

[D.E.]

It's my understanding that tax isn't collected on a software update but I am far from sure about that.

The point about a car being a depreciating asset and not an investment was just that. Websters defines investment as the outlay of money usually for income or profit. That is different from purchasing something that will certainly lose value as it is used and as it ages. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a wasting asset, it is just wrong to term it an investment.

This has no bearing on whether someone should choose FSD or not, whether now or two years from now. If someone wants it, I say go for it. As for me, it is a better fit for me to wait until it is here then purchase it despite the increased cost. I'll be happier that way and my happiness is worth the $1000. Overall, as a retired geezer, I'm pretty amazed that it is even possible. I love technology. I'll pay the $4000 to be on the leading edge. You see I went to college before there were calculators, and now I'm getting a car that not only runs on batteries, it can drive itself. You can't put a price on that.

I say "Go Elon!"

 

[whttiger25]

It's my understanding that tax isn't collected on a software update but I am far from sure about that.

The point about a car being a depreciating asset and not an investment was just that. Websters defines investment as the outlay of money usually for income or profit. That is different from purchasing something that will certainly lose value as it is used and as it ages. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a wasting asset, it is just wrong to term it an investment.

This has no bearing on whether someone should choose FSD or not, whether now or two years from now. If someone wants it, I say go for it. As for me, it is a better fit for me to wait until it is here then purchase it despite the increased cost. I'll be happier that way and my happiness is worth the $1000. Overall, as a retired geezer, I'm pretty amazed that it is even possible. I love technology. I'll pay the $4000 to be on the leading edge. You see I went to college before there were calculators, and now I'm getting a car that not only runs on batteries, it can drive itself. You can't put a price on that.

I say "Go Elon!"

I know they charge tax on the software battery upgrades...

 

[Duke-U]

@D.E. @whttiger25 maybe I shouldn't have called it an investment. My thought was that a 3000 spend on a feature that will develop over time is not bad considering that you otherwise need to make 16+ % on that money elsewhere.

Personally, I didn't think more than a few seconds about ordering FSD. It is small change compared to the total price of the car, I don't lease and I expect that in a few months time we begin to see parts of the FSD appear in the car. I live, work and breathe in the startup world and like to be on top of these kind of developments.

So all the arguments above might be true, but there is also a thing called gut feel and emotion in play here.

 

[D.E.]

Ugh. That makes me wrong. So not only is his 16.5% valid, it's actually low by the half the sales tax rate.
Sorry Duke-U.

 

[whttiger25]

@D.E. @whttiger25 maybe I shouldn't have called it an investment. My thought was that a 3000 spend on a feature that will develop over time is not bad considering that you otherwise need to make 16+ % on that money elsewhere.

Personally, I didn't think more than a few seconds about ordering FSD. It is small change compared to the total price of the car, I don't lease and I expect that in a few months time we begin to see parts of the FSD appear in the car. I live, work and breathe in the startup world and like to be on top of these kind of developments.

So all the arguments above might be true, but there is also a thing called gut feel and emotion in play here.

Does anyone expect to see fad features in a few months time? Eap isn't even at parity yet with ap1, at least not when it comes to stability.

Anyway I respect wanting to be on the cutting edge... I get that. I definitely hope we see those 8cameras doing something soon!

 

[whttiger25]

@D.E. @whttiger25 maybe I shouldn't have called it an investment. My thought was that a 3000 spend on a feature that will develop over time is not bad considering that you otherwise need to make 16+ % on that money elsewhere.

Personally, I didn't think more than a few seconds about ordering FSD. It is small change compared to the total price of the car, I don't lease and I expect that in a few months time we begin to see parts of the FSD appear in the car. I live, work and breathe in the startup world and like to be on top of these kind of developments.

So all the arguments above might be true, but there is also a thing called gut feel and emotion in play here.

And in fact, despite a vehicle being a depreciating asset, if you have a decision to pay $3000 now or $4000 later, the only reason to NOT pay $3000 now is if there is a risk of loss. Which - there is - uncertainty about the features FSD will have, the timeline of those features, and how much use you will get out of them. So choosing to pay $3000 when those risks exist vs $4000 when those risks do not exist is an investment, one with an expected 33% return compensating for those risks. This decision is totally decoupled from the car and the depreciation of the car, because we are simply talking about paying for a feature and that feature's expected utility for you.

So yes...you were right to call it an investment, one with a 33% return over a time period that you, the investor, must determine for yourself. If you expect to be using it in 3 months, then yes, the annualized return on your investment is actually far greater than 33%.

 

[cpa]

Let me throw this out there--

Your driving preferences in your life are unique to you. Your work commute might be 5 miles; it might be 100 miles. You might love your music. You might need a rack on top of your car for skis. You might have a seasonal destination off the Supercharger highway that you frequent. You might take a lot of road trips, or you would take them in your ICE. You might be someone who likes secondary highways and off-interstate travel when possible. You might have relatives that you visit often who do not have adequate charging facilities at their home. You might live in Frostbite Falls or Phoenix.

Anyway, I believe that once you determine how and where you will be driving your Tesla, that will determine which options to purchase.

We live in California. There was no need for the winter package. We did not like the 21" wheels and their attendant problems with potholes and 10,000-mile tread life. We do like back roads. Dual chargers (now replaced with the 72A upgrade) made sense to reduce mid-day charging time or destination charging by half (to allow more usage by others.)

Good luck!