Full Self Driving Price - $4K upgrade no longer honored?

[Andrew]

We took delivery on our Model 3 on January 3. At the time, we were told full self driving would be $3,000 at purchase, or $4,000 after delivery. I know new orders are $3,000 now/$5,000 later, as I just watched a friend configure a couple of days ago. (Had my choices been $3K vs. $5K, I would have bought it then for $3K.)

Today I logged in to the "My Tesla" section of their site, and found the upgrade option (which wasn't there a couple of days ago) - but it is trying to charge me $5,000, not $4,000.

They should honor the $4K price for people who were told it would be $4K.

Does anyone know how to get the upgrade for $4K, as promised? Has anyone talked with Tesla about this yet?

 

[PoitNarf]

Yes, it should be $4000 for the FSD upgrade for those of us who ordered before Tesla made the pricing change. If you’re looking to upgrade now I would call Tesla to do the upgrade and confirm pricing with them over the phone.

See this article on Electrek: Tesla increases price of its ‘Full Self-Driving Capability’ over-the-air update

 

[fmm]

promised? no ..... prices don't stay static forever.

 

[Andrew]

promised? no ..... prices don't stay static forever.

I agree that prices don't stay static, but only to a point. If we were talking years, not months, later -- or perhaps even after any self driving features had actually been released -- that would be a bit more reasonable. But at this point, nothing has actually changed, so there should be no price increase from what we were told.

This happened back in 2013, with the price for the extended warranty for the Model S. They originally said it would be $2,500 (and could be purchased at any time, up to 30 days after the expiration of the original warranty). Then, without any warning, they increased the price to $4,000. There was an uproar, and Tesla agreed to extend the $2,500 price for one week, to allow everyone who wanted it to purchase at that price (which I did). I think that was an excellent and fair way to handle the price increase.

I'd be totally fine if Tesla tells current Model 3 owners (who were told the $4K price) that they had one week to purchase at $4k, else it'll go to $5k. But raising the price with no warning or grace period to purchase is not okay.

 

[outie]

I agree that prices don't stay static, but only to a point. If we were talking years, not months, later -- or perhaps even after any self driving features had actually been released -- that would be a bit more reasonable. But at this point, nothing has actually changed, so there should be no price increase from what we were told.

This happened back in 2013, with the price for the extended warranty for the Model S. They originally said it would be $2,500 (and could be purchased at any time, up to 30 days after the expiration of the original warranty). Then, without any warning, they increased the price to $4,000. There was an uproar, and Tesla agreed to extend the $2,500 price for one week, to allow everyone who wanted it to purchase at that price (which I did). I think that was an excellent and fair way to handle the price increase.

I'd be totally fine if Tesla tells current Model 3 owners (who were told the $4K price) that they had one week to purchase at $4k, else it'll go to $5k. But raising the price with no warning or grace period to purchase is not okay.

It is said that Tesla will honor the $4k for post-delivery activation gramdfathered for pre-announcement owners. The $5k is an error on Tesla part and they will refund $1k afterwards.

We contacted Tesla to get an explanation about the situation and the company confirmed that it isn’t supposed to apply to existing vehicles and they will honor the original $4,000 price. The new $5,000 price is for new orders.

 

[doubleohwhat]

According to my service center, it is now a $5k upgrade regardless of when you purchased your model 3. Take that with a bucket of salt though. Service centers aren't exactly on the forefront of Tesla knowledge when it comes to policy, changes, etc.

What I don't get is that they're apparently confident enough in their FSD software to up the upgrade price yet they recently had to increase the autopilot nags. If they have solid FSD code, why not port bits to autopilot to increase safety/reliability rather than increase nags.

Also, I'd like to know what's going to happen in a situation where an autopilot failure (while hands off wheel) results in a death but if FSD had been purchased, the driver would have likely survived. I feel like they're going to *have* to add some of the FSD features (additional active cameras, etc) to autopilot but require hands on the wheel or it deactivates as usual. Basically, FSD would get you a hands off experience but the safety features would be present in standard autopilot (with the hands on wheel requirement).

 

[fmm]

I agree that prices don't stay static, but only to a point. If we were talking years, not months, later -- or perhaps even after any self driving features had actually been released -- that would be a bit more reasonable. But at this point, nothing has actually changed, so there should be no price increase from what we were told.

This happened back in 2013, with the price for the extended warranty for the Model S. They originally said it would be $2,500 (and could be purchased at any time, up to 30 days after the expiration of the original warranty). Then, without any warning, they increased the price to $4,000. There was an uproar, and Tesla agreed to extend the $2,500 price for one week, to allow everyone who wanted it to purchase at that price (which I did). I think that was an excellent and fair way to handle the price increase.

I'd be totally fine if Tesla tells current Model 3 owners (who were told the $4K price) that they had one week to purchase at $4k, else it'll go to $5k. But raising the price with no warning or grace period to purchase is not okay.

I don't disagree that it'd be nice for Tesla to offer the upgrade out for some period at the old price - essentially providing notice of the increase.

But also, Tesla's pricing strategy isn't up to you or the community and nothing has to change for them to update applicable pricing. you didn't buy it up front - as I didn't on my S. and when I passed on doing so, understood that it would be more expensive later and that the price to upgrade wasn't guaranteed. there was no "promise" - just a current price for the upgrade that Tesla has the ability to change at will.

 

[Mark_T]

Also, I'd like to know what's going to happen in a situation where an autopilot failure (while hands off wheel) results in a death but if FSD had been purchased, the driver would have likely survived. I feel like they're going to *have* to add some of the FSD features (additional active cameras, etc) to autopilot but require hands on the wheel or it deactivates as usual. Basically, FSD would get you a hands off experience but the safety features would be present in standard autopilot (with the hands on wheel requirement).

We are a long way from FSD offering a 'hands off experience' but to answer your question, if you are using AP and your hands aren't on the wheel and your attention isn't on the road then it is on you if you manage to kill yourself.

If FSD gets to the point where it would have saved you then you should have purchased it if you wanted that to happen.

I don't see anything in that situation that would oblige Tesla to enable features you have not paid for, like the additional cameras.

 

[Andrew]

I don't disagree that it'd be nice for Tesla to offer the upgrade out for some period at the old price - essentially providing notice of the increase.

But also, Tesla's pricing strategy isn't up to you or the community and nothing has to change for them to update applicable pricing. you didn't buy it up front - as I didn't on my S. and when I passed on doing so, understood that it would be more expensive later and that the price to upgrade wasn't guaranteed. there was no "promise" - just a current price for the upgrade that Tesla has the ability to change at will.

Technically, it's probably with Tesla's right to charge us $5k now, even though they told us it would be $4k. However, that would be really lousy customer service at this point...less than six months after delivery, with no change in what that upgrade actually gets you (which, at the moment, is...nothing.) That would also be uncharacteristic of Tesla - in my experience they have always been fair and provided excellent customer service. (The way they handled the Model S extended warranty is a good example of that.)

I just tried calling the main sales number, but after navigating to the Model 3 section in the phone tree, was told the call volume was too high, so they couldn't take my call. I then tried calling my service center, and they told me they didn't know, and to call the main 888-51-Tesla number.

I emailed via the My Tesla "Ask a question" form (with an escalation to the executive team). Hopefully they'll help sort this out.

 

[SpaceCarFan]

It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. You had the the opportunity to buy it with a discount at purchase, and the opportunity to buy it at $4k every day of he last six months, but you chose not to buy. Now that Tesla is seemingly more confident in it due to a price increase, you suddenly expect to take advantage of the new confidence level with the pricing reflective of the old confidence level.

 

[JeffK]

I'd be nice if the sales teams were not inundated with queries like these right now since many have sales questions that involve entire vehicles not just non-existent features.

If they fix the upgrade price listed in people's accounts I think they can avoid this and the sales team can focus on questions focused on sales of vehicles as this flood of customers comes.

 

[xav-]

If FSD turned on a radar or something I’d be more tempted to buy it.. but cameras?

The only thing that cameras seem to shine at in EAP is lane recognition... I don’t need cameras in the back for that.

From my perspective it seems that radar is doing the bulk of the work for EAP (again cameras are doing an excellent job with lane recognition). I trust radar with moving objects.. I don’t trust it for stationary objects.. but I don’t trust cameras with stationary objects either (especially since these are not stereo cameras)

I will be very interested to find out how tesla reliably solve the blind spot assist without radars.. especially in places like Germany where cars that go 70mph co exist with cars that go 120+

My 2 cents..

 

[JeffK]

If FSD turned on a radar or something I’d be more tempted to buy it.. but cameras?

The only thing that cameras seem to shine at in EAP is lane recognition... I don’t need cameras in the back for that.

From my perspective it seems that radar is doing the bulk of the work for EAP (again cameras are doing an excellent job with lane recognition). I trust radar with moving objects.. I don’t trust it for stationary objects.. but I don’t trust cameras with stationary objects either (especially since these are not stereo cameras)

They don't have to be stereo cameras since the vehicle is moving, in addition there's overlap in some of the views, so you can have a stereo view with that if you choose.

Seemed to recognize stationary objects here:
A rare look at what Tesla Autopilot can see and interpret

 

[Andrew]

It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. You had the the opportunity to buy it with a discount at purchase, and the opportunity to buy it at $4k every day of he last six months, but you chose not to buy. Now that Tesla is seemingly more confident in it due to a price increase, you suddenly expect to take advantage of the new confidence level with the pricing reflective of the old confidence level.

Tesla has always been confident in their ability to create the self driving system, so I don't see why that factors in at all.

What is actually motivating me to purchase the $4k upgrade now is that I watched a friend configure her Model 3 earlier this week, and I noticed that they told her it would be $3k now or $5K later. So I want to ensure I can still get the upgrade at the $4k price I was told it would be. I do think it's completely reasonable for them to give us a "window" of time to do the upgrade, and then after that they can increase the price for everyone... That was a great way to handle the extended warranty price increase on the Model S.

 

[North75]

What I'm more worried about is if they try to do a partial release of FSD with some features that were originally promised to be part of EAP. Such as automatic lane changing and the ability to take exit ramps between highways. Then again I'm not sure how clear cut it is or has been regarding promised features of the two packages.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Believe that Tesla announced the upgraded pricing when it was a leap of faith. Once the features are enacted, and you get to see exactly what the benefits are, the prices probably will go up.

Tesla states that pricing is accurate at the time of publication, but retain the option to adjust them up or down as time goes by.

Same deal with buying a house. If you do a pre=purchase before the house is finished you usually (but not always) get a better price. Once the home is ready to move into, the price usually goes up.

 

[Andrew]

Believe that Tesla announced the upgraded pricing when it was a leap of faith. Once the features are enacted, and you get to see exactly what the benefits are, the prices probably will go up.

No new features have been enabled yet, though.

The home-buying analogy doesn't really hold up. The "feature set" that they've been selling hasn't changed (and again, still isn't even available). If they were to add new features in addition to what we were told we'd get at the time of purchase (whether we paid $3k now or $4k later), that might be different. But at this point, literally nothing has changed except the price.

 

[ebmcs03]

I knew the price was going to go up once any version of FSD would be available.

Everyone should have figured that out. Shouldn’t be a surprise.

$3000 was a risk for having nothing. Now that it’s come to fruition it’s no longer as big of a risk. So yes. Tesla will charge more.

 

[Andrew]

I knew the price was going to go up once any version of FSD would be available.

Everyone should have figured that out. Shouldn’t be a surprise.

$3000 was a risk for having nothing. Now that it’s come to fruition it’s no longer as big of a risk. So yes. Tesla will charge more.

Of course everyone knew the price would go up -- because they told us! They said the price would be $4,000 later instead of $3,000 now. For current buyers, they're saying the price will be $5,000 later instead of $3,000 now.

It hasn't come to fruition. No new features have been released. Elon has Tweeted that some FSD features will start to be implemented in August, but as anyone who has been around Tesla for a while knows, the Tesla time frame is always overly optimistic... "August" could very easily mean "mid-2019" or even later. (When's that FSD cross-country demo happening? Oh, yeah...)

It was also never a risk for having "nothing." If they didn't deliver on FSD at some point, they'd have to issue refunds (or face a class action lawsuit). It was a risk for not knowing when FSD feature(s) would become available. And, realistically, we still don't know.

 

[Andrew]

I just heard back from the Tesla executive team with good news:

Thank you for contacting us at Tesla! We have received your submission and would like to provide further information in regards to the FSD pricing. The Full Self Driving upgrade is changing from $4000 to $5000, but it only applies to new orders. If you purchased your vehicle before 06/25/2018 you will received a $1000 refund which is processed automatically upon purchased. The refund process however does vary and may take up to 30 days to process. If you chose to wait, there will be functionality built in to show the $4000 pricing as existing owners Tesla Accounts will be updated to revert to the previous price. Please feel free to let me know if you have any other questions.