How much would you pay for the Matrix Lights?

[leonwu]

Currently have '22 MS LR refresh (not refreshed refresh) with about 2K miles (3K KMs) on it. Got it for $147K CAD after tax and spent $5-6K for PPF, ceramic, winter tires, etc etc.

I'm about to do a cross country move and have been offered $144K CAD for the car, so call it a $8-9K loss, less whatever depreciation would've been for 3 months/2K miles. The car is in perfect condition and I really don't have any complaints specific to my car.

Curious for opinions: sell the car and order a new one at my new destination with the new lights? or keep existing one and ship it cross country (company will reimburse most of the cost). Or put differently, how much of a loss would you take on your current car to get a car with the new lights?

Couple of thoughts brewing:
+ Perks of new lights (though I'm still really unclear on the benefit of these in the city, plus if anyone outside of these forums/Tesla addicts would really even notice)
+ Perhaps other perks by the time I take delivery (doubt it on this one, if our resident insider @B-lon took off his hold, suggests the near-time updates are likely not material); car is also a Nov 2021 build so hopefully has the future airbag horn(?)
+ 3K less KMs?

+/- 20% chance Tesla will allow retrofits of the lights at a cost of like $5K

- An order now could mean 4-5 months wait time (Tesla website has EDD at July 2022)
- Canada continues to threaten with a luxury car tax, which would be a major 10% cost increase blow if I don't get the new car before its implemented.
- Financing costs has increased (I got 6 years at 2.65% vs. now it is 3.65%; equates to another $5K over 6 years)
- Tesla lottery of another car worth of potential panel gaps/misalignments/rattles that I have been lucky so far to avoid

 

[98CamryXLE]

I would keep the car. You already spent too much on it.

 

[phaphaphooey]

You would give up your radar and have gimped AP. I would much rather have more functional AP than matrix headlights that don't even have matrix functionality enabled yet.

 

[leonwu]

You would give up your radar and have gimped AP. I would much rather have more functional AP than matrix headlights that don't even have matrix functionality enabled yet.

It is less about the actual Matrix tech, but rather brighter lights.

The radar is an interesting topic - while our cars have radar, I imagine it would very quickly become useless as Tesla's software updates would turn TACC (Autopilot) and FSD both to vision only? I cant imagine them having two versions of software that considers radar, even if the car has it.

 

[B-lon]

You would give up your radar and have gimped AP. I would much rather have more functional AP than matrix headlights that don't even have matrix functionality enabled yet.

You are giving up radar either way in this case, it will be disabled in a coming update. So it isn't a deciding factor.

FWIW my radar has been off for months now (with FSD) and it's fine. The only thing that's left for me that's annoying is a slight delay catching up to accelerating traffic at higher speeds. Also a lot of benefits around not slamming on brakes when cross traffic occurs ahead and slowing down isn't necessary that the radar isn't really capable of discerning reliably.

Also @leonwu there will be more new things in the car by the time you actually take delivery but nothing I would sell the car over.

I'd say keep the car. There'll always be something just around the corner with this brand. Just more things to look forward to in your next one.

 

[2101Guy]

I plan to never drive the S with the upgraded lights.

Never miss..what you never had/tried..

 

[leonwu]

Its interesting, with all the hype and attention on these forums over the lights, I totally would've thought there would be a lot more people pushing to do the sell/re-buy. Guess it may be more hype than function.

Really sucks they will get rid of radar, even for cars that have it. Even if Tesla used it as a redundancy to the vision, feel like it'd be better than not having it.

 

[2101Guy]

Its interesting, with all the hype and attention on these forums over the lights, I totally would've thought there would be a lot more people pushing to do the sell/re-buy. Guess it may be more hype than function.

Really sucks they will get rid of radar, even for cars that have it. Even if Tesla used it as a redundancy to the vision, feel like it'd be better than not having it.

Hype. Ive driven at night for 3 years now with non Matrix lights, and I NEVER had an issue seeing the road. Never.
Last night for the first time ever, I turned on the fog/driving lights to go with the headlights. WOW. Even more light than I needed.

While Im POSITIVE the matrix lights are even brighter? Reminds me of friends who "had" to go get pressure washers to get more foam via foam cannon on their car when washing it.

End result with their method is same end result with my old bucket method. lol

 

[B-lon]

Its interesting, with all the hype and attention on these forums over the lights, I totally would've thought there would be a lot more people pushing to do the sell/re-buy. Guess it may be more hype than function.

Really sucks they will get rid of radar, even for cars that have it. Even if Tesla used it as a redundancy to the vision, feel like it'd be better than not having it.

This part of the forum is mostly about being excited about speculation. I’m here mainly to help people navigate that, especially people who are new to the brand.

Counterintuitively, removing radar will make your autopilot better. Sensor-data fusion is extremely hard between different types of data (I’ve ridden in every top player’s latest AI drivers as of last year, nobody is really there) and Tesla seems to deeply believe it isn’t necessary unlike any other major competitor.