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Is it smart to buy FSD for $5k while it’s still available for MX owners?
- Thread starter rjdoc74
- Start date
I think they pulled it because there is so much uncertainty about the extra costs of the new hardware. As soon as there is clarity they will reintroduce the option with the new pricing (probably higher). In the mean time they will honour all existing owners whether they bought the option upfront or took the option of purchasing at a later stage for the price as on their current mytesla page.
IIRC, the 2yr leases were ended just before AP2 announcement in Q4. It might have required them to take delivery by Q3 end but I am not certain. If not I don’t imagine there were that many delayed deliveries getting AP2 anyways.
If those future price increases are greater than the rate of inflation then Tesla would probably be up for a lost lawsuit
You're making the assumption that they haven't implemented any of those things. That probably isn't a valid assumption. For all we know, the functionality could be complete finished. After all, the AP 2.5 hardware has more headroom, and they could easily be running one or two extra models per vehicle in ghost mode, collecting data so that by the time the hardware is ready, the software will be ready to go.
Realistically, its status is probably somewhere in between those two extremes.
How would raising the price be a bait and switch? The people who paid for it will get their upgrade, and the people who didn't will have to pay more if they want it later.
Suppose I buy a DSLR camera with a single battery, and don't buy a spare battery because I want to wait to spend that $60 until I know I'll need it. If Canon raises the price of the extra battery to $80 six months later, the battery will cost me $80. That's just the way the market works. And what if it comes as a package with a lens at a $200, but I buy the body at full price and wait to buy the lens until later. The lens price goes up. Is that bait and switch? No, because I didn't buy the combo.
I see no difference for these FSD upgrades. Unless there's an explicit line in the contract that says that the price of that add-on will never change, you pretty much have to assume that it will.
In fact, the reason I bought FSD on my car is because I was pretty much 100% certain last November that it was going to require new hardware, and that the upgrade price would probably increase by two or three grand by the time the feature shipped. I was really quite surprised when Tesla said that they would honor that price for existing owners.
Why? Tesla is and has been inclreasing prices on multiple components (ex, paint options). How is this different?
Exactly. I think Tesla/Elon didn't originally expect to need to upgrade the hardware. With logistics and the cost of upgrading the vehicles, they probably aren't really going to make money on a lot of the already sold ones. Infact, I'm kind of expecting them to remove the option to add it in later, even after it comes out: with them telling people to trade in and buy a new vehicle if you really want it at that point, thats the way it works with every other manufacturer. I'm just hoping the lag time between them releasing it on new vehicles and the ability to schedule the upgrade on those who already paid for it isn't too long, but I fear it will be.
I think the option will only come back if the upgrades of the existing vehicles goes well, and the price will be based on that. I think they'll start shipping FSD in about a year, but not upgrading existing cars at that point. It will probably launch as highway driving only (on ramp to off ramp, including highway ramp to ramp interchanges, the navigate with autopilot with enough "confidence" to not pay as much attention/approve its lane changes/whatever)
If it determines your purchase decision between an AP1.0 vs AP2.0+ car then it is inducement into a contract (or inducement to purchase full stop)
Tesla is legally obligated to offer FSD after purchase on an AP2.0+ car - I reckon they’ve learnt from their ‘funding secured’ farce
Then the question becomes can they charge more than the inflation rate increase on the original after sale price - I reckon there would be a limit, but maybe ‘free market’ economics will limit the price (because Waymo is well ahead & will be licencing their tech to auto makers)
What? If your decision to purchase your Tesla was based on getting the FSD update, you should have purchased it already. Tesla is under no obligation to continue to offer it to anyone who hasn't already paid for it. There's no contract requiring them to offer you upgrades at any price. The part they could get in trouble on is just how long it takes them to upgrade the existing people who purchased FSD... what is reasonable for that.
Given that the description for FSD said you could buy it with the car for $3000 and for $4000 later, it would seem at least a little deceptive to renege on that later. People made buying decisions based on that description.
Agreed, it was very specific regarding the ability to buy it later, and the price - $3,000 now or $4,000 after purchase. It didn't say "You might have the option to buy it later" or "This option can be added later at an additional cost".
Why would Tesla make such a definitive statement if the intent was to offer it at a different price, or not at all after purchase?
I’m not a contract expert, but the logic here is dubious.
There are uncontrollable factors - such as local compliance - Tesla can easily cite for cost increases beyond what was anticipated years back. Those will be passed on to those who opted against what amounts to a put option to purchase it.
That said, what may be legal may not always be right, and Tesla wouldn’t alienate its customers - who rival Jeep buyers in repeat purchase loyalty.
There are uncontrollable factors - such as local compliance - Tesla can easily cite for cost increases beyond what was anticipated years back. Those will be passed on to those who opted against what amounts to a put option to purchase it.
That said, what may be legal may not always be right, and Tesla wouldn’t alienate its customers - who rival Jeep buyers in repeat purchase loyalty.
bayx
Member
Lot of discussion on this topic, but @Peteski sums up well!
Many well established car manufacturers will be getting into the Smart Car market in the next few years. Waymo will be eager & ready to cater their "FSD" tech to those manufacturers. Market forces will ultimately force Tesla to price their FSD accordingly. Tesla is not obligated to upgrade hardware for free, especially because they never clearly specified what FSD actually entails! They can just add the features that existing hardware can support to the cars that purchased FSD already and be done with them.
Well, when I was ordering the verbage on the website said something like "put a destination in your navigation and your Tesla will drive itself to your destination." That's still a pretty clear picture.
There of course is a limit in time, there always is, unless the statement specifically says we will offer this forever at this price, or your get unlimited access forever at this price (and sane companies don't do that, if you look at "lifetime" warrantys, its often for the lifetime that the product is sold, when the product is discontinued the "lifetime" warranty is also over (sometimes plus a year or 2 or 3).
Regardless, as it is, Tesla is already honoring that offer, you can already go into your account and upgrade today, and Tesla said they'd offer it for a few more weeks from my understanding, so they're even letting people know of the expiration of the post-purchase offer. If you want to "guarantee" (as much as you can for a feature like this) that you get it, you really should purchase it right now, otherwise Tesla is well within the rights to not offer it to people who have not purchased it already. And if not offering you a FSD feature as an upgrade when it comes out that you didn't pay for turns you off from Tesla, you didn't have too much brand loyalty, there are plenty of other things Tesla could be doing to better increase brand loyalty then offering an upgrade that doesn't make sense.
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