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Is it time to reduce the price of Autopilot?

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I got to experience AP 1 in a Model S last year, and must admit I was completely underwhelmed.
No way would I pay Tesla asking prices for such a feature as for my kind of driving profile it would be completely useless. TACC is more than enough for me, and I get that either for "free" (as per trim level) or at least for a reasonable price with almost any other automaker. In case of AP, Tesla is nothing less than a rip-off. The good thing is that you don't have to buy it and save the ridiculous amount of money they ask for it.
 
The pricing for EAP & FSD should follow the typical technology curve. They will be more expensive initially when shipping in low volume, and go down in price over time, as the technology matures and volumes increase.

Even if EAP or FSD become part of the standard package, included at no additional cost, Tesla will likely maintain the pricing for activating these features previous cars. So anyone ordering a Tesla today without EAP or FSD should not expect Tesla to reduce the after delivery activation fee - and with FSD, there's a possibility they could increase the activation fee if hardware changes (such as a processor upgrade) are needed.

This is what Tesla has done for other features. When we received our S 100D a year ago, the 48A charger was standard and upgrading to 72A was an additional $1500 ($1900 after delivery). Shortly after delivery, Tesla changed configurations and included the 72A charger for no additional cost for 100D's. Even though cars built a month after ours got the 72A chargers for free, I confirmed with Tesla that if I want the 72A charger - it will cost us $1900 - and because our car already has the 72A charger hardware installed, we're paying $1900 for them to throw a software switch giving us the faster charging...
 
It works just fine. Everybody claiming different just watch this movie. Furthermore there is much more to come.

Why should Tesl change prices for a good working system?

If you don't use it as recommended or expect it to be L4 don't be surprised that it does not perform as expected.

 
Did they PROMISE those things or just say it was in the works or probably will be available within a certain time frame?

Myself and many friends who purchased at that time were all told the same thing by many a sales person, service tech, delivery specialist. ‘Traffic lights within 6 months’. And that was AP1.0 lol. There were references to Elon even mentioning traffic light recognition and ability for the car to drive itself to your destination within 2yrs. That was late 2015 :) Eventually employees all stopped mentioning anything and currently carry forward with the current statement ‘I’m the last to know anything. Tesla doesn’t inform anyone’.

Not saying I don’t appreciate AP2 at all. I’ve just had the AP1 experience and after 2yrs don’t see much improvement beyond a drunk like drive to a smooth drive..which brings us back to where AP1 ended lol. I’m sure there are some additional improvements ie. ability to see over hills, construction lines. However I drive the same route for years and my current AP2 performs more or less the same as my AP1 did...but only recently.

Back to the same statement...others are quickly catching up to a system that hasn’t seen much progress since 2016. Ie. Honda’s sensing system is not up to par with AP2 but catching up fast. And for $1200 cnd. Only a matter of time it increases function to mirror AP. It cannot drive without user intervention every so often however neither can AP2 now per software limit. (I remember the AP1 days of no steering wheel mandated touch for as long as your driving...sigh...gone).

I sincerely hope Tesla announces something radically advanced with AP soon before competitors start to overtake it for a fraction of the cost spread over cost/unit sold.
 
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Myself and many friends who purchased at that time were all told the same thing by many a sales person, service tech, delivery specialist. ‘Traffic lights within 6 months’. And that was AP1.0 lol. There were references to Elon even mentioning traffic light recognition and ability for the car to drive itself to your destination within 2yrs. That was late 2015 :) Eventually employees all stopped mentioning anything and currently carry forward with the current statement ‘I’m the last to know anything. Tesla doesn’t inform anyone’.

Not saying I don’t appreciate AP2 at all. I’ve just had the AP1 experience and after 2yrs don’t see much improvement beyond a drunk like drive to a smooth drive..which brings us back to where AP1 ended lol. I’m sure there are some additional improvements ie. ability to see over hills, construction lines. However I drive the same route for years and my current AP2 performs more or less the same as my AP1 did...but only recently.

Back to the same statement...others are quickly catching up to a system that hasn’t seen much progress since 2016. Ie. Honda’s sensing system is not up to par with AP2 but catching up fast. And for $1200 cnd. Only a matter of time it increases function to mirror AP. It cannot drive without user intervention every so often however neither can AP2 now per software limit. (I remember the AP1 days of no steering wheel mandated touch for as long as your driving...sigh...gone).

I sincerely hope Tesla announces something radically advanced with AP soon before competitors start to overtake it for a fraction of the cost spread over cost/unit sold.

There seem to be a different view from electric and others....

Did you test the new update?

Tesla’s latest Autopilot update brings some significant improvements to Autosteer and more
 
Given it’s now 2018 and AP2 is on par (not all aspects) with AP1 means there has been little to no major progress in terms of functionality since Mobil eye left. Those who have used or use AP1 could probably confirm.

The flaw in this logic is the implied assumption that AP1 cars drive the same way today that they did in October of 2016 under 7.1. They don't. Tesla has made major improvements in AP over the last year and a half on my AP1 X, making it much more stable and reliable and cutting in to the corner cases it couldn't handle.

There haven't been new "features" released for Autopilot under AP1, but there have been major refinements in how well it does the things it could already do. It still steers towards exit lanes a bit more than I'd like, but tree shadows across the road no longer faze it and it works in much worse weather (though the radar packs in under those Noreaster blizzard conditions, disabling everything.) I haven't experienced truck lust in months. It used to be the car lost track of the lane within a couple seconds when it went holistic, now it can hold it much longer.
 
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I don't think "rentware" is ever going to be a concept that really makes sense for a car. You are basically saying make it more expensive for people who will own their car for 8 years so someone who wants to sell a car every 2 years can get fancy stuff cheaper. You would also have to make it more expensive overall to make up for the lost time value of money by having it paid out in the future versus all at once up front. It just doesn't make sense. It would just change your complaint to be about how expensive the monthly rental fee is.
Not necessarily. The existing up-front costs could remain exactly the same (or even reduced), and a simple per-month pay-as-you-go option in the $100-150/month range could be added. That would be the most obvious scenario, and would not make things "more expensive" for people who buy EAP up-front, nor would it make anything "more expensive overall".
 
Autopilot used to cost $2500. Then they raised it to $3k. Then shortly after they stopped selling "autopilot" and started selling "enhanced autopilot" for $5k even though at present time there is nothing that "enhanced autopilot" does that is any different than "autopilot".
 
"The pricing for EAP & FSD should follow the typical technology curve. They will be more expensive initially when shipping in low volume, and go down in price over time, as the technology matures and volumes increase."

Except the hardware is already being included in all Tesla vehicles, which means they are already technically being shipped at maximum possible volume right now. Certainly there will be economies of scale as higher numbers of total Tesla vehicles are produced and sold, but regardless of how mature the technology is and regardless of how many people buy EAP or FSD, it will not have any effect on reducing the technology (hardware) costs.

"Even if EAP or FSD become part of the standard package, included at no additional cost, Tesla will likely maintain the pricing for activating these features previous cars. So anyone ordering a Tesla today without EAP or FSD should not expect Tesla to reduce the after delivery activation fee - and with FSD"

The way they handled the 60 -> 75 price reduction shows that this is not necessarily the case, and is very likely not the case. When the price difference between a 60 and a 75 was reduced, they also reduced the after-purchase price of the software unlocking from 60 -> 75 dramatically, from $5,000 to $2,000. So clearly they are willing to reduce upgrade costs after purchase, since they have already done so in the past year.

"there's a possibility they could increase the activation fee if hardware changes (such as a processor upgrade) are needed."

They've already said that if new hardware is needed, all upgrades will be performed at no cost. Not exactly the same as changing the activation fee, but I think that's an incredibly strong indicator that under such a scenario as what you described, they would be highly unlikely to increase the activation fee.
 
Did they PROMISE those things or just say it was in the works or probably will be available within a certain time frame?

In the time Ive been here, Ive seen enough people rail against the whole dealership model. Bad service, broken promises, secret charges, bait and switch.... but the law
of the land is that verbal agreements by a salesman are just hot air unless they are in the purchase agreement.

But go into a Tesla 'dealership'... the un-dealership that does things differently and better...
and some sales guy says: within a year... the car will drive itself, the car will change lanes, the car will... the car will... the car will....

It doesn't happen. Oh well, they didn't actually use the word 'promise' and put those 'promises' into the purchase agreement.
The difference, though, is you are paying for a product that is not materializing.

How is this any better than a scummy used car salesman?
I don't get it.
 
It works just fine.

"Fine" is a relative term in the case of AP right now.

AP1 and 2 (EAP) do some of the same tasks differently, some are better with AP2 while others are worse.

AP2 still likes to hint at taking highway exits, making moves to the right and then bouncing back and forth a bit as it passes the exit. In the case of left-hand highway ramps, the car will more often than not opt for that left turn rather than staying in the current lane.

AP2 auto-lane change is still more aggressive than AP1, which makes it uncomfortable.

The $5,000 cost of the current AP iteration is based on what it may be able to do in the future (that future used to be 12/2016). It's current capabilities do not warrant a price that exceeds the $2,500 - $3,000 of AP1.

To answer the OP - no, it is not time for the price of Autopilot to drop - unfortunately. However I believe a price decrease is inevitable.
 
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I think most would consider it a positive difference. Check back in 8-9 months when owners have had several updates and then compare to what the competition has since their features will not have changed. Only time will tell.
I've been driving Tesla's since 2013's. Except for AP1 related updates, which still haven't lived up to Elon's promises, I have never received any revolutionary features that other cars I owned prior to 2013 didn't already have. To date, OTA simply allows Tesla to ship cars lacking features with a promise that someday you may get it (it took 5 years to get "easy entry" feature which I had on my 2006 Lexus, possibly even on the previous one too but I don't remember).
 
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Did they PROMISE those things or just say it was in the works or probably will be available within a certain time frame?
You are right on one point, Tesla has gotten increasingly better at eluding to or making sure the timelines are so vague people like you can say "FSD is still in progress so Tesla hasn't broken any promises to AP2 owners" even in the year 3000.

In the past they actually promised, then then they went to "soon" mode, now they are in "it's not possible to say when" mode of promises.
 
I've been driving Tesla's since 2013's. Except for AP1 related updates, which still haven't lived up to Elon's promises, I have never received any revolutionary features that other cars I owned prior to 2013 didn't already have. To date, OTA simply allows Tesla to ship cars lacking features with a promise that someday you may get it (it took 5 years to get "easy entry" feature which I had on my 2006 Lexus, possibly even on the previous one too but I don't remember).

Huh. Your old gas car told you how much gas it would have at the destination, and automatically routed you through gas stations to get you there when needed? It told you the status of those stations in real time? That's really impressive!
 
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You are right on one point, Tesla has gotten increasingly better at eluding to or making sure the timelines are so vague people like you can say "FSD is still in progress so Tesla hasn't broken any promises to AP2 owners" even in the year 3000.

In the past they actually promised, then then they went to "soon" mode, now they are in "it's not possible to say when" mode of promises.

I have to agree there. My 1996 lexus es300 had rain sensing wipers and they functioned perfectly. Sales guy said so, corporate sales document said it functioned as so, and it did. No paying for something at a later date lol.

Tesla’s corporate culture seems to be a direct reflection of Elon’s mental timeline...not reality lol.
At least they are no longer promising anything other then what is on the purchase agreement. At least that’s acceptable business practice. Anything extra is now a bonus!
 
Huh. Your old gas car told you how much gas it would have at the destination, and automatically routed you through gas stations to get you there when needed? It told you the status of those stations in real time? That's really impressive!
As a matter of fact yes, it had a miles to empty and fuel consumption stats from current to last X miles, etc. Tons of ICE car have had it for years (and probably all ICE cars in Tesla price range). Yes it showed me gas stations, not only that, I could set the gas station as an additional destination, some Tesla owners can only dream about today (multi-waypoint navigation). It did show when they were open or closed. While it didn't show me how many cars were filling up at any moment, that doesn't matter when a fill up takes less than 5 minutes per cat and the next gas station is across the road.

If that impresses you, it's 2006 technology, so more than a decade ago!
 
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The pricing for EAP & FSD should follow the typical technology curve. They will be more expensive initially when shipping in low volume, and go down in price over time, as the technology matures and volumes increase.

The problem is that they are charging based not on the product they are actually delivering, but based on some vague non-promise of what might eventually be delivered over the air at some point in the future. No one is paying the FSD fee because they think that the FSD capabilities actually being delivered right now (which is nothing) are worth the FSD fee. They are hoping that they will eventually be delivered an FSD capacity that is worth the money-- but does not yet exist.

This is very different from any of the common models of charging for software; much less any of the common ways of charging for a car.
 
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Just saw this:
Many, if not half, bigger modern manufacturers have EAP capability, including high and congestion...
And prices appear to drop. Nissan ProPilot might be the cheapest. Not sure.
All manufacturers, including Tesla, REQUIRES hands on the wheel.
 
Here is an idea on how to charge for AP in the new cloud world - Pay-Per-Use. Hear me out here.

AP cost should have two options:

- Buy it outright for $5K - the same as what we have today

- Pay-Per-Use: In this method, you pay $0.50 for each mile of AP usage, which gives you 10k miles of AP driving to get to that $5K. There should be a cap of say $7K or 14k miles after which you own AP and you are not charged anymore.

Folks like me who LOVE AP, would know for certain that we easily do 14k miles of driving in AP in less than year. So we would go for the outright buy option. Others who are not sure, can turn it on just during the occasional highway driving and pay for how much ever they use, but remember if they get hooked onto it, they will end up paying $2k more to Tesla. its a win-win for both Tesla and the customer either way.

They could even split the cost as $0.30 for TACC and $0.50 for full AP.