The goal should be, choose the decision that will make you the most happy in the future.
Buying a new (or different), car has always been a complicated decision for most people. The world has changed so much and the rate of change is accelerating, making the decision tree more difficult every day. It is a fool's errand to try to predict the future, because whatever you predict, it will likely be wrong. It's a subtle difference, but a better strategy is to try to figure out what things will be like at various times in the future, by looking at history, and selecting future milestones that will indicate which way things are moving. I recommend reading, "The Art Of The Long View", by Peter Schwartz.
My personal decision to order a Tesla YLR came about because -
Fossil fuel is a limited and non renewable, (in a reasonable time period), resource.
Burning fossil fuel produces byproducts that are bad for everything living on this planet.
Fossil fuel is so much more valuable for other things, pharmaceuticals, plastics, etc., that burning it for energy is criminally stupid.
The world is rapidly moving to totally sustainable energy sources and ICE vehicles will mostly be worthless, possibly banned or at least limited.
In a few years most transportation will be using electric energy. Private vehicles will be all electric.
My ICE car was likely at it's peak value.
I was getting old enough that it won't be very long until I will be forced to give up my driver's license.
It appeared that while robo-taxi will probably be the most cost efficient way to get around, during the transition, having my own vehicle would be very desirable. In fact, when / if robo-taxi becomes real, I can enroll a Y and let it earn me money.
A car that was autonomous and fully electric was the best fit for me.
A.I. would be necessary for self driving and Tesla was so far ahead of others, it was the only real sensible choice.
Tesla's were the safest, most efficient, most reliable and generally best buy for the money.
A major factor in Tesla's success is their focus on continuous improvement.
Inflation will cause the prices to increase, while continuous improvement will cause them to decrease, so likely future prices probably were not a factor. However, FSD prices would almost certainly increase for a long time and probably enormously. Buying it then would be the total cost forever, because it stayed with the car, not the driver and FSD was very important to me.
Generally the improvements will make the car better, so waiting will result in getting a better car. But there's no end to that, I could wait forever. The real question is: is the current "version" satisfactory?
At the time Tesla had just switched to the Ryzan computer - a good thing.
The YLR was the best fit for me, but used 2170 batteries and the 4680 LFP batteries appeared to be better (long term) but not yet available.
My Y might come from Austin or Fremont. Fremont = more experience, Austin = newer methods and tools. Difficult choice, but did it really matter?
For me, the decision was Austin / Fremont didn't really matter and 2170's were entirely satisfactory.
The remaining decision was:
Buying the Tesla would be a good decision, but is a lot of money.
If I instead invested the same money in Tesla stock, in a few years it will likely be quite a few million dollars.
If I bought the Y and then went all in on Tesla stock with whatever investment is left, in a few years it will still quite likely be a few million dollars. The difference won't matter much to any heirs, they will still be happy I left them something and the difference in amount won't matter that much to them and not at all to me.
So I went for it!
Nearly a year ago and so far has been a good decision. For a while the FSD software was disappointing and progress seemed to be very slow, but it appears that I stepped in just as the "S" curve all projects have, went hyperbolic and now I am satisfied with both where it's at, and the rate of progress. The car has had no problems at all. Maintenance = washing and vacuuming occasionally and adding windshield washer fluid a few times. It will quite likely be the best car I have ever owned.