Tesla Offers FSD Trial in End-of-Year Sales Push

Tesla has an extremely limited special offer for customers ordering before midnight December 31 – three free months of the Full Self Driving option. 

Tesla Chief Executive tweeted about the offer Tuesday.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1344044584712728581

The FSD option currently costs $10,000 and Tesla intends to roll out a monthly subscription service next year. The new offer may give owners a chance to trial the sophisticated self-driving tech before selecting the pricey option. 

According to Tesla’s October release notes for the option:

“When Full Self-Driving is enabled your vehicle will make lane changes off highway, select forks to follow your navigation route, navigate around other vehicles and objects, and make left and right turns. Use Full Self-Driving in limited Beta only if you will pay constant attention to the road, and be prepared to act immediately, especially around blind corners, crossings, intersections and in narrow driving situations.”

Musk has said that an investment in the FSD option could eventually make owners money by joining a robotaxi fleet. There’s no set timeline for that service, but Tesla continues to make advances with its vehicles’ self-driving capabilities. 

 

[AMPd]

An option that doesn’t actually work? Wow quite an incentive.

 

[5thgear]

I don’t know if I would consider this more of an incentive, or an irritating crack-dealer approach to pushing a feature on people who aren’t interested in it. $10k for a single option, one that includes features that were otherwise standard with AP, is infuriating. I’ve watched every single Youtube video that I could find, and I have yet to understand the value of “FSD” that really isn’t FSD yet. Every video goes like this... “look! It didn’t crash!” or “Wow, FSD screwed up, that was a close call!” Besides, paying for a novelty like this is financially boneheaded for those of us who lease or upgrade vehicles every three years. I’m holding off on my next tesla till they re-work all of this, and either have an updated Y or a substantially updated X in showrooms.

 

[whitex]

With all the talk about how Tesla has more demand than production capacity, it makes me wonder, why all those end of year incentives (FSD trial, few months or miles of free supercharging, etc). Someone somewhere is not telling the truth, or Elon is making misleading statements leading people to incorrect conclusions.

 

[AMPd]

With all the talk about how Tesla has more demand than production capacity, it makes me wonder, why all those end of year incentives (FSD trial, few months or miles of free supercharging, etc). Someone somewhere is not telling the truth, or Elon is making misleading statements leading people to incorrect conclusions.

All the Tesla fanboys and girls can disagree with this post all they want. But the truth is Tesla is not selling all the cars they can produce. If they were they’d have no reason to offer incentives, since their number 1 goal is to please Wall Street they wouldn’t do anything to lower their profits unless they needed to drive up demand.

 

[Ostrichsak]

it makes me wonder, why all those end of year incentives

Your definition of "all those incentives" is different than mine. It's nothing to enable FSD for a few months and then disable it again for those who don't pay. Like, literally nothing. It's like a crack dealer giving someone their first hit for free. How much of a "promo" is that? If you net even a small percent of people who then pony up $10k to enable it after getting the taste I'd called that a successful marketing campaign. The idea is to boost FSD sales by labeling it "End of Year Promotion" to dupe all the dummies who don't know any better and just wait for end-of-year "deals" to pull the trigger. This is the most nothing, nothing that Tesla could offer and all of the unwashed masses who are waiting on the sideline to feel like they got a "deal" will likely jump at this.

 

[Davejennings]

Real cheap shot.
As per normal with Tesla very poor communication.
I have had my Tesla MXLR for less than a month and I've already decided my next car won't be a Tesla.

 

[Uncle Paul]

These incentives are designed to encourage buyers to take delivery this year, instead of pushing it out to next year.

Tesla has already spent a ton of $ making these cars and wants it reflected in income in the same year.

Most all car companies are running EOY promotions at this time of year. Zero % financing, Friends and family pricing, extended warranties, Big discounts off list price. All designed to get those cars sold during the usually quiet holiday times.

 

[john94si]

My free fsd became available to use 24 hrs after I picked it up on the 31st

I bet the subscription will be available at the end of March and many of us will want to keep the extras like summon for the monthly cost.

 

[KenC]

All the Tesla fanboys and girls can disagree with this post all they want. But the truth is Tesla is not selling all the cars they can produce. If they were they’d have no reason to offer incentives, since their number 1 goal is to please Wall Street they wouldn’t do anything to lower their profits unless they needed to drive up demand.

Ultimately profits are what matters to Wall St., but at the moment, it's unit sales that they look at, first.

 

[whitex]

Your definition of "all those incentives" is different than mine. It's nothing to enable FSD for a few months and then disable it again for those who don't pay. Like, literally nothing. It's like a crack dealer giving someone their first hit for free. How much of a "promo" is that? If you net even a small percent of people who then pony up $10k to enable it after getting the taste I'd called that a successful marketing campaign. The idea is to boost FSD sales by labeling it "End of Year Promotion" to dupe all the dummies who don't know any better and just wait for end-of-year "deals" to pull the trigger. This is the most nothing, nothing that Tesla could offer and all of the unwashed masses who are waiting on the sideline to feel like they got a "deal" will likely jump at this.

Your argument doesn't quiet hold water.

1. If it was as you say "like crack dealer giving someone their first hit for free", it would have applied to everyone who doesn't have FSD today, not just to a small subset of people who purchased in December. Why would a crack dealer only give first free hits only to people who would move into their neighborhood this month, rather than to anyone who has never had crack?
2. There is no end of year promotion on the price of FSD, just a free trial for 3 months for those who purchased before end of the year. Within 3 months most people won't be getting much from FSD anyways, both because of not much driving due to the pandemic and because Elon's amazing end of year update was just more "farts" rather than anything substantial. So your argument about "dummies who don't know any better and just wait for end-of-year 'deals' to pull the trigger" doesn't apply either.
3. You didn't address how this crack argument applies to free supercharging for new months promo they also had. People need free supercharging to get hooked on paid supercharging?

 

[whitex]

These incentives are designed to encourage buyers to take delivery this year, instead of pushing it out to next year.

Tesla has already spent a ton of $ making these cars and wants it reflected in income in the same year.

Most all car companies are running EOY promotions at this time of year. Zero % financing, Friends and family pricing, extended warranties, Big discounts off list price. All designed to get those cars sold during the usually quiet holiday times.

So your argument here is that when Elon says that demand for Tesla's outstrips their production capacity, he's talking about "vapor demand" (people wanting to buy someday) outstripping current production capacity (cars produced and sitting in the inventory)? Another crafty Elon is playing with words to give people false impression? So like "Elon hp", "Elon soon", "Elon 6 months for sure", we now have "Elon demand" which is very much like the software features to come at some undetermined time in the future, and should therefore come with the same asterisk "nobody can predict when that demand actually translates into a orders". So while most businesses count demand by "orders" or "ready to make an order if we can deliver product" - like say Sony PS5 demand (they don't need sales incentives, do they), Elon demand counts everyone who has a Tesla in their "some day it would be cool to have" wish list?

 

[Big Dog]

Unlike "free" supercharging, a free FSD trial doesn't cost Tesla a dime. So in that sense, its a great marketing gimmick (if it works) to pull sales forward.

 

[whitex]

Unlike "free" supercharging, a free FSD trial doesn't cost Tesla a dime. So in that sense, its a great marketing gimmick (if it works) to pull sales forward.

However, if actual demand outstripped production, then no gimmick incentives would be needed. Why generate even more demand for product you don't have?

 

[Big Dog]

However, if actual demand outstripped production, then no gimmick incentives would be needed. Why generate even more demand for product you don't have?

Well, the obvious answer is that Elon is trying to get to 500,000 deliveries, and if something "free" can get some Q1 folks to hustle up and take delivery by Dec 31, why not try? Everybody likes "free stuff," and it might even result in a few FSD takers after the free trial is over. The trial doesn't cost the company a dime. 500k has been a goal for years, and the market would receive it well.

And btw, its not necessarily generating more demand per se, just the delivery timing. It's holiday season, and for many it would be easier and less stressful to pick up their cars the first few weeks of January or even February. But for something "free", they might drop what they are doing and go stand in (the virtual) line so to speak.

 

[Kpasa]

However, if actual demand outstripped production, then no gimmick incentives would be needed. Why generate even more demand for product you don't have?

Perhaps the apparent contradiction can be explained by separating existing inventory levels from the claim that demand exceeds production capacity. In order to take advantage of this incentive, you'd have to take delivery by Dec 31st. That means buying a car from existing inventory.

 

[RHadjiyski]

Your definition of "all those incentives" is different than mine. It's nothing to enable FSD for a few months and then disable it again for those who don't pay. Like, literally nothing. It's like a crack dealer giving someone their first hit for free. How much of a "promo" is that? If you net even a small percent of people who then pony up $10k to enable it after getting the taste I'd called that a successful marketing campaign. The idea is to boost FSD sales by labeling it "End of Year Promotion" to dupe all the dummies who don't know any better and just wait for end-of-year "deals" to pull the trigger. This is the most nothing, nothing that Tesla could offer and all of the unwashed masses who are waiting on the sideline to feel like they got a "deal" will likely jump at this.

Not sure what the intent was by the FSD promo or the supercharging PROMO but in my case - I was set to get the model Y but I was going to wait as long as I could since I am literally driving 0 miles these days - these promos along with my states $5K rebate ending - I jumped on it and took delivery very last day of the year, else I would have likely waited longer. FYI - ordered Dec 15th and got a text with auto schedule for delivery on Dec 18th - of course I declined that date, actually rescheduled twice - so adding those promos got me to jump and take delivery by year end. Will I get the 10K FSD option after the promo, highly unlikely - but what the promo did do was get me to take delivery by year end - this was an incentive to get people to get their deliveries ASAP rather than take their time IMO.

 

[whitex]

Perhaps the apparent contradiction can be explained by separating existing inventory levels from the claim that demand exceeds production capacity. In order to take advantage of this incentive, you'd have to take delivery by Dec 31st. That means buying a car from existing inventory.

The only way there is any inventory on which you can put a sales incentive to move it, is if the production capacity exceeded the orders. If the cars are of recent build, then this happened recently. Perhaps when Elon said that demand exceeds production capacity, it was only true while he was saying it, like when he said that everyone who services their Tesla will get a P100D loaner - wasn't true before he started saying, wasn't true after he finished the sentence, but possibly it was true for the one or two seconds while he was saying it. If we apply the same logic to the demand exceeding production capacity statement, then I guess it would explain an apparent contradiction - the demand for Teslas exceeded the production capacity for one or two seconds at some point during 2020, likely while the factory was shut down during the pandemic. Now it makes sense, though most people will assume that Tesla gets more orders than what they can produce, which obviously is not continuously true if they managed to build up inventory which the end of year sales incentives (FSD trial, free supercharging) were applied.

 

[whitex]

The trial doesn't cost the company a dime.

Not true, it costs more than $0.10 to administer such a trial, make sure the software is written and tested to handle such trials, make sure it's enabled on all applicable cars, handle calls from customers who might have not gotten it in error, etc, etc. Unless Elon runs this entire trial on volunteer developers, customer service reps, delivery reps, service center staff, I am willing to bet you it costs more than a dime.

And btw, its not necessarily generating more demand per se, just the delivery timing. It's holiday season, and for many it would be easier and less stressful to pick up their cars the first few weeks of January or even February. But for something "free", they might drop what they are doing and go stand in (the virtual) line so to speak.

So you're claiming it's just shifting future demand to current demand. That would make your argument that when Elon said that demand outstrips production capacity he means cumulative demands from now till end of time? "More people want to buy Tesla's at some time in the future that we can produce today" - sure, I can see that being true.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Your argument doesn't quiet hold water.

1. If it was as you say "like crack dealer giving someone their first hit for free", it would have applied to everyone who doesn't have FSD today, not just to a small subset of people who purchased in December. Why would a crack dealer only give first free hits only to people who would move into their neighborhood this month, rather than to anyone who has never had crack?
2. There is no end of year promotion on the price of FSD, just a free trial for 3 months for those who purchased before end of the year. Within 3 months most people won't be getting much from FSD anyways, both because of not much driving due to the pandemic and because Elon's amazing end of year update was just more "farts" rather than anything substantial. So your argument about "dummies who don't know any better and just wait for end-of-year 'deals' to pull the trigger" doesn't apply either.
3. You didn't address how this crack argument applies to free supercharging for new months promo they also had. People need free supercharging to get hooked on paid supercharging?

My "argument" doesn't hold water because I'm not arguing. You are. Unless you're bent on trying to conjure up a conspiracy theory, it's pretty easy to apply common sense to the situation and see that they're using it as an excuse to apply a trial period to new purchases to get that end-of-year push that EVERY car manufacturer does. It's nothing new. Tesla isn't sitting on excess inventory and in the grand scheme of things they're giving "nothing" away. Hardly the $15k-$20k incentives you see other manufacturers bleeding this time of year every year.