At the risk of stating the obvious, there is at least one other potential reason for purchasing Full Self-Driving (FSD) now: if you believe that FSD will cost significantly more later. So if you are seriously considering buying FSD eventually, does it make sense to get it now regardless of whether FSD Beta testing is available to you right away?
This has been and will continue to be an interesting discussion with multiple factors that can affect decision-making.
I refer you to this article and its graphs (that educated me):
Tesla FSD Sales Decline?
As we know, Tesla has historically offered Autopilot (AP), Enhanced Autopilot (EAP), and FSD. From late 2016 until early 2019 prices were stable for these options. Note that for people who wanted every self-driving feature, the
total cost of AP/EAP & FSD remained $8,000. (I did not realize that.) After 2019, AP and EAP ceased to be factors. (EAP went away and AP became a standard feature.) There was a relatively brief period in 2020 when FSD cost only $7,000. But since then, costs have gone up some would say alarmingly). Not shown on this graph: I believe that FSD costs $12,000 now?
So, the question becomes, does it pay to purchase an admittedly flawed option now, at the current price, or wait for improvement but at some unknown, possibly significantly higher, future price?
Or is it possible that once FSD is offered as an option to
all drivers the price could fall? Or that it could become a standard feature of all models?
It is interesting to note that overall sales of FSD have apparently steadily fallen in recent years. Although the "take" rate for (expensive) Models S and X has remained relatively stable (at around 60%), the much greater number of arguably more price-conscious Models 3 and Y buyers may be more and more shunning the expensive FSD option.
I personally think that the development of true, full autonomous driving for mass-market personal vehicles available to the general public will be one of the most significant technological breakthroughs of all time. Will Tesla be among the first to achieve this? I don't know. If Tesla does eventually achieve it, when will it happen? Not sure. How will it affect sales. A lot, I imagine. How about the cost (of FSD)? I defer to wiser (economics-trained) heads for that question.