Tesla’s new FSD monthly subscription sounds cheap, but it isn’t
Story byIoanna Lykiardopoulou
Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainabili(show all)Ioanna is a writer at TNW. She covers the full spectrum of the European tech ecosystem, with a particular interest in startups, sustainability, green tech, AI, and EU policy. With a background in the humanities, she has a soft spot for social impact-enabling technologies.
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What’s the catch?
At first glance, this seems like a pretty good deal because you don’t need to make a $10,000 commitment on the spot.
Instead, you can pay as you go. If the subscription isn’t to your liking, you can cancel anytime and your monthly subscription wouldn’t be prorated, the company notes.
But let’s brake it down a bit more to see if the monthly subscription is indeed a good bargain.
First, if your Tesla’s FSD computer doesn’t have the Hardware 3.0 version, it’s not eligible for the monthly rate. You can upgrade, of course, but that would cost you an extra $1,500,which is included in the $10,000 price of a direct purchase.
Secondly, the company “might change the monthly payment in the future, but will give you one month’s notice before doing so.” There’s no information on what kind of changes to expect, but it’s safe to say prices are more likely to go up than down.
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the fee doesn’t change at all and we have the ‘alluring’ $199 rate for the Basic Autopilot system.
Now let’s see what this monthly fee would cost us for a year: 199 times 12 would make a total of $2,388.
Based on this amount, with an uninterrupted subscription we would reach $10,000 in roughly four years time (4.187, to be specific).
Four years, however, isn’t such a long time for owning the same car. According to a study byiSeeCars.com,the average length of new-vehicle ownership in the U.S. is8.4 years.
So if we owned a Tesla for an average of 8 years (which, I think, is a reasonable amount of time), and we chose an FSD monthly subscription throughout, that would cost $20,000. Yes,doublethe amount of the one-time subscription.
In other words, the monthly fee is a bargain only for those who’d opt for FSD for a limited amount of time. Therefore, in case you’d like to have the FSD package for your vehicle’s lifetime, then the monthly subscription is definitely bad for your budget.
You can find the full details of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving subscriptionhere.
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