Tesla's $15,000 Full-Self Driving software has always been somewhat controversial. Critics have been quick to point out that regular Autopilot offers virtually all the driver assistance features you'll need on a daily basis. And, if you ever wanted to summon your Tesla (which would be rare) or have it change lanes for you (a bit more useful) Enhanced Autopilot can do so for an extra $6,000.
Therefore, the benefits FSD actually gives you are rather limited - at least for now anyway. Still in beta, currently all it offers over Enhanced Autopilot is traffic and stop sign control.
Although Tesla CEO Elon Musk insists speccing FSD is an investment we have our doubts. Will your car be able to operate as a self-driving taxi while you sleep, earning you a sizable amount of passive income? Maybe in 10 years time, at which point you'll probably have sold it for similar money to a non-FSD Tesla.
Hence it may come as a surprise to learn that over 285,000 customers in North America have purchased FSD. It's important to note not all of them paid $15,000 - it used to cost considerably less. Still, that's a surprisingly large amount of buyers given FSD's lack of exclusive features. However, it's substantially less than the 1 million users Elon Musk previously predicted FSD would have by the end of 2022
Tesla has sold 1.5 million vehicles in North America, meaning roughly 19% of customers opted for FSD. As mentioned above, the system used to cost much less - initially $5k, prices incrementally rose to $10k in 2020 and $15k in 2022. Despite the extortionate price hikes, FSD has only made minor improvements since 2018 and is far from the "full-self-driving system" its name suggests.
