Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving pack, which costs $15,000 to buy outright when purchasing a new EV, is of more value to the Austin-based company when it’s on the receiving end of the cash flow compared to when someone wants to trade in a used vehicle with FSD included.
The report comes from Electrek, which writes that multiple Tesla owners complained about the low estimates received for their cars and that it’s not exactly fair game.
From the emails received by Electrek, it looks like the maker of the Model 3 and Model Y values FSD at less than $10,000 when offering buy-back estimates to clients, which is 33 percent lower than the cost of buying the service from new.
But as opposed to the vehicle itself, which depreciates over time because of physical and moral wear, FSD has been touted by Elon Musk as an “appreciating asset,” with the outspoken CEO suggesting that the value of the feature could end up closer to $200,000 once fully autonomous.
The problem is, that still hasn’t happened yet, and by the looks of it, it still won’t happen for some time. Additionally, because it’s essentially a software service, it should maintain its price irrespective of it being activated on a new or used car.
But as the source notes, Tesla devalues the FSD feature in second-hand cars when it’s time to buy them back, despite the fact that the company has failed to deliver on its promise of full autonomy and in the context of Musk repeatedly arguing that most people “don’t understand its value.”
This could be easily solved if the Austin-based automaker would allow customers who bought the feature to transfer ownership rights to a new vehicle. This way, everybody would be happy and the resale value of used Teslas would be truer to reality.
It’s worth noting that the EV brand also offers a subscription for FSD, which costs between $99 and $199 per month, depending on whether the vehicle has Basic Autopilot or Enhanced Autopilot, so maybe new customers looking to buy a Tesla would be better off going for this instead of buying FSD outright.
But what do you think about this? Let us know in the comments below.
