A thought I had after posting my original comment, and I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me sooner: if Tesla raises the price of supervised FSD, I’m almost certain they’ll lose a lot of subscribers, and they probably won’t gain many new ones (at least not quickly). For me, the FSD subscription basically functions like part of my monthly car payment. It’s not astronomical, but it’s not cheap either, and it’s one of my biggest recurring expenses right after rent.
If supervised FSD jumps by, say, $100/month (and if unsupervised ends up being something like $300/month more), that’s going to turn a lot of people off. Think about someone who just bought or leased a Model 3 or Y and is already paying $500 to $700/month. Now add another $100 to $300 on top of that for FSD, before you even factor in insurance and charging costs (yes, usually cheaper than gas, but still a real monthly expense unless you have solar). A “$500/month” car quickly becomes $600 or more depending on which FSD option you want, and that’s a tough sell for most people.
Like I said before, if the goal is to increase take rates, raising the price of supervised FSD is the opposite of the right move. I can understand unsupervised being priced higher, but even then I can’t see it being widely adopted if it’s much above about $200 to $250/month. Most people simply aren’t going to pay that on top of an already existing car payment.
Right now, we’re seeing longer loan terms and more flexible leases for a reason: people want lower monthly payments, not higher. Adding FSD into the monthly total is already a hurdle. Making it significantly more expensive just makes that problem worse.
Sorry for the rant. I just really hope they don’t raise the price of supervised FSD. In hindsight, I wish I’d bought it outright when I purchased the car, but that’s not an option for me anymore.
www.notateslaapp.com
