Tesla Temporarily Allows FSD Transfer to New Vehicles
If you want to add what Tesla calls full self-driving capability (FSD) to one of its new vehicles, you’re looking at up to $15,000 on top of the price of a new model. In an effort to juice sales this quarter, the automaker is letting existing FSD customers transfer their services to a new model, but only in the next couple of months.
Before we get too far, it’s important to note that the FSD tech does not make the car self-driving and does not give the driver permission to do anything and everything behind the wheel. That said, it’s still a relatively neat bit of hardware and software that deserves more testing and development.
Some owners have complained that FSD’s extreme price feels unfair, given that the feature is still half-baked and doesn’t do all of the things originally promised. Being forced to pay the price again when upgrading to a new Tesla almost feels punitive, so this is good news (temporarily) for hopeful buyers.
While it sounds like a nice thing to do for existing owners, this action is purely about boosting sales. The people who’ve already spent FSD money are among the more dedicated Tesla fans, too, so this helps buoy customer approval in its most important buyers.
[Image: Tesla]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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You'd have to be a True Believer to pay for this even once.
As for those who transfer fake FSD to a new car:
Either way, the Venn diagram overlap of: returning Tesla buyers + 2 month window + 1st-time FSD buyers + 2nd-time FSD keepers has to be fairly small.
Meanwhile, the World Rallycross Championship had to cancel this week's round in England because an electric rally car had a battery fire that proved to be inextinguishable and burned everything to the ground.
Cool.
FSD, what a joke. A camera only so-called autonomous driving system. And now, if you've already bought a Tesla with FSD, well, it's free on your new one. What an absurd ripoff! The first one never worked once so you got nothing but Musk's undying gratitude for being a credulous dope (regular Autopilot comes with the car), but hey, he's promising to not charge you for nothing the second time, limited time offer, requires a subscriptio to X, void where illegal. Blah, blah, blah, blah -- make me richer.
Insane. Just like the man hisself.