Price of FSD on Resale

[FutureBoy]

OK, I admit that I hadn't been thinking the price of FSD all the way through the lifecycle. Then I was listening on Now You Know where Zac and Jesse were talking about it and now I have some questions.

To set up for this you might want to watch this week's Tesla Time News from the 24:20 mark.

So let's talk about a few scenarios. Say you signed up for FSD now at the $10k price. When your CT comes you start using FSD. After 3 years you want to sell your CT for some other new wiz-bang vehicle. In the meantime, the price of FSD has gone up to Elon's stated price of $100k. Tesla has recognized that most people will not have the cash to just buy FSD outright at that price so they are offering a monthly subscription model for individuals. But here you are trying to sell your CT. Right now if you trade it in to Tesla, you get $0 for your FSD. If Tesla decides to start paying for trade-in FSD, I'm guessing that they will pay up to the $10k you originally paid instead of the $100k you could sell it for on the market (theoretically). But if you want to sell your CT to someone else, you need to find someone willing to pay $100k for the FSD that is on the car? Or do you need to set up a payment plan for them? If you don't get the full $100k out of your current CT, how do you then turn around and purchase FSD for your next Tesla? Or if you want to buy a vehicle from a different maker, do you end up losing your FSD privileges so later on, if you want to buy a Tesla you will need to come up with $100k or do the monthly subscription?

I think that the $10k price for FSD right now is good and all because I believe that the $100k price will end up being justified and by paying $10k now I am getting in early, helping train FSD, and getting a handsome return on my investment eventually in that I will have a $100k valued product. But there seem to be a number of traps also. It would be really easy for me to lose out on the extra return and possibly even on the initial $10k. I don't think the various scenarios have been completely thought through.

Now if I could buy FSD and keep it with me as a personal possession from now on till I die. Or even better if I could give it to one of my heirs when I pass. That might be a better way to handle it. Of course though what if the "person" who bought it was a corporation? Or in my case, I currently have 2 progeny so what kind of mess am I signing them up for when I die?

And if Tesla FSD gets so ubiquitous at some point that it just becomes an expected feature of every vehicle, does the price end up dropping to the price of a commodity product? Like if it becomes a requirement that all vehicles are self-driving and no one is allowed to drive on public roads, does the price of FSD just become $0? Or if a competitor finally decides to actually catch up and develop an FSD competitor, does the competition bring the price of both systems down to a negligible value?

Clearly, I have questions.

I'm not expecting definitive answers but it would be nice to know what Tesla is planning for the long term. And that they have a plan for various scenarios that don't end up leaving us holding the bag.

 

[Diehard]

And if Tesla FSD gets so ubiquitous at some point that it just becomes an expected feature of every vehicle, does the price end up dropping to the price of a commodity product? Like if it becomes a requirement that all vehicles are self-driving and no one is allowed to drive on public roads, does the price of FSD just become $0? Or if a competitor finally decides to actually catch up and develop an FSD competitor, does the competition bring the price of both systems down to a negligible value?

I think this is a much more likely scenario than FSD hitting $100K. FSD is not made out of rare precious metals. It is made out of smarts. As long as humans don’t forget how to Boink, there will always be more of it. Smarts has a fluid kinda property too; it can move from one company to another by choice or by good old fashion theft. There has not been a whole lot of smarts in the form of code that didn’t become cheap or worthless overtime. Likelihood of it increases when there is more competition. I know it looks like there is none right now but if there is value in anything, there will be competition. I don’t think I will be around when FSD is a required. If I am not mistaken sandy munro just had a brush with death because his Tesla tried to take off an exit that was closed (I may have to rewatch the video to make sure I didn’t misunderstand). For now, I will keep my $10K. When I am too old to drive and FSD is safer, I will pay more if I have to or just call the robo taxi.

 

[Crissa]

They probably never gave a thought to FSD being in the value since Blue Book doesn't give any value to FSD. They probably just copied the tables over without thinking. "This price is what we can sell it for, so we'll but it for this portion of that price."

-Crissa