Tesla recently introduced monthly Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions in Canada, priced at $99 CAD. This move came after the company lowered its monthly subscription in the U.S. by half, down to $99 USD.
Now, Tesla continues to make changes to FSD, cutting the one-time lifetime purchase price by $5,000 in Canada, down to $11,000 CAD, reports Tesla North. This seems like a far easier pill to swallow versus the $16,000 CAD price before. You still may be better off paying $99/month though, if you’re not going to fork up $11,000 upfront.
The move follows a similar price cut in the U.S., down to $8,000 USD (from $12,000 USD).
“Your car will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve,” explains Tesla, noting the feature includes Autosteer on city streets and Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control.
“The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates,” explains Tesla.
Also changed was the axing of Enhanced Autopilot (EAP), which included all features of FSD except Autosteer and Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, two major features that allowed your car to go from one destination to another. EAP also included the ability for automatic lane changes and the ability to take highway entrances and exits, to go with Summon and Smart Summon, which allows you to control your car using the Tesla app.
Tesla also added a discount for those that purchased EAP to upgrade to FSD, now an $2,750 CAD upgrade.
The latest version of FSD version 12.3.x and higher, have introduced a next-level of human-like performance versus version 11. We’ve seen FSD (Supervised, as its called) be able to automatically switch to the right light on a highway when it detects a driver coming up from behind quickly, then switch back to the left after that car passes. But FSD 12.3.x is not perfect still, but so far it’s offering an impressive version of FSD we haven’t seen before.
Tesla recently announced it was cutting 10% of its global workforce, showing it’s not immune to economic challenges like other companies. The move was made to allow it to focus on its next stage of growth, said CEO Elon Musk, who apparently has now entered “wartime mode” to ramp up the company’s next efforts for a Robotaxi unveil, slated for August 8.
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If I owned a Tesla and had paid outright for FSD at any juncture of its pricing history, I’d feel like a fool. Even at $11,000 to buy it outright you’re getting ripped off, nevermind the 16k it was a few days ago. To keep my point constrained, let’s assume the feature works great and is ready for primetime (it’s not, and that invites a whole other argument about why people are paying tens of thousands of dollars to help Tesla test a beta feature, but I digress).
The opportunity cost of paying 11k upfront vs $99 a month is huge. It would take you 10 years and 10 months to reach the cost of buying FSD outright, but even at a reasonably conservative investment return of 5% per year for that time period, your $11,000 could be worth about $18,500 in 10 years and ten months meaning the point where the subscription cost of FSD intersects with the price to buy it outright is cast even further into the future. Now, of course this doesn’t take into account that the subscription price can fluctuate, but that doesn’t mean it won’t go down more into the future. We also need to consider that Tesla has given no indication that they’ll allow new FSD outright buyers carry the token to their next vehicle like the one-time, one vehicle amnesty they recently announced for existing holders.
I really don’t understand what the value proposition is for an outright purchase.
And yet, if you support any subscription service for YOUR car, you’re an even bigger fool than you realize.