With falling sales and shrinking profits, the recurring revenue will be most welcome.
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Tesla wants recurring revenue, discontinues Autopilot in favor of FSD
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Perhaps we’ve now reached the next stage of our wonderful timeline: extrashittification
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Okay, I was thinking about this before I hit the comments. I'm only through page 4 of (as of writing) 7 and haven't seen anyone float the idea so far:
This isn't about raising money from subscription fees. This is about juicing the Q1 sales numbers.
Last year Tesla got an example of what consumers do when they know a benefit is ending. They reversed their steady downward trend in sales in Q3 because people wanted to buy before the tax credits went away.
If I had any interest in getting a Tesla with FSD, hearing that it was going from a one-time fee to a subscription model next month might get me off the fence about buying one.
If the response is strong enough, well that's justification to beneficently delay the switch totrigger more people's FOMO respond to customer demand. If not, well shifting to a SaaS model will still set up a revenue stream. I'm not saying it will work, but I can easily see that as the impetus behind this move.
Remeber: Elon is at heart a con man. This seems like an obvious play.
This isn't about raising money from subscription fees. This is about juicing the Q1 sales numbers.
Last year Tesla got an example of what consumers do when they know a benefit is ending. They reversed their steady downward trend in sales in Q3 because people wanted to buy before the tax credits went away.
(emphasis mine)
If I had any interest in getting a Tesla with FSD, hearing that it was going from a one-time fee to a subscription model next month might get me off the fence about buying one.
If the response is strong enough, well that's justification to beneficently delay the switch to
Remeber: Elon is at heart a con man. This seems like an obvious play.
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Sure fooled us with how much you bend over backwards to defend all of Musk's companies.
It sure is... but not in the way you think.
And how are we to know that or even trust that you're telling us the truth?
Where did @RZetopan do that?
How absolutely magnanimous of you to allow people to have their own opinions on things.
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No plans to buy a Tesla, so charging a subscription for Tesla things is fine with me. As for “lane keeping,” for me that is not a feature but an annoyance, … one of many “nannie feature” annoyances I end up fighting in rental cars. If I can’t control my lane position, I need to take a break from driving.
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Along with the $99 fee, your account will be billed another $20/mo. - these are the dues for your pre-approved 'proud boys' membership.
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Others have already tried to turn features into subs. It didn't work for them.
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For me there's 2 issues with autonomous driving. 1 is that it still doesn't work properly in suboptimal conditions so it's not safe. 2 is that even when it does work, there's no real value proposition. Last article I saw comparing fares for robo vs human driven taxis showed that robo taxis are more expensive to ride it. So it's both more dangerous to ride in and more expensive.
Why would I ever want to ride in one other than maybe for the novelty? And for a personal vehicle, until it's safe enough that I could buy a car that has no manual controls and no windows and just curl up and sleep the whole way no matter what the weather and road conditions were I don't see any value. And to make matters worse you're paying for the cameras, computers, etc that are required to make it work even if you don't pay for the service itself. Go ahead and rip all that out and charge me $10k less for that Tesla and then maybe I'll be interested.
Personally I think the only company currently profiting off of autonomous driving is Nvidia. So as an investor I say by all means bring it on. I'm happy to get a bunch of free money. As a consumer, I'll pass.
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The autonomous driving features are one of the primary reasons to buy the car in the first place and the fact that it is paywalled with this high of paywall is simply not interesting. Also, if they aren't liable for accidents when this feature is used it is not worth paying 20 a month for because it means they don't believe in their own technology.
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Is there a jailbreak community for Tesla yet?
Would be cool to be able to install Open Pilot or use a Comma.ai unit.
About $7k cheaper than FSD and no subscription fees.
Would be cool to be able to install Open Pilot or use a Comma.ai unit.
About $7k cheaper than FSD and no subscription fees.
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#1 - I live in the PNW and Waymo is in the process of testing their vehicles here. Like you I am skeptical that they'll work in any kind of extreme weather. But, I've also noticed that getting an Uber ride during bad weather is next to impossible. So I'm not sure Waymo will be any worse.
#2 - On numerous occasions I've ridden in Waymo's and my take away was that it was safer than Uber. With Uber it can be terribly inconsistent. With Waymo I found it consistent but there were some issue. Like there were times where it strangely decided the pickup point wasn't optimal for it so it drove 100ft down the road. This could be problematic for disabled folks. I also found the novelty wore off within 5 min. For the most part the ride was blissfully uneventful.
#3 - I expect the cost issue to be sorted once they scale. It's actually massively expensive to own a car and every year that cost seems to be growing immensely. The cost of the car, the cost of gas/energy, the cost of insurance, and the cost of parking if you go anywhere. Plus you have to factor in Anxiety cost and personal time cost. So I could easily see opting for a Waymo/Uber subscription plan to actually save money. What I really appreciated about the Waymo rides is just how relaxing they were. I have zero issue paying a bit more for it than an Uber. With that being said there are lots of people who value conversation and who want to ride an Uber/Taxi just to hold onto that. So for them the peacefulness would be a cost,
#4 - I own Nvidia stock as well and I don't own Tesla or Alphabet so I guess we agree on this one.
To summarize I do feel like my days of owning two cars is coming to a close due to autonomous driving. I also don't feel like we'll ever be able to own a true self driving car. So I need my one car for long trips.
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Comma.ai sells wiring harnesses for the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y so I imagine that could be a good way for someone to avoid paying the subscription fee if the Comma.AI feature set worked for them.
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In addition to S4WRXTTCS' comment, there are companies that sell replacement control boards and stuff for the entire drivetrain of a Tesla so that you can take the objectively badass parts of a Tesla and put those bits into a vehicle that doesn't have an interior that looks like it was designed by Ikea and a driver interaction ethos hellbent on doing everything it can to prevent you from driving without having the reliability to drive itself.
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While its not prechewed there has been Soylent which basically matches your "Chewing is such a time-waster" product.
Much of the "get suckered into" products has been in health monitoring or sticking AI in front of something and somehow convincing people its worth a bunch of money per month to get the AI features.
The one area that routinely bugs me is subscription pricing for SW programs that works perfectly fine. What's the subscription for? So they get paid to break it. Thankfully we have Open Source replacements.
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The response to Autopilot being deceptive marketing is to go all-in on a driving assist product called, even less ambiguously, Full Self-Driving? Which actually requires full human attention on the road?
Must be one of those gigabrain strategies I'm just too small-minded to understand.
Must be one of those gigabrain strategies I'm just too small-minded to understand.
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Personally, I'm always suspicious of any subscription product that offers a lifetime tier. It's shockingly common for companies to weasel out of such promises. Mind you, it's also common for subscription products to go up in price. Companies will happily fight in court to protect their right to break their pricing promises).
Personally, my preference would be to disentangle self-driving services from vehicles to avoid vendor lock-in.
Mind you, the third-party offerings are currently below par. I cringed a bit when my friend reported that he had to recrimp every wire in his purchased lane-keeping mod because the original product had a wire come loose due to poor crimping. And you can't catch that via testing: A badly crimped wire will happily carry current until random movement starts intermittently disconnecting it.
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J.C. Helios
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I guess we'll have to wait and see how reviewers react to the new Autosteer-less Teslas. Wikipedia's entry for "Autosteer" (which redirects to "Lane centering," heh) lumps Tesla Autosteer in with Toyota Lane Tracing (and Super Cruise, and BlueCruise), but of course there are bound to be nuances.
But you're lucky enough to live in a world where you're allowed to buy walnuts without also buying a brownie. Not so with Tesla buyers and Autosteer/FSD!
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I have no plans to pay any subscription fee to any car manufacturer to fully utilize the hardware I've already purchased.
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Agreed, but this is why even lane-keeping requires hands on the steering wheel. If you don't like the way its nudging, you give it an adjustment. But that's my experience with Nissan ProPilot.
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Point number 3 is the only area where it looks like we disagree. Car ownership is definitely expensive. I estimate I'm probably saving close to $10k per year by not owning a car once you spread the purchase price out over maybe 10 years and add in gas, maintenance, insurance, speeding tickets, etc. But where I live a 30 minute Uber ride is about $75. An hour is more like $150. That adds up really fast if you're using it more than a few times per month which you would certainly expect someone to do if it was meant to replace car ownership. Just taking an Uber twice a day to get to and from work would have cost me about $3000 per month.
That's equivalent to buying a new low end car every year (without any trade in value) just to get to work and back. So for a robo taxi to be a viable way for most people to not own a car it would have to be more along the lines of 90% cheaper than current fares. I don't see robo taxis ever getting in that range unless they get large, permanent subsidies. Tesla is not looking for FSD to provide a near zero or even negative margin. They want a cash cow. Every other auto maker considering some version of FSD probably has a similar stance.
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+1 for accuracy
Disagree on the $99/month unless you are driving a lot every month
In general I am not in favor of subscriptions
I do think the buying option being pulled and the subscription price going up is classic Musk FOMO
If the price jumps from $99 -> $150 -> $200 a month nobody in their right mind will continue subscribing
The new Juniper is very nice & drivable without needing FSD or AP if those get taken away and its simply a nice regular ev & that is good enough to get you from point A to B
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Tesla and Musk will blow the big horns to announce how they will do things new or different, and make their far out claims. When those things do not pan out ... unable to deliver on the tech, unable to meet regulatory requirements, or the idea turns out to be a bad one like getting rid of every know and lever ... absolute crickets.
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Even a mediocre bidet proves to me how basic we anglo-saxons are.
(You know it's for your lower notch, right? Top-notch bidet is called a water fountain, it's taller off the ground and is the one you drink from)
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Fun fact, the chap who played Kryten is Robert Llewlyn. He started the Fully Charged Show, which is dedicated to electrifying everything, especially transport. They have a range of podcasts and youtube channels as well as running exhibitions all over the world where you can test drive EVs.I'm guessing from your username you're a fellow Brit or at least familiar with British comedy. I will thus suggest this line from Kryten of Red Dwarf:
"Smug mode engaged"
https://fullycharged.show/
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Interesting, much as with smart TVs...which seem to focused so much on being an ad platform that people are searching out dumb TVs and Streaming Gatways like Shield.
Marketing is focused on imagined spreadsheet profit plans rather than affordable products with features that people will enjoy.
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I have an '03 VW diesel. It has 332K miles on the clock, going strong (if with rusty body), long ago paid for, analog gauges, both GPS and radio upgrades (and can easily be further upgraded/replaced). Tne one complicated feature is the keyfob and its door lock/unlocking. R&D reality from Augustine's Laws: Anything that isn't in a design, won't break. If I could afford it, I'd love an EV....but not with all the cruft features layered on top. We have yet to see a Model T equivalent EV.
And yes, at age 79, I can see the real worth of a truly functional self-driving vehicle in the cards. And one more: I knew, drove and wrenched Bugattis of the '30s, nearly a hundred years back, as a kid. Ave atque vale.
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Definitely agree. I’m driving a 2005 Toyota Camry and even though it’s running fine, before too long I might need to replace it. Its only modern feature is anti-lock braking. I keep hearing about all these fancy high tech features in modern cars. Subscriptions for car functions, including navigation, are a hard NO for me - I like to think I’m not a sucker. Speaking of navigation, I use my iPhone for that, which connects to an aftermarket head unit. My new car WILL support Car Play, so that narrows my options. I will not be getting a Swasticar. Most likely I’ll go for a more affordable used car without subscription anything.
Time for me to plug Cory Doctorow’s book Enshittification. A very deep dive into what lack of competition has done for Internet based services. Looks like auto manufacturers are jumping into the shit pool. After all, once I buy a car, switching to another car because I don’t like some new subscription fee by my current car’s manufacturer is quite a hassle. Especially if I haven’t finished paying for it.
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A couple questions for you:
How can you be a “FSD subscriber” when Tesla is shifting to the subscription model on Valentine’s Day which hasn’t come and gone yet?
What grants you the ability to speak for all Tesla owners about how good (or bad) V14 is when obviously other Tesla owners have documented the software glitching out on them?
Lastly, to be able to use FSD V14, one has to have a Tesla that has HW4, which came out in 2023. Why would you give Tesla (and therefore Musk) money considering Musk had already shown to be a garbage human with garbage politics?
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Next month, they'll deliver a cheap feature: locking and unlocking your car. Only 49.99!
I really don't understand that stuff btw. Teslas have been badly built, too electronically controlled and the self driving promises have been empty since day one. Why do you need Musk's politics in addition to that to avoid them?
I really don't understand that stuff btw. Teslas have been badly built, too electronically controlled and the self driving promises have been empty since day one. Why do you need Musk's politics in addition to that to avoid them?
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MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
In fairness this should probably be more like "shame on all buying or opening a lease in the last 18-ish months." Prior to that — him going full MAGA and inserting himself into politics, bullying (likely threatening) people into doing the DOGE bullshit — he was merely an egomaniac troll who badly exagerrated his cars' capabilties.
Now that we've seen his worst govt-data-stealing, closet-nazi-saluting, kiddie-porn-AI impulses in action I would not hesitate to question / poke at / give the finger to a neighbhor or whoever else (depending on what they are like as people and how well you know them), who has helped Musk by buying or leasing a Tesla during that time period. Not to mention you'd have to be a complete sucker to fall for the $99/month thing.
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