Tesla will finally allow owners to transfer ownership of the so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta driving assistance software, according to company CEO Elon Musk who gave the news yesterday during a conference call about the firm’s Q2 2023 financial results.
Customers who bought the $15,000 option have been asking for the right to transfer ownership of the feature to a new car for a while on social media, and now the Austin-based EV maker has come around and is giving the people what they want.
But there’s a catch. Tesla will only allow the transfer for owners who trade in their old EVs and order a new one during the third quarter, so until the end of September.
“We’re excited to announce that for Q3 we will be allowing transfer of FSD,” said Elon Musk during the conference call embedded at the top of this page. “This is a one-time amnesty, so you need to take advantage of it in Q3, or at least place the order in Q3 within reasonable time frames. So, yeah, I hope this makes people happy.”
It’s worth noting that owners who bought a second-hand Tesla or those who didn’t buy FSD Beta when speccing a new EV can opt for a monthly subscription that costs $199 for cars with Basic Autopilot and $99 for vehicles with Enhanced Autopilot installed. Additionally, cars that have FSD Beta installed keep it installed when it’s traded in or sold on the private market.
The issue is that Tesla seems to undervalue the feature when accepting trade-ins for used EVs, with multiple users saying that the estimates they got revealed a sub-$10,000 value for FSD Beta, chipping away at the final price and ultimately making people pay more for the upgrade to a new car.
This strategy is contrary to what Elon Musk has said in the past about the so-called autonomy service, describing it as an “appreciating asset” and suggesting that its value could be as much as $200,000 once fully autonomous.
Another problem is that people who bit the bullet and paid $15,000 to buy FSD didn’t exactly get what they were promised, with the company’s driving assistance systems still being labeled as Level 2 on SAE’s Levels of Driving Automation list.
As always, let us know what you think about this in the comments section below.
