EV giant Tesla Inc is offering new Model S and X customers an option to purchase its full self-driving (FSD) driver assistance technology on their new rides for a reduced price of $5,000 for three years.
What Happened: A full purchase of FSD will cost a customer $8,000 at the time of purchase. However, new Model S and X customers can now buy it for three years for $5,000. The FSD access comes as part of a bundle including 3 years of free supercharging and premium connectivity in addition to FSD.
All Tesla vehicles come with Standard connectivity which allows access to most connectivity features over Wi-Fi in addition to basic maps and navigation and music streaming over Bluetooth. However, by upgrading to premium connectivity, customers can access all connectivity features including live traffic visualization over cellular in addition to Wi-Fi.
The bundle offer, however, is only applicable to the purchase of Tesla's more premium Model S and X vehicles in the U.S. and not to its mass-market Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV.
Is It Worth It? Tesla offers customers the option to get monthly subscriptions of FSD and premium connectivity at $99 and $9.99, respectively.
So unless the new customer will spend over $30 every month on supercharging, it would be better to get monthly subscriptions instead of purchasing the bundle.
However, if the driver indeed spends over $30 a month, purchasing the bundle can give significant savings.