During the Q&A on the Q2 2023 earnings call, Elon Musk just made lots of owners very happy.
Customers who purchased FSD for a lower cost on vehicles in the past, are keen to upgrade to a new vehicle but don’t want to re-buy the FSD software upgrade. This question has been asked on the earnings call a few times and the previous responses were very clear, the answer about transferability was a flat no.
Today that changed.
Musk said that in Q3 this year, there will be a 1-time opportunity to transfer FSD from one vehicle to another. This will excite many Tesla owners who bought FSD years ago expecting the software package to deliver on the promises of their vehicle being autonomous. Those owners can now order a new vehicle and be able to transfer their FSD software.
In some circumstances, FSD could have cost as much as half the price it is today (US$15,000) so this was certainly a disincentive for early owners. For those with HW2.5 this really is the get-out-of-hardware jail card they were hoping for. It is of course disappointing this isn’t a permanent offering, particularly in the event your vehicle is written off in an accident where you are not at fault, it is a significant cost to lose and re-buy.
With FSD Beta v12 on the horizon, I don’t believe the timing of this policy change is an accident.
This seems a little unfair on those owners who have purchased fsd on new vehicles whilst retaining an existing vehicles with fsd. Do I get a refund? I would have transferred from my old vehicle (which I still have) to the new car instead of purchasing fsd on the second car.