Maybe Tesla should link these features to a user's account, not the vehicle. If I sell my iPhone, I'm not selling the apps that I have installed on it.
A side effect of this approach is that you could get a new Tesla and log in to activate the features you already paid for. If you crash your Model 3 and insurance buys you a new one, should you have to pay for Autopilot again?
That said, that approach may piss off people as well. Imagine paying $50k for a Tesla, and only being able to get $30k when you sell it because you paid $20k for features that won't transfer over to the new owner. Even worse if your new car isn't a Tesla: that money would be lost.
I agree. It should either be tied to the account holder, and transfer from vehicle to vehicle owned by that person, or be attached to the car and be transferred right along with every other part of the car.
From a little bit of reading, it really seems like TSLA is trying to have it both ways on this, where it can just disappear after any private transaction?
The fact that there's question here is insane. This should be an easy question to answer from the purchase agreement, but I downloaded a purchase agreement I could find, but it didn't say anything about FSD.
Has anyone here bought a Tesla with FSD? Did your purchase agreement say anything on the subject?
FSD and other software upgrades follow the car. Cars can transfer owners just fine. If the car is wrecked and declared salvage, the software value is gone and only the parts can be used. If you rebuild the VIN you don’t magically get the software features back because in the Tesla DB it’s a salvaged car and they can’t (or won’t) be liable for it.
Because Tesla can’t (or won’t) be liable for those aspects in a post-salvage vehicle. I’m not saying it’s optimal. It would be nice of there was a way to re-certify a vehicle or something. But in lieu of that I think it makes sense for the liability of running e.g. FSD software to transfer to the people salvaging or to the final new owner by way of third party modification to enable it.
Regarding your scenario, that wouldn’t happen unless you were as unfortunate as the only person (that we know of) that had their FSD removed after a private sell due to Tesla’s own mistake when selling the car[0]. Otherwise, FSD transfers with the car to the new owner unless you sell it to Tesla (who pays you for the value of FSD) and then maybe decides to remove FSD to sell it at non-FSD price to increase flow of pre-owned inventory.
> That said, that approach may piss off people as well. Imagine paying $50k for a Tesla, and only being able to get $30k when you sell it because you paid $20k for features that won't transfer over to the new owner. Even worse if your new car isn't a Tesla: that money would be lost.
There's an easy fix for that: add the option to transfer the Autopilot to another account. Then you can sell off the Autopilot as well.
Given, of course, Tesla being willing to allow that, or if not, sufficiently consumer-friendly legislation.
A side effect of this approach is that you could get a new Tesla and log in to activate the features you already paid for. If you crash your Model 3 and insurance buys you a new one, should you have to pay for Autopilot again?
That said, that approach may piss off people as well. Imagine paying $50k for a Tesla, and only being able to get $30k when you sell it because you paid $20k for features that won't transfer over to the new owner. Even worse if your new car isn't a Tesla: that money would be lost.