In a growing number of regions, Tesla offers two options to its customer base for Full Self-Driving. You can either subscribe to the package on a monthly basis or purchase it outright for the life of the vehicle.
This means Tesla owners face an option: do you subscribe to FSD, or buy it outright? We’re going to take a look at the pros and cons of each choice and then let you decide.
Costs
Before we dive into the pros and cons, let’s take a look at the current cost of FSD, which is the key factor for anyone considering making the decision. In the table below, we’ve listed the prices by country in regions where Tesla also offers a subscription.
Currently, FSD subscriptions are not offered in China or South Korea.
We also note the time at which the subscription breaks even with the purchase price, which varies by country (you may have to scroll horizontally on mobile).
Country | Purchase | Subscription | Breakeven Time |
|---|---|---|---|
United States | $8,000 USD | $99 USD | 80 mo / 6.6 years |
Canada | $11,000 CAD | $99 CAD | 111 mo / 9.25 years |
Mexico | $177,200 MXN | $2,299 MXN | 77 mo / 6.4 years |
Australia | $10,100 AUD | $149 AUD | 68 mo / 5.6 years |
New Zealand | $11,400 NZD | $159 NZD | 72 mo / 6 years |
Update: We’ve corrected the article to show the subscription price in Mexico as well (thanks, Carlos!).
Subscribing
So, just looking at costs alone, you can see that subscribing to FSD is a good option if you’re looking at prices alone. Subscribing also gives you additional flexibility if you need to save money, your commute changes, or life events occur.
Many subscribers also pause their subscriptions for winter in more northerly areas, as FSD still doesn’t perform as well in inclement weather, but that’s starting to change and it may not be too much longer before FSD is able to safely handle varying weather.
By far, the biggest advantage of subscribing to FSD is the opportunity to test out FSD - and as of a recent Tesla App Update, Tesla will also inform you of what version of FSD you will be receiving when subscribing right in the app, enabling you to make sure you’re getting the latest version.
Vehicles with an active subscription will remain on the latest FSD branch; however, if you subscribe on and off, you may be moved to the primary non-FSD branch in off-months, which could result in delayed FSD updates.
Subscribing is a flexible option that can be cheaper, but it only makes sense if you intend to keep the vehicle for less than 6 years. You can also “transfer” it easily to a new Tesla when you sell your old one - no special purchase opportunity required. However, there is one key advantage to purchasing that we’ll get into.
Purchasing
Purchasing FSD outright provides a permanent, private-sale transferable license of FSD to the vehicle. The license is assigned to the vehicle VIN and stays with the vehicle in the case of a vehicle sale, which could be a benefit if you intend to sell your vehicle in the future.
In addition, Tesla has agreed to offer FSD hardware retrofits to owners of HW3 vehicles who purchased FSD outright. This originally happened for HW 2.0 and HW 2.5 vehicles, which eventually received all the components of HW3. Some owners were offered the opportunity to upgrade for free, while others had to pay $1,000 to $1,500 USD.
Purchasing also comes with a fixed price that won’t change. That means that if Tesla raises the cost of the subscription in the future, you won’t be impacted by that change - and doubly so if they increase the costs with the launch of Unsupervised FSD. For those who love using Tesla’s autonomy features, this is a no-brainer to purchase, especially if you believe that Tesla will raise prices in the future.
However, the opposite can also be true. FSD subscriptions used to cost $199 in the U.S., and Tesla eventually halved that to $99, prompting some FSD owners to think about whether the upfront cost was worth it now that subscriptions cost half as much.
Purchasing FSD makes most sense at the time of purchase. You can finance the cost of FSD over the life of the loan, which can make it more appealing to purchase. Since FSD is tied to the vehicle, it also lets you enjoy the purchase for a longer period of time.
Buy Purchase Going Away
Tesla recently announced that it would remove the ability for owners to purchase FSD in February. There could be a variety of reasons why Tesla is doing this, but most of them play to Tesla’s advantage.
If owners subscribe to FSD, Tesla no longer needs to upgrade hardware if it can't achieve true autonomy in the current vehicle. Tesla also gains flexibility in pricing and terms for FSD and can change them at any time. This could mean that Tesla could start charging $199, $299 or higher for FSD if they wanted to, and owners wouldn’t have any other options.
Tesla can also introduce tiers of FSD, such as $299/month for eyes-off autonomy, or $599/month for business use.
Essentially, Tesla can continuously define the terms and cost of FSD as it goes. While we don’t know what the future holds, we believe the cost of FSD will only increase as Tesla inches closer to unsupervised FSD.
If you truly didn’t have to pay attention in your vehicle as your car navigated you to work or across the country, how much would that be worth to you?
For some people, this means they can start working as soon as they enter the vehicle, maybe get a higher-paying job that’s multiple hours away, or sleep and work as they travel throughout the country. That’s even before we get into business cases, such as delivery services that currently need to hire humans at thousands of dollars per month to complete these tasks.
The Decision
So, in the end, the decision is yours. We’ve got vehicles subscribed to FSD and others with FSD purchased outright, and there are definitely advantages to both.
However, Tesla’s announcement of FSD going subscription-only definitely leaves a lot to think about. If you’re planning to keep your vehicle long-term and plan to continue subscribing to FSD, purchasing is likely the better option for you.
Just like we saw with vehicles that included free Supercharging before that option went away, they carry a premium price tag, and we’re likely to see the same with FSD. If Tesla decides to increase the monthly cost to $199/month, then the pay-off period comes down to just three years in the U.S.
This is especially important for HW3 owners who currently subscribe to FSD. By purchasing, you won’t only protect yourself from future price hikes, but you’ll also receive any hardware upgrades needed. For HW4 owners, this could be less of an advantage, but even HW4 isn’t guaranteed to receive unsupervised FSD, especially in adverse weather conditions.
The clock is ticking, and Tesla owners have less than a month to decide.
