Oh, come on.

Reality: it's a price increase. "Model 3 Standard Plus used to cost $37,500, plus $3,000 for the Autopilot option. It now costs $39,500, with Autopilot included." No $35,000 Tesla.

* it's a price increase. "Model 3 Standard Plus used to cost $37,500, plus $3,000 for the Autopilot option. It now costs $39,500, with Autopilot included."*

$37,500 + $3,000 = $40,500. Isn't that a price decrease if the price is now $39,500?

Not if a significant fraction of buyers decided to skip autopilot after seeing Youtube videos of AP driving into stationary objects.

Keep in mind that Tesla just started selling lower priced models in the US. Buyers of the base models are much more cost concious, so I assume that a lot of them would forego the AP option.

Bait and switch secured.

There is no way any of these model 3s end up in an autonomous ride share. Especially with only cameras and no LIDAR. I guess it does give them cover for not offering the option to buy at the end of the lease. Wouldn’t be surprised if they reverse this in 2-3 years.

Sometimes I wonder if the much-ballyhooed short-sellers actually work in the Tesla marketing department :-)

I know that companies get a lot of flak for saying hedged things. But Tesla could really benefit from some hedging. This pronouncement in absolute terms that there will be no lease-end buyout is ridiculous. It depends entirely on future factors unknown today (to us or Tesla), whether they will give customers the option of buying out when the lease and actually arrives, and they know it.

So why not just say so? How about: “Tesla leases do not guarantee the right to buy-out at lease end, because we hope to use some of the after-lease cars for a future ride hailing network.”

Sure, it's a few more words to parse. But it would be one less thing for people to complain about. And it would be true and forthright. It is very good to be seen as true and forthright when asking customers to spend tens of thousands of dollars on something.

The buy-out price at the end of the lease is set by the lessor. If they don't want to sell, they could just set the price very high. No need to announce that now - in fact, doing so will simply reduce sales.

Pretty much no other industry uses old hardware for rentals.

Go and try to rent a 10 year old car... Can't find any? Turns out while individuals are perfectly happy to drive a 10 year old car, companies prefer no more than 1-2 year old fleets. As well as being more reliable, the service users don't want to find a cassette player in the car, nor years of grime on every surface.

That doesn't make customers think that FSD is Any Day Now so they'll spring for the option when they order.

> It depends entirely on future factors unknown today (to us or Tesla)

How can you be so sure?

It's not like they only have cameras, they also have radar and ultrasonic sensors. Here is a good article on this topic: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/29/tesla-google-disagree-l...

> There is no way any of these model 3s end up in an autonomous ride share. Especially with only cameras and no LIDAR. I

They could retrofit hardware at the end of the lease when they reclaim the vehicles.

OTOH, I'm skeptical about Tesla having an autonomous ride sharing network to use them in when they come off lease.

I don’t understand why they refuse to at least add forward-facing LIDAR. Lane paint sabotage, low-contrast lighting situations and construction are just a few risks that make me nervous to trust autopilot at highway speeds. I say this as someone that is bullish on autonomous driving and in awe of Tesla in general.

>Lane paint sabotage

Do you also worry about these saboteurs surreptitiously removing stop signs so that you drive into traffic?

Lidar fixes lane paint sabotage?