Tesla ramps up its self-driving transfer incentive

Tesla ramps up its self-driving transfer incentive by now giving $1,000 off a new car for people upgrading from Enhanced Autopilot.

For years, Tesla owners who bought the up-to-$15,000 Full Self-Driving Capability package were asking for the capacity to transfer it when trading-in their vehicles for a new one.

The logic was sound: Tesla never delivered the self-driving capacity as promised. It only makes sense to allow owners to transfer the package to a new car for those who still believe that Tesla could eventually deliver through a software update.

Despite being the right thing to do, Tesla always resisted the idea.

Eventually, it agreed to do it, but only for orders placed in Q3 2023. CEO Elon Musk even wanted to make it clear that it was just a “one-time thing”:

This is a one-time amnesty, so it needs to be — you need to take advantage of it in Q3, but — or at least place the order in Q3 within — within reasonable delivery time frames. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, hope this makes people happy. But want to — I mean, this is a one-time thing, OK?

We criticized this move because it wasn’t about Tesla doing the right thing for its customers, but instead, it was simply creating a “demand lever” to try to produce more orders during that time period – and using their own inability to deliver a promised product to do it.

We also suspected that despite Musk’s clear statement encouraging buyers to use the transfer now because it will be a “one-time amnesty”, Tesla would offer it again.

Sure enough, Tesla brought back the incentive in April of this year, and then again earlier this month.

This time, Musk said that it would be the “last quarter”, but he said that before.

Now, Tesla has announced that it has extended the offer to September 30th, but it is also extending it to people who have Enhanced Autopilot.

In an email to customers, Tesla says that if you upgrade your Enhanced Autopilot to FSD, you’ll be able to transfer it to a new car and get $1,000 off:

Upgrade your Enhanced Autopilot to Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and transfer it to a new Tesla purchase to get $1,000 off your new order. Take delivery by September 30, 2024, to be eligible.

This offer runs until the end of the quarter.

Electrek’s Take

I have to give it to Tesla. They are giving creative about getting people to buy FSD – supposedly the greatest software product of all time, yet difficult to sell.

There are likely more people with Enhanced Autopilot (EA) than FSD, and the product isn’t for sale in NA anymore.

Therefore, this is a way for people with EA, who are on the fence about FSD, but who are interested in a new car, to get a new car with a $1,000 discount without having to give up EA or at least with getting EA through FSD since the latter has all the features of the former.