I canceled my Full Self-Driving subscription. Whether that’s bad news or good news for
Tesla
depends on your point of view.
I’m 10,000 miles into my Tesla ownership journey. The milestone was reached quickly. I purchased a rear-wheel-drive Model 3—with the help of a bank and tax credits—in late June, about seven months ago.
Owning and driving an electric vehicle—compared with the many EV test drives taken—has been eye-opening.
Let’s start with Full Self-Driving, or FSD. I added a subscription about a month in, just ahead of several road trips involving college, family, and some time off. I reviewed the system after about 1,000 miles of FSD driving. It’s impressive. The car did 95% of the driving all by itself, but it still needed human supervision. I took over driving one or two times a trip, on average, because of vehicle hesitation, errors, or my own driving preferences.
For me, FSD was a great product for road trips. It offered an extra layer of safety and navigation help while making the whole experience more relaxing.
But the product isn’t at truly self-driving-taxi-level yet. And using FSD to navigate to and from work, school, or the grocery store didn’t make a lot of sense after the novelty wore off. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a recent “recall” of FSD disappointed drivers. The recall added notifications and reminders to keep drivers’ eyes on the roads. The disappointment seems to be the system nags too often. The warnings never bothered me.
I paid Tesla about $1,000 for five months of service. I probably should have paid for three months, but I’m not the greatest manager of my subscriptions. I’ll happily add the service again come summer 2024 when road trip activity ramps up again.
Tesla has created a
Netflix
-like service that can be turned on or off as customers desire. Two or three months of service a year for a majority of Tesla drivers could start generating $1 billion in operating profit annually. That’s nothing to sneeze at, considering Tesla is expected to generate about $11 billion in total operating profit this year.
Of course, the goal for Tesla is for FSD to get good enough to do all driving tasks without supervision. If that happens, the amount drivers are willing to spend annually rises, and there are additional opportunities for Tesla such as owning a fleet of
Uber
-like robotaxis. That’s billions more in potential profit.
When FSD will get there is anyone’s guess. Bulls such as ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood believe it will be this decade. Freedom Capital Markets analyst Mike Ward says it will take much longer. He doesn’t cover Tesla stock but has covered the auto industry for decades, and closely tracks what
General Motors,
Ford Motor,
and others are doing with their driver-assistance features.
As far as my overall impression of the car, the Tesla Model 3 is the best car I’ve ever owned. It isn’t close. Our family has gone from hatchback to three-row SUV, and now we are on the other side of the size mountain as children move out. Over my automotive history, I’ve owned, in no particular order, two Chryslers, two
Honda
s, two Volvos, one
Toyota,
and one
Nissan.
A minor midlife crisis was slaked with a
BMW
-made Mini Cooper. That car had a few manufacturer-created issues and was the worst car I’ve ever owned. That experience doesn’t line up with initial quality statistics for Mini Coopers, however. It was, unfortunately, a lemon.
The Tesla Model 3 is the newest car, so it makes some sense it’s the best. It’s also classified as a luxury car even though the net cost, after discounts and tax credits, was about $32,000. Most cars I’ve owned aren’t considered luxury vehicles.
Over the first 10,000 miles, I’ve spent roughly $350 to recharge the car. Even though that’s like paying 90 cents a gallon for gas, it overstates how much I spend on charging.
More than $300 of that was spent at Tesla-owned superchargers on road trips. I’ve driven the car hard, but my road trip taking over the past seven months has been high. That isn’t typical usage.
I don’t charge the car at home. I cheat—sort of. There are several free chargers in my town and I’m maniacal about finding an open free charger.
Free charging isn’t available to everyone, of course. Still, I believe that free chargers will eventually pop up at coffee shops, grocery stores, and other locations as an inducement for consumers. After all, one hour of free charging would cost a business about $1.50. I’m guessing that businesses can recover that cost in added customer traffic and, perhaps, the price of coffee and store-brand cornflakes.
Driving a Tesla has created a problem for me. It’s made it harder to drive other cars. For starters, there is the key. I’ve gotten used to no keys. I recently borrowed a friend’s truck for chores. I repeatedly left the key in the ignition when exiting the vehicle.
I have also come to love regenerative braking. The car uses its electric motor to slow down and stop. It’s also called one-pedal driving. I find it easier. The truck owner drove my EV while I was doing chores. He commented that he hates the braking. It is an acquired taste, like green olives.
Beyond charging expenses, maintenance costs are low. No oil changes, but I paid about $225 to rotate the tires. (Everyone should rotate their tires.)
My local tire shop charges $150 an hour for labor. Pricey, but local dealerships charge $250 these days.
Repair charges are up a lot, by about 30% from prepandemic levels. The average annual rate of increase since the end of 2019 is about 7%. Wages have risen less than 5% a year on average over the same span. Things are expensive these days.
Of course, my friends pointed out that I paid too much to rotate my tires. (And readers said that several tire outlets, including
Costco,
will rotate tires purchased there for free.) Everyone has an idea about how to save money on repairs and maintenance.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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