Tesla, a prominent electric car manufacturer, recently announced that it would offer a one-month free trial of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to customers in the United States. This initiative comes as Tesla faces mounting pressure on its sales and margins due to softening demand and increasing price competition.
CEO Elon Musk has been a staunch advocate for FSD software, priced at $12,000, as a potential source of profit for the company. However, he has faced challenges in delivering on his promise of full autonomy due to regulatory and legal scrutiny of Tesla’s safety and marketing practices.
In an effort to showcase the effectiveness of FSD, Musk took to social media platform X and announced that all U.S. cars capable of FSD would be enabled for the one-month trial starting this week. He instructed Tesla staff to provide demonstrations of FSD to new buyers and owners of serviced vehicles. In an email to employees, Musk emphasized that many people are not aware of how well supervised FSD actually works.
Research shows that the “FSD take rate” in North America is decreasing, with only about 14% of Tesla customers purchasing the package in the third quarter of 2022, down from a high of 53% in the third quarter of 2019. Tesla’s margins have been impacted by a price war with competitors that began over a year ago. The company has also projected lower delivery growth for this year as it shifts focus to producing its next-generation electric vehicles.
Analysts suggest that Musk’s directive to demonstrate FSD is part of a strategy to boost deliveries and revenues at the end of the quarter. The FSD software, available for a subscription fee
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