Comment by z2

I have a newer Corolla that's pretty much the absolute floor of the base model (LE with I believe minimal packages) and it has all the technology one would expect now, all while having physical buttons where it matters. Lane assist and adaptive cruise control are table stakes now.

Unless they dramatically reduce the price, they won't get to 10 million any time soon if ever. This article discusses paid subscriptions info releases in the earnings report, https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/tesla-discloses-fsd-subscribe...

800k paid subs in q4/2024, about the same in q1/2025, 900k in q2/2025, 1 million in q3/25, and 1.1 million in q4/2025.

Let's call that 100k growth per quarter in 2025, and currently at 1.1 million subs. They'll have to significantly increase their growth rate. The interesting modeling point is tesla car sales are dropping, down 9% to 1.6 million last year. All their new vehicles are capable of fsd with subscription, but thats only about 1.5 million a year (and likely to keep shrinking).

I think the only way they get good uptake is to make the price cheap, like $1 a month, with 12 free months but you have to give your credit card (ie fees that people don't notice scam like every streaming company). Even if every new buyer gets it, it would take many years at 1.5 million sales a year. Need 8.9 million more subscribers, 8.9/1.5 sales = ~6 years at 100% uptake. There are about 9 million current owners, but I'd guess at least 50% can't run current FSD code - they are on version 4.5 of their hardware (they recently released 4.5 in some new cars, and they have a major upgrade to v5 coming in a year or two).

There's no harm if they don't get to 10 million, because Musk shouldn't have that really large stock payoff as he's killing the company.

Also California raised false advertising issues with the naming of “autopilot”

> Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-driving subscription.

Step 1: > discontinu[e] the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control

Step 2: Redefine "Full Self-Driving" to be those things. Charge 50 cents per month subscription or whatever.

Step 3: Get 10 million subscribers.

Step 4: 100 billion dollar payout! (Number pulled out of my butt)

> the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward

LKA existed well before Tesla HW1 released. Honda had cars on the road in 2003 with LKA systems. That's 11 years before Tesla HW1 was available.

> the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer

What? Basic lane keep and adaptive cruise control have been around a lot longer than Tesla.

Mercedes introduced ACC in 1999 (though Mitsubishi had an accelerator-only - could apply or ease off accelerator but not actively brake - in 1995).

Lane keeping was introduced again by Mitsubishi in the early 90s, though it was more 'lane departure warning'. But by 2000 Mercedes was offering it in some trucks and by 2003 Honda had it widely available in the Inspire with active lane keeping.

They should have discontinued the phantom braking instead.

2 days ago: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/47744955/paok-fans-ki...

I'll let you find the video, it's brutal. Allegedly caused by lane assist activating out of the blue when overtaking other cars.

All he had to do was lower the cost of the FSD subscription to $50/month.

Helped pioneer? Get real

> Then I learned that Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-driving subscription hurdle, and it all made sense.

Wow that is diabolical and such a scam. I didn’t realize he was gaming the incentives this way. Is that what happened with that previous $54 billion package too?

Honestly, I don't think it's irrational: the car industry is just horrible from a business perspective, which is why Tesla had to be financed for so long by crypto scams and most investors wouldn't touch it. Historically (if of course briefly/crudely), it was always a debt-backed gamble on overproduction hoping you could expand forever globally without competition (Ford) or into new market segments through financing (GM).

It's paywalled unfortunately, but [1] is an illustrative Financial Times article discussing car manufacturer behavior in relation to Covid shutdowns and strikes. Many firms found the manufacturing shutdowns to be a boon: the winning strategy to accept it as a cost cut and just raise prices on existing inventory for above average financial performance.

My sense is that Tesla is now just taking that a step further by getting rid of their Fordist aspirations and applying the unarguably successful Apple model to the automotive industry. They don't want to mass produce cars and hope for X% conversion rate to software and services over time: they literally don't want customers who are not able or not going to pay for recurring software services. Software is where free cash flow comes from and free cash flow is where dividends/buybacks come from, which determines the value of an equity. That, of course, is why we get paid well.

I end with the disclaimer that obviously I don't believe the world should be meticulously and exclusively organized for the production of free cash flow, but I do think it's important to understand the logic.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/4da6406a-c888-49c1-b07f-daa6b9797...

…discontinuing the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward.

[Citation needed] Cars had adaptive cruise control and lane keeping well before Tesla showed up.

As for the feature itself, we have a camper van on a 2024 Ram chassis. It’s a work truck at its core, with fancy RV bits added on. And it has ACC/lane keeping. It claims it will even park itself, though I’ve not tried.

So Tesla is now charging for features that your roofer got for free with her work van. Such luxury.