Elon Musk Says Tesla Cars' Value Lies in FSD Service: 'People Are Buying FSD With a Car Attached, Not the Other Way Around'

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk backed the Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, saying that prospective customers were paying for autonomous driving technology instead of individual models.

Elon Musk Says People Buying ‘FSD With Car Attached’

In a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday, Musk quoted a post by influencer and Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt, which shared Tesla’s financials for the quarter, among other information.

Merritt’s post showcased Tesla’s FSD subscriptions recording a 67% YoY jump to 1.74 million as of the third quarter. “People are buying FSD with a car attached, not the other way around,” Musk said in his post.

Notably, during Tesla’s earnings call, CFO Vaibhav Taneja said that customers across Tesla showrooms were asking for an FSD drive and not individual vehicles like the Cybertruck or the Model Y.

Vaibhav Taneja Flags China Woes

Taneja, responding to analysts during the third-quarter earnings call, said that the company was undertaking efforts to secure approval for the Unsupervised FSD service in China, but warned that getting the regulatory nod was “hard.”

Notably, Tesla has offered Supervised FSD in China since May this year, but it calls the service “Tesla Assisted Driving” and charges RMB 64,000 or around $9,500 for the technology.

Gene Munster Says FSD Far Ahead of Legacy Automakers

Investor Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management said that the FSD technology had reached an “inflection point” and that the gap between Tesla’s self-driving efforts and traditional automakers was significant; enough to make the investor question whether they could close the gap with Tesla.

On the other hand, investor Dan Ives hailed Tesla’s FSD attach rates on its vehicles, as well as the company’s Optimus robots. Ives reiterated talks of a possible merger between Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX).

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