I've had my 2021 Model three for almost 4-1/2 years now. My thinking was to keep it another two years and upgrade when AI5 was released. Now they're changing FSD to subscription only, and ending the ability to transfer a purchased FSD for orders after mid-March, so that pushed me into trading for a new 26.
I ordered from inventory, as they were running a promotion to get one free upgrade on inventory cars--I got my color upgrade for free. The car is exactly the same model and trim levels as my '21, though the naming has changed. Basically still an long-range AWD but now called Premium All-Wheel Drive. Once again, bought blue with black interior. Same car, but with quite a few hardware upgrades.
Pricing was interesting. In 2021, the base price was $49,990 with a $1,000 fee for the upgraded color. Today, the better car, is $2,500 less expensive at $47,490 plus $1,000 for the color. I used the promotion to cover the $1,000 and received another $500 off as a loyalty discount making my price $4,000 less than what I paid in 2021.
Depreciation was interesting. I asked Perplexity and Gemini what the average depreciation would be on a car that was purchased in September of 2021 and traded in today. Both AIs said 45%-55%. My trade-in offers were 45% from Tesla and 49% from Carmax. Both in the lower-half of expected range. I expected it to be worse, particularly considering how the replacement new car had decreased in price. When I was younger, I would have put in the effort and done a private sale. Kbb.com put the middle-of-the range private party value at 52%--in the upper-half of the expected range.
The biggest upgrade, for me, is that it is an AI4 car with FSD v14.2.2.5. This was the first time I've driven v14 and it is significantly better than what I had. Much smoother and its driving is more confident. It also has additional capabilities, particularly in parking lots and being able to start driving from Park in its parking spot.
Since v14.2, the car tracks your total miles on FSD vs your total miles. It had 0.3 non-self driving miles when I picked it up which would have been driving on/off the train and trucks, and driving around the delivery center for cleaning and delivery prep. (They self-drive themselves off the assembly line and to the staging location for shipment) Here are my stats after three days.
I live on a cul-de-sac so my driveway is not straight. It requires a left turn, while backing out of the garage, to follow the driveway and avoid hitting the mailbox and the inside of the garage door opening. Our third car also parks in the driveway, outside the garage, and is another obstacle to maneuver around. In this video, I never touched the steering wheel, brake, or accelerator. I got in, buckled up, and tapped the [start self driving] button on the screen. HW3 can not do this, nor will it let you engage FSD while inside the garage.
The car was moving very cautiously, but it still backed out at least as fast as I would do myself. I did not expect it to be able to do this.
The car had picked up my first destination from my Google calendar and was already set to navigate there. While still in the garage, I told Grok, which my HW3 car didn't have, "After the first stop, let's go to Cracker Barrel and then Aldi." It added those two additional destinations. There were no interventions on the trip with FSD handling all of the parking, then starting again from each parking spot. The only thing that I had to do was to pull it into the garage after it parked in my driveway at home. It doesn't yet have the option to park itself in the garage, only in the driveway.
The Grok integration is also interesting. Very conversational and will respond like any of the better AI tools to complex, compound questions. It is also able to control navigation routing which is very useful. For example, told it I wanted to go to an Irish pub in Donelson and it found it, verified that it would be open, and added it to the navigation without me having to remember the name. I told it I needed to pick up Tylenol and milk and it found an open store that would have both and that was near my current route. Much better than the Google-style, "Grocery stores near me".
