IGU,
Do you happen to know approximately how much of Tesla’s revenue is derived from purchases of the optional Full Self Driving software package? Quick googling only buried me in results about the feature itself, not the financials - and I’m not even sure how they book revenue on that feature.
Albaby
Do you happen to know approximately how much of Tesla’s revenue is derived from purchases of the optional Full Self Driving software package?
As I’m sure you know, figuring out what Tesla actually makes on each sale of FSD is very difficult. Trying to do it from the sales perspective involves guessing at the FSD take rate, guessing how much of that revenue if deferred because the feature is incomplete, guessing how much is deferred because there is future value in software updates. All of this varies by region. And then you get into the portion of vehicles that are leased, which is its own nightmare. In the 10-Q (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000095017022…) they say “Automotive sales revenue includes revenues related to cash deliveries of new Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y vehicles, including access to our Supercharger network, internet connectivity, FSD features and over-the-air software updates.”
And then there’s FSD subscription revenue (which you aren’t asking about) which needs to be disentangled. And FSD purchases after sale. And the price of FSD has varied over time, as well as what it actually consists of. So, kind of a mess.
My feeling from what I’ve heard over the years is that the take rate outside of the US is very low, around 1% in China. Maybe 10% in Europe. Here are some recent opinions regarding the US take rate (https://www.torquenews.com/1083/teslas-low-fsd-take-rate-off…).
So here’s my guess. And I emphasize that it’s a guess. Big error bars. Maybe 30% either way (i.e. read 10% as 7-13%, and $6K as $4.2K-7.8K).
Overall historically:
Take rate: 20%
Vehicle with FSD average selling price: $55K
FSD average selling price: $6K
Now:
Take rate: 10%
Vehicle with FSD average selling price: $70K
FSD average selling price: $10K
Having made 310K vehicle deliveries in Q12022, that results in $31M in FSD revenue. But probably about 50% of that is deferred.
Since Q12022 gross revenue was over $18B, you can see that this just isn’t a significant amount. But it does pretty much fall straight to the bottom line, so the potential is there to quickly increase profit if the take rate can be increased.
If, at some point, Tesla desperately needs to get some quick cash, all they have to do is hold a big sale on over-the-air FSD. At half off they can easily sell about half a million worldwide, maybe twice that. So at least 500K at $5K gives $2.5B. This is the magic of a low take rate coupled with over-the-air software delivery.
Hope this is helpful, despite the big error bars.
-IGU-
Maybe the best way to think about FSD is as “Icing on the Gross Margin Cake.” 
For example, how much does Tesla save with Over the Air updates? It’s a software derived benefit not detailed in the financial statements.
Denny Schlesinger
Hope this is helpful, despite the big error bars.
Thanks, IGU. I appreciate the information.
Albaby