Elon Musk says production for Autonomy's US$490 monthly Tesla subscription service is a 'challenge'

Tesla's electric vehicles are increasingly getting on the radar of car subscription services in the US. After Kyte announced its US$995 Tesla Model 3 monthly fee with an annual subscription that includes "maintenance, insurance, registration, and roadside assistance," it's now time for Autonomy to come with an even better offer. The vehicle subscription startup wants to enlarge its fleet with about 23,000 electric cars for a total of US$1.2 billion. While Autonomy will be diversifying its roster with 17 different EV makers, the lion's share of its orders will go to Tesla, followed by GM and Volkswagen.

The 8,300 cars that Autonomy will need from Tesla alone amount to US$443 million, more than a third of its planned EV fleet outlay. Asked to comment on the Autonomy CEO Scott Painter's big batch, Elon Musk tried to downplay the order's significance by advising that "production is a much bigger challenge than demand." That is true, at least for the moment, as Tesla recently stopped taking orders for the Model 3 LR since the existing ones now stretch way into 2023. It also has a huge order of 100,000 Teslas by rental giant Hertz to fulfil, so Autonomy's announcement may have served as a share price booster, but is a blip in the grand scheme of demand for Tesla-made electric vehicles.

Still, Autnomy's US$1.2 billion order will represent more than one percent of all electric vehicles that are forecast for production in the US by the end of 2023, so budding EV makers like GM are set to greatly benefit, too. According to Autonomy's CEO, the "23,000 order is really about diversifying away from Tesla and getting into everything at different price points." 

The Tesla car subscription service at Autonomy is priced from just US$490 a month if you plunk US$5,900 as a down payment, up to a US$1,000 monthly outlay if you only have a grand to spare as initial payment. There is a three-month subscription minimum, though, but Autonomy says that its customers would wait just five or six days on average to start driving their new Tesla, instead of months on end if they buy from Elon Musk's automaker directly.

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