News
Tesla finally offers lease-to-buy options for Model 3 and Y, but it’s not available everywhere
Tesla is starting to offer the option to purchase its all-electric Model 3 and Model Y vehicles at the conclusion of a leasing period in some markets in Europe and Asia.
For some time, Tesla has not allowed owners to purchase their cars at the end of a leasing period. The car is to be returned to the automaker with no chance of a leaseholder buying out the car at the conclusion of the period. The car would be added to the company’s used inventory, to third-party resalers, or reserved for the future use of the Robotaxi fleet.
Tesla’s Leasing Program
Tesla’s leasing policy is one of the few automotive programs that is subjected to a required return policy at the conclusion of a leasing period. In its 2020 10-K filing with the SEC, Tesla details its process for receiving leased vehicles when the period is terminated.
The company states:
“Our used vehicle business supports new vehicle sales by integrating the trade-in of a customer’s existing Tesla or non-Tesla vehicle with the sale of a new or used Tesla vehicle. The Tesla and non-Tesla vehicles we acquire as trade-ins are subsequently remarketed, either directly by us or through third parties. We also remarket used Tesla vehicles acquired from other sources including lease returns.”
In some markets in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Tesla did allow Model S and Model X leaseholders with the option to purchase the vehicle at the end of the lease period.
Tesla says:
“At the end of the lease term, customers are required to return the vehicles to us or for Model S and Model X leases in certain regions, may opt to purchase the vehicles for a pre-determined residual value.”
This program did not apply to the Model 3 or Model Y, as anyone who leased either of these cars would be required to relinquish possession of the vehicle with no chance of purchasing it at the end of the lease. However, Tesla added a new section to the 10-K in 2020, detailing the possibility of a lease-to-buy option in some markets in Europe and Asia, and it applies to the Model 3 and Model Y. The company writes, “This is not available with the Model 3 and Model Y,” on its website.
Lease-to-Buy Option for Model 3 and Model Y in Europe and Asia
Tesla added new language to the 2020 10-K filing that details its decision to allow lease-to-buy options on its vehicles in Europe and Asia.
The company wrote:
“We have outstanding direct leases and vehicles financed by us under loan arrangements accounted for as sales-type leases under ASC 842 in certain countries in Asia and Europe, which we introduced in volume during the third quarter of 2020. Depending on the specific program, customers may or may not have a right to return the vehicle to us during or at the end of the lease term. If the customer does not have a right to return, the customer will take title to the vehicle at the end of the lease term after making all contractual payments. Under the programs for which there is a right to return, the purchase option is reasonably certain to be exercised by the lessee and we therefore expect the customer to take title to the vehicle at the end of the lease term after making all contractual payments.”
In summation, Tesla is offering the option to buy a vehicle at the end of a lease in some markets. The customer has the option to return the vehicle as well in some cases, and Tesla is “reasonably certain” that the leaseholder will take possession of the vehicle title when the lease ends.
Teslarati obtained a list of the countries where this lease-to-buy option is available, according to the Online Design Studio. Some countries have explicit language that states the vehicle leaseholder must return the vehicle, while others indicate there is an option to purchase the car at the end of a lease. Some do not have any language that indicates what the leaseholder must do, which could indicate that the option to purchase the vehicle is available at the conclusion of the leasing period.
The countries where a lease-to-buy option is available are:
- Belgium
- Croatia
- Denmark
- France
- Italy
- the Netherlands
- Poland
- Taiwan
A few examples show that there is explicit language that indicates a lease can be purchased outright at the end of the period.
- France’s Design Studio contains language that indicates the vehicle can be purchased outright at the conclusion of a leasing period.
- Taiwan’s Design Studio explicitly states the vehicle can be bought outright at the end of a lease period.
Other Design Studio examples show that the vehicle must be returned to Tesla at the end of the leasing period.
- Tesla does not give the option to buy the vehicle outright at the end of the lease in Germany.
- Tesla explicitly tells U.S. leaseholders that they “forgo the option to buy your car at the end of the lease and must return it to Tesla after the lease term.”
Lastly, other Design Studios show no language either way, which seems to indicate the option to buy the car is available as the lease term expires.
- Tesla Poland has no explicit language stating that the car must be returned to Tesla.
- Tesla Italy also does not indicate specifically if the car should be returned to Tesla at the end of a lease.
Poland is one country where Tesla does not indicate whether the car is required to be returned at the end of a lease period. However, the option to buy the car at the end of the lease is available, according to one Polish Model 3 leaseholder who spoke to Teslarati. Model 3 leaseholder Szymon Janus said that Tesla does allow lease-to-buy options in his country of Poland, and at the end of the lease, can be purchased for “around 60% of the new car’s value,” he said. However, Tesla isn’t offering the lease-purchase option directly, it is operated through a bank, he says. This could be why Tesla has no explicit language depicting the required return of the vehicle at the lease’s end date.
Tesla has not revealed any further details within its 10-K filing that indicate whether the company will allow leased vehicles to be purchased at the end of a leasing period. However, it did detail some specific financial figures.
Tesla said:
“For the year ended December 31, 2020, we recognized $120 million of sales-type leasing revenue and $87 million of sales-type leasing cost of revenue.”
What do you think? Be sure to leave a comment below, or you can contact me directly at joey@teslarati.com or @KlenderJoey on Twitter.
News
Tesla intertwines FSD with in-house Insurance for attractive incentive
Every mile logged under FSD now carries a documented financial value—lower risk, lower cost—based on Tesla’s internal driving data rather than external crash statistics alone.
Tesla intertwined its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) suite with its in-house Insurance initiative in an effort to offer an attractive incentive to drivers.
Tesla announced that its new Safety Score 3.0 will automatically have a perfect score of 100 with every mile driven with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) enabled.
The change is designed to boost customers’ average safety scores and deliver noticeably lower monthly premiums.
The move marks the clearest link yet between Tesla’s autonomous driving technology and its proprietary insurance product. Tesla Insurance already relies on real-time vehicle data—such as acceleration, braking, following distance, and speed—to calculate a Safety Score between 0 and 100. Higher scores have long translated into cheaper rates.
Under the previous system, however, even brief manual interventions could drag down the average, frustrating owners who rely heavily on FSD. Version 3.0 eliminates that penalty for supervised autonomous miles, effectively treating FSD-driven segments as the safest possible driving behavior.
The incentive is immediate and financial. Drivers who keep FSD engaged for the majority of their trips will see their overall score rise, potentially shaving hundreds of dollars off annual premiums.
Tesla framed the update as a direct response to customer feedback, many of whom had complained that the old scoring model punished the very behavior it was meant to encourage.
For now, the program applies only to new policies in six states: Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, and Illinois.
Existing policyholders are not yet included, a point that drew swift questions from the Tesla community. Many owners in other states, including California and Georgia, expressed hope that the benefit would expand nationwide soon.
The announcement arrives as Tesla continues to roll out FSD Supervised updates and push for regulatory approval of more advanced autonomy. By tying insurance savings directly to FSD usage, the company is putting its own actuarial weight behind the technology’s safety claims.
Every mile logged under FSD now carries a documented financial value—lower risk, lower cost—based on Tesla’s internal driving data rather than external crash statistics alone.
Tesla has not disclosed exact premium reductions or the full rollout timeline beyond the six launch states.
Still, the message is clear: the more drivers trust FSD Supervised, the more Tesla Insurance will reward them. In an era when legacy insurers remain cautious about autonomous tech, Tesla is betting that its own data will prove the safest miles are the ones driven hands-free.
Elon Musk
Tesla finalizes AI5 chip design, Elon Musk makes bold claim on capability
The Tesla CEO’s words mark a strategic shift. Tesla has long emphasized software-hardware co-design, squeezing maximum performance from every transistor. Musk previously described AI5 as optimized for edge inference in both Robotaxi and Optimus.
Tesla has finalized its chip design for AI5, as Elon Musk confirmed today that the new chip has reached the tape-out stage, the final step before mass production.
But in a brief reply on X, Musk clarified Tesla’s AI hardware roadmap, essentially confirming that the new chip will not be utilized for being “enough to achieve much better than human safety for FSD.”
He said that AI4 is enough to do that.
Instead, the AI5 chip will be focused on Tesla’s big-time projects for the future: Optimus and supercomputer clusters.
Musk thanked TSMC and Samsung for production support, noting that AI5 could become “one of the most produced AI chips ever.” Yet, the key pivot came in his direct answer: vehicles no longer need the bleeding-edge silicon.
And thank you to @TaiwanSemi_TSC and @Samsung for your support in bringing this chip to production! It will be one of most produced AI chips ever.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2026
Existing AI4 hardware, which is already deployed in hundreds of thousands of HW4-equipped Teslas, delivers safety metrics superior to human drivers for Full Self-Driving. AI5 will instead accelerate Optimus robot development and massive Dojo-style training clusters.
The Tesla CEO’s words mark a strategic shift. Tesla has long emphasized software-hardware co-design, squeezing maximum performance from every transistor. Musk previously described AI5 as optimized for edge inference in both Robotaxi and Optimus.
Now, with AI4 proving sufficient, the company avoids costly retrofits across its fleet while redirecting next-generation compute toward higher-value applications: dexterous robots and exponential training scale.
But is it reasonable to assume AI4 enables unsupervised self-driving? Yes, but with important caveats.
On the hardware side, the claim is credible. Tesla’s FSD stack runs end-to-end neural networks trained on billions of miles of real-world data. Internal safety data reportedly shows AI4-equipped vehicles already outperforming average human drivers by a significant margin in controlled metrics (collision avoidance, reaction time, edge-case handling).
Dual-redundant AI4 chips provide ample headroom for the driving task, leaving bandwidth for future model improvements without new silicon. Musk’s assertion aligns with Tesla’s pattern of over-provisioning compute early, then optimizing ruthlessly, exactly as HW3 once sufficed before HW4 scaled further.
Optimus and our supercomputer clusters.
AI4 is enough to achieve much better than human safety for FSD.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2026
Unsupervised autonomy, meaning Level 4 or higher, is not solely a compute problem. Regulatory approval remains the primary gate.
Even if AI4 achieves “much better than human” safety statistically, agencies like the NHTSA demand exhaustive validation, liability frameworks, and public trust.
Tesla’s supervised FSD has shown rapid gains in recent versions, yet real-world edge cases, like construction zones, emergency vehicles, and adverse weather, still require driver intervention in many jurisdictions. Competitors like Waymo operate limited unsupervised fleets, but only in geofenced areas with extensive mapping. Tesla’s vision-only, fleet-scale approach is more ambitious—and harder to certify globally.
In short, Musk’s post is both pragmatic and bullish. AI4 is likely capable of unsupervised FSD from a technical standpoint. Whether regulators and consumers agree, and how quickly, will determine if Tesla’s bet pays off.
The company’s capital-efficient path keeps existing cars relevant while pouring future compute into robots. If the safety data holds, unsupervised autonomy could arrive sooner than many expect.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk signals expansion of Tesla’s unique side business
Long envisioning the Tesla Diner as more than a charging stop, Musk has clearly adopted the idea that the Supercharger and Restaurant combo is a good thing for the company to have. It’s a blend of classic American drive-in culture with futuristic Tesla flair, complete with a 1950s-inspired design, movie screens, and on-site dining.
Elon Musk has signaled an expansion of Tesla’s unique side business, something that really has nothing to do with cars or spaceships, but fans of the company have truly adopted it as just another one of its awesome ventures.
Musk confirmed on Wednesday that Tesla would build a new Diner location in Palo Alto, Northern California. After hinting last October that it “probably makes sense to open one near our Giga Texas HQ in Austin and engineering HQ in Palo Alto,” it seems one of those locations is being set into motion.
Sure
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2026
Long envisioning the Tesla Diner as more than a charging stop, Musk has clearly adopted the idea that the Supercharger and Restaurant combo is a good thing for the company to have. It’s a blend of classic American drive-in culture with futuristic Tesla flair, complete with a 1950s-inspired design, movie screens, and on-site dining.
He first floated broader expansion plans shortly after the LA opening in July 2025, noting that if the prototype succeeded, Tesla would roll out similar venues in major cities worldwide and along long-distance Supercharger routes.
Earlier hints included a confirmed second site at Starbase in Texas, tied to SpaceX operations, underscoring the Diner’s role in enhancing Tesla’s ecosystem behind vehicles.
The Los Angeles location on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood has served as a high-profile test case. Opened in July 2025 at 7001 Santa Monica Blvd., it features the world’s largest urban Supercharging station with 80 V4 stalls open to all NACS-compatible EVs, over 250 dining seats, rooftop views, and 24/7 service.
The retro-futuristic building replaced a former Shakey’s and quickly became a destination. Tesla reported selling 50,000 burgers in the first 72 days—an average of over 700 daily—drawing crowds with Cybertruck-shaped packaging, breakfast extensions until 2 p.m., and movie screenings.
Palo Alto stands out as a logical next step for several reasons. As Tesla’s longstanding engineering headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley, the city is home to thousands of Tesla employees, engineers, and executives who could benefit from a convenient, branded gathering spot.
The area boasts high EV adoption rates, dense tech talent, and heavy traffic along key corridors, making a large Supercharger-diner an ideal fit for both daily commuters and long-haul travelers.
Proximity to Stanford University and the innovation ecosystem would amplify its appeal, potentially serving as a showcase for Tesla’s vision of integrated mobility and lifestyle experiences. It could be a great way for Tesla to recruit new talent from one of the country’s best universities.
If Tesla and Musk decide to move forward with a Palo Alto diner, it would build directly on the LA prototype’s momentum while addressing Musk’s earlier calls for expansion near core Tesla hubs.
Whether it materializes as a full confirmation or evolves from these hints remains to be seen, but the pattern is clear: Tesla is testing ways to make charging stops memorable. For EV drivers and enthusiasts alike, a Silicon Valley outpost could blend cutting-edge tech with nostalgic comfort, further embedding Tesla into everyday culture. As Musk’s comments suggest, the future of the Diner looks promising.





