The concept for Tesla’s driver-assistance system, Autopilot, has been around for well over a decade. Elon Musk’s EV maker has long used the term to describe features like advanced cruise control and auto-steer, all the while admitting that drivers still need to be able to take over at any time.
But in light of plummeting sales and shrinking profits, Tesla has killed the feature in the United States and Canada for good. It’s a major reversal after over a decade of Musk making yearly — and flat-out wrong — predictions of achieving fully autonomous, or Level 5, driving “next year.”
Autopilot has also been caught up in several high-profile investigations by federal regulators, following hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths involving the feature. The EV maker has also faced a litany of lawsuits over the software, including a $329 million wrongful death settlement last year.
To raise much-needed revenue now that car sales have taken a major hit, the company has instead paywalled most of the basic features. Starting on February 14, Tesla owners will need to shell out a steep $99 a month to enable features like autosteer or advanced lane keep assist, something the vehicles were previously capable of without a subscription. (Traffic Aware Cruise Control, however, will remain standard, even without a subscription.)
The timing is suspect, to say the least. As Ars Technica points out, a court ruled in December that Tesla deceived its customers by implying that its “Autopilot” branding amounts to “deceptive marketing,” giving the company a mere 60 days to fix any misleading claims or be banned from selling cars in California, one of its biggest markets.
The start of the subscription service almost perfectly aligns with that deadline, although it remains unclear what exactly motivated the company to kill Autopilot. Another major motivating factor may be Musk’s $1 trillion pay package, which requires the company to reach 10 million active subscriptions to its driver assistance software.
Tesla’s branding for the features has been especially confusing as of late, differentiating between Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), a highly controversial and easily fooled add-on package that also still requires the driver to stay engaged at all times, despite its misleading name.
As of February 14, owners will only be able to either pay $99 a month for an FSD subscription — or live with the fact that their vehicles’ driver assistance capabilities will be considerably reined in. Before that date, users can still shell out a steep $8,000 to permanently unlock FSD.
Musk has boasted that it’s an incredible value add — and one that’s going to become even more expensive as time goes on.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve,” Musk warned in a January 22 tweet. “The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD).”
When such an “unsupervised” version of FSD will materialize remains a mystery. However, given Musk’s track record of making predictions about the tech, such a future may still be many years out — if it ever materializes.
More on Autopilot: Tesla Admits That Its Cars May Never Fully Drive Themselves
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