Having confirmed Tesla will start charging $99 a month for supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD), CEO Elon Musk has told the faithful that the cost will rise "as FSD's capabilities improve."
Musk revealed the plan on his social media mouthpiece, X (formerly Twitter), on January 23, a week after stating that the hands-free driving technology would shift from an $8,000 one-off payment to a subscription-only model in February.
Tesla announced the change to a monthly subscription on January 14. It will shift to a subscription model for FSD on February 14, and Musk's post indicates the $99 per month fee will rise before long, though he did not give a date or amount, just saying it would happen as the technology gets better.
The electric vehicle maker is not averse to fiddling with price lists; the FSD feature reached a high of $15,000 in September 2022 before being reduced to $8,000 in 2024. The $99-per-month option offers better value, though the idea of a subscription can be controversial.
A price increase, however, reduces the value proposition.
"The massive value jump," wrote Musk, "is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD)."
Musk has promised great things of FSD for years, and Tesla has become the target of several sueballs over the technology. Investigations have also opened regarding the safety of the system, which relies on cameras and AI to keep its vehicles on track rather than features including radar and lidar.
Musk did not clarify exactly what increase in FSD capability justifies a subscription payment hike. If Tesla waits until FSD reaches the point where it can be trusted to pilot a vehicle with the driver asleep at the wheel, then it seems unlikely the corporation's value will increase in time to trigger Musk's bonus payout.
In addition, modern hands-free systems mean that operating a cellphone is perfectly possible from a moving vehicle.
Tesla is not the only automaker to move its customers to a subscription model and remove a one-off payment option, notwithstanding BMW's ill-fated heated seat adventure. Musk is, however, notable for saying the quiet part out loud: price rises could arrive faster than an out-of-control car, careening down the highway. ®
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