Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company is going to raise the price of the optional Full Self-Driving for Tesla feature. This feature is advertised by the company as being close to autopilot.
At the moment, Full Self-Driving is in beta, although most Tesla users in the US have access to it for an extra price or by subscription. The company has decided to raise its price to $15,000. This is a significant increase over its previous price.
How much did the price increase for Full Self-Driving
Immediately after the release of the Full Self-Driving beta feature, it cost $5,000. A little later, in October 2020, Tesla doubled the price to $10,000. Then, in January 2021, the price went up to $12,000. After that, the price stayed at the same level for more than a year.
But today, CEO Elon Musk announced another price hike of 25 percent, to $15,000. At this point, this extra feature is becoming quite a tangible extra expense. However, the price increase will only come on September 5 for North America. This is due to the release of the new version of FSD Beta 10.69.2.
After wide release of FSD Beta 10.69.2, price of FSD will rise to $15k in North America on September 5th.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2022
Current price will be honored for orders made before Sept 5th, but delivered later.
Musk said that orders that are made before that date will be delivered after it, but at the old price of $ 12,000. Most likely in this way the company is trying to encourage those who plan to buy a car to do it as quickly as possible. However, the company did not say anything about the price increase for the Full Self-Driving for Tesla subscription. At the moment, a monthly subscription costs between $99 and $199 per month.
What are the problems with Full Self-Driving
The main problem noted by many experts and even some NTSB employees is the positioning of the feature as an autopilot for your Tesla. In reality, this feature is just an advanced driving assistance technology. Today, it cannot fully replace the driver and you still need to be behind the wheel while driving.
The fact that this option is available to a large number of users and they treat it as a replacement for autopilot, it provokes many accidents and dangerous situations on the road. However, despite all the criticism, the company continues to develop this technology and with each patch they get closer to one day making true autopilot.
