Staying true to form, Tesla shuffled some terminology and names on some cars with little notice this week, as it dropped the long-standing Autopilot driver assistance system from the standard e equipment.
It’s unknown if cars ordered before the change, but not yet in owners’ hands, are affected, and Tesla no longer has a public relations department. Autopilot was launched to fanfare in 2014, first in the Model S. After the change to Tesla’s available options was noticed by the public, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed that this is the new way.
What’s left is the standard Traffic Aware Cruise Control, which maintains a consistent speed while monitoring vehicles around it and their behavior (slightly more sophisticated than the adaptive cruise control that’s standard on cars like the Honda Civic) and forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, and Tesla’s form of blind-spot monitoring. Autosteer, a lane-centering system, also appears to be gone, although it was never offered on the cheaper and decontented Model 3 and Model Y Standard models released last year.
Prospective buyers ordering a Tesla now have to go with the standard equipment above or spring for the Full-Self Driving (Supervised), an $8,000 option, but only until Feb. 14. That’s when, according to Elon Musk’s X post on Thursday, it would be offered only as a monthly subscription fee for $99.
The change is at least somewhat related to a December ruling that Tesla committed a deceptive marketing violation with its promises surrounding the abilities of Autopilot and Full-Self Driving. Tesla subsequently revised the name to Full-Self Driving (Supervised), added various disclaimers, and, now, has dropped the Autopilot name.
There’s another wrinkle in things. Even though General Motors and Ford charge a subscription fee for their hands-free driving assists— SuperCruise and BlueCruise, respectively—it comes with a three-year trial period. Tesla will charge $99 per month after 30 days.
Typically, new car owners don’t like it when a vehicle function they paid for suddenly expires after the driving period, and they find out that it doesn’t work one day. BMW infamously tried subscription services as far back as 2018 with just Apple CarPlay, which later expanded to things like heated seats, only to backtrack on that a couple of years ago while still keeping certain driver assists behind a paywall in certain markets.
On Friday, Sawyer Merritt, an EV influencer who frequently interacts with Musk, posted that “Tesla owners who previously purchased Enhanced Autopilot can now subscribe to FSD (Supervised) for $49/month, reduced from the previous $99/month.” Tesla did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Tesla, meanwhile, is doubling down on pushing new owners to the subscription-based supervised Full Self-Driving, which looks like it’s not only alienating returning buyers but has the potential to confuse new ones.
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