Tesla Kills Free Autopilot Feature in US, New Buyers Forced to Pay Subscription for Lane Keep Assist

After its recent announcement that the one-time Full Self Driving purchase option was being discontinued in favour of a subscription plan, Tesla has now reduced the free functionality that all Model Y and Model 3 buyers get. The Autopilot feature has been deprecated, with only part of its functionality still available, under a different name. 

While always a component of Autopilot, Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) is the only functionality that now remains for free. This controls a car’s acceleration and braking in response to other cars around it. The other key feature, Autosteer, is now part of the paid subscription package. Autosteer is intended to keep a car centred in its lane, equivalent to the Lane Keep Assist feature that is now common across many cars. 

The company has come under fire for the naming of its Autopilot feature, which multiple lawsuits and regulatory inquiries have alleged is a misleading name, as it could falsely imply that the car is driving itself when in fact the human driver needs to pay full attention and keep their hands on the wheel when using it. The Full Self Driving package was also renamed to Full Self Driving (Supervised) for this reason. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk also posted on social media that the $99 monthly price of FSD (Supervised) is likely to go up in the future, as functionality improves. The news has been widely panned across social media and forums, with Tesla owners saying this makes long-term ownership costs unpredictable for new buyers and future upgrades. He has also previously promoted rash driving, and suggested that Tesla cars now allow drivers to focus on typing on their phones while FSD is engaged, which is illegal in many territories.

The move comes amid a growing industry-wide frustration with forced subscriptions and paywalls for features that were formerly free and considered basic inclusions. US-based media has also noted that competitors and even much lower-priced cars offer Lane Keep Assist as a standard feature.

It is not yet clear if or when the FSD subscription will be implemented in other countries. Tesla's India website now lists TACC and does not mention autopilot, however there is no pricing for an FSD subscription. FSD can still be added on to a Model Y's purchase price for ₹6 lakh despite not being usable in India yet, and with no visibility  on when it might be. Tesla has also not localised its software for India, including local apps or Indian-language voice commands.