Tesla's Advanced Autopilot Features, Full Self Driving Not Yet Approved for India

The Tesla Model Y, now available to pre-order in India, will feature a basic version of the company's popular and somewhat controversial Autopilot feature. The EV maker's engineering team is working on developing software tech for Full Self Driving (FSD) here, which is being offered as a ₹6,00,000 add-on at the time of purchase but can't be activated and used here yet.

If users do not pay for FSD at the time of purchase, it will cost more. ACKO Drive has learnt that while this feature will attract 5 percent GST if bought when ordering a car, it unfortunately falls into the 18 percent bracket as a standalone upgrade, driving the price up. However, buyers should be aware that this amount is not refundable, even though there's no guarantee when FSD will actually be activated for Tesla owners in India. 

With the ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) growing in popularity, automakers also see it as a way to project themselves as more technology-oriented, and Tesla is among the frontline players in doing that. "We're not a car company. We're a technology company," said Isabelle Fan, Head - South East Asia, South Asia, Tesla, at the launch of the EV major's first India Experience Centre, located in Mumbai.

The Model Y, Tesla's bestseller, and also the world's best-selling car for the past two years, will support FSD in India, though not immediately. ACKO Drive has learnt that an engineering team has been working on building the algorithms for the complex and challenging Indian driving and road conditions for the past four years.

The Model Y, bookings for which opened today, offers Tesla's partly autonomous Autopilot feature, but only in a basic avatar, which will include Autonomous Driving L2 features such as Lane Departure Avoidance. The advanced version will not be available for cars in India, according to another source. However, the car's hardware is capable of supporting this, and with most new-age EVs including Teslas being Software Defined Vehicles, many features can be added by the carmaker through OTA (Over The Air) updates.

Both Autopilot and FSD have served as major attractions for brand Tesla, but they also have given rise to controversies. There have been instances in the USA, when Tesla cars have crashed, some of them fatal, when Tesla's ADAS systems were believed to have been engaged. The terminology of these features has been seen as misleading too –  though called Full Self Driving and Autopilot, these features when engaged also require the driver to be alert enough to take control of the car in the event of any emergency.

In India, which also has the dubious distinction of leading the global chart of road fatalities, it will pay for OEMs, including Tesla, to drive cautiously when it comes to offering consumers safety-critical advanced features such as autonomous or assisted driving, despite the good appetite that consumers here have for technology.