Musk has said that the final price of Tesla's self-driving technology FSD may exceed $100,000, and Tesla has been approaching this goal for some time.
On Saturday morning, Tesla CEO Elon Musk Musk announced that the price of his electric vehicle "fully autonomous FSD" software in the United States will be raised to $12,000 on January 17.
As usual, Musk "officially announced" Tesla's latest decision on Twitter, and said that as Tesla approaches the release of the FSD production code, the price of FSD will continue to rise.
According to Musk, the company will also increase the price of FSD monthly subscriptions, which currently cost most users $199 per month, but Musk did not specify the price.
Since Tesla raised the FSD price from $8,000 to $10,000 in October 2020, this re-price increase has made it all the more important for latecomers to carefully weigh whether Autopilot is worth it. However, for China, the optional package of model 3 "fully autonomous driving capability" has been maintained at 64,000 yuan for nearly a year.
Tesla has been expanding the coverage of its beta version of the FSD software, an industry-leading driver assistance system that can not only automatically change lanes, follow cars, but also enable autonomous driving in urban conditions, but these features often cause concern.
Since 2019, Tesla's Autopilot Beta version of the Full Autopilot (FSD) has been rolled out to a small number of users, and owners can download the latest FSD beta software through OTA. With the expansion of the scope of internal testing, the system has become a hot topic of discussion.
Tesla said on its official website that self-driving features include, but are not limited to, automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, which essentially allow the car's speed to match the surrounding traffic environment.
Fully autonomous FSD is an advanced optional package that includes more sophisticated autonomous driving capabilities such as automatic lane changes, traffic lights, stop sign recognition, and automatic assisted driving on city streets.
Despite its name as fully autonomous driving, its official version still doesn't allow cars to drive themselves without driver intervention.
Tesla specifically mentioned that FSD vehicles have not yet achieved full autonomous driving, and the currently available functions still require drivers to actively monitor. Activation and use of these features will require billions of miles of mileage verification to achieve "far more reliability than human drivers." At the same time, the final official version of the application also needs to be approved by the government department.
Only drivers who have received an invitation, purchased or subscribed to the FSD and received a high score on Tesla's "Safety Score" test can access the FSD Beta. Once inside, owners can actually test features that are currently in an unfinished state, such as autonomous driving in an urban environment. Musk said in a tweet on Friday that the next updated version of FSD Beta 10.9 is nearing completion.
In addition to the FSD, Tesla's enhanced auto-assisted driving feature is sold as Autopilot, which enables assisted driving in highway environments and is available on all of its models (Model S, X, Y, and 3).
While it looks like a significant revenue growth point, Tesla doesn't disclose exactly how many customers pay for or subscribe to FSDs upfront each quarter in its earnings reports. As a result, it's unclear to what extent U.S. price increases will boost its future profit margins. According to a survey, about 11% of Tesla owners have the FSD feature when buying a car.
The actual road "paid test" of tesla FSD has attracted the attention of U.S. regulators, and the California Motor Vehicle Administration (California DMV) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are investigating different aspects of Tesla's FSD development and technology.
Tesla has told both agencies that its technology is only a "Level 2" level of self-driving system. According to the DMV, "a Level 2 system can improve safety or provide driver assistance, but it cannot drive or operate a vehicle without active physical control or monitoring."
But Musk hinted that the company's technology is more advanced than Level 2. In an interview published on December 28, 2021, YouTube anchor Lex Fridman asked Musk, "When do you think Tesla will achieve a Level 4 FSD?" Musk replied, "It looks like it's likely to be next year."
Source: Heart of the Machine
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