Tesla’s Raising the Price of Full Self-Driving Again

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company is once again raising the price of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature—and it will probably continue to do so as the feature gets closer to exiting beta.

FSD’s price rose from $5,000 at launch to $10,000 in October 2020. Musk says the new $12,000 price for FSD will debut on Jan. 17, but in a follow-up tweet, he clarifies that the higher price will only apply to customers in the US. (It’s not clear why the price bump won’t apply elsewhere.)

Tesla has also introduced a subscription offering that costs $199 per month for customers who don’t want to pay a lump sum for the FSD add-on. Those monthly payments might seem more appealing now that FSD will cost an extra $2,000, but they too are expected to rise soon.

Tesla made the FSD beta available to more users in late 2021 despite criticism from the National Transportation Safety Board, a complaint from two senators who said the feature’s name is misleading, and recent investigations into a series of Autopilot-related crashes.

Now the feature’s cost is rising again, ostensibly because it’s nearing an official release, even though Musk defended bugged versions of FSD in December 2021 by saying that “this is to be expected with beta software.” It seems Tesla wants to have its beta and charge more for it too.