Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla plans to release its Full Self-Driving software package as a monthly subscription service as soon as “early 2021”.
Be ready for a surprisingly high price.
Earlier this year, we reported on indications that Tesla is working on a pay-as-you-go subscription for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) package.
Later, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla planned to release such an option “toward the end of the year.”
Over the last few months, it looks like Tesla was going to stick to this timeline as we saw Tesla preparing to launch a Full Self-Driving subscription with updates to the backend of its in-app upgrades to include a subscription model.
However, the CEO has now confirmed that the subscription model has been pushed to ‘early 2021’:
When confirming plans to offer a monthly subscription to access the features, Musk made it clear that buying the FSD package will remain the best option financially:
I should say, it will still make sense to buy FSD as an option as in our view, buying FSD is an investment in the future. And we are confident that it is an investment that will pay off to the consumer — to the benefit of the consumer. In my opinion, buying FSD option is something people will not regret doing.
However, a monthly subscription might make more sense for people leasing their Tesla vehicles and those who don’t want to commit to paying the full price of the Full Self-Driving, which was recently increased to $10,000.
The new way to acquire Tesla’s Full Self-Driving package is coming as the automaker is testing an early version of its supervised self-driving system in a beta version with a limited group of customers in the US.
Tesla has been guiding a wider release in the US by the end of 2020.
On top of the new monthly subscription model, Musk said that he would also consider letting Tesla buyers transfer ownership of the Full Self-Driving package to another car if they were to upgrade, but he hasn’t made a final decision on that possibility, which many Tesla owners have been asking for.
Recently, Tesla has been making more moves into software-as-a-service.
Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
