Tesla Now Charges Extra If You Want The Autosteer Software That Previously Came Standard

If you like the idea of living in a functioning representative democracy not run by billionaires, you already have plenty of reason to never buy a Tesla, but the electric automaker robotics slash AI company is also taking a new approach to make its cars even less competitive. InsideEVs reports that Tesla has removed the steering-assist feature it calls Autosteer from all Model 3s and Model Ys and now requires you to pay for its so-called “Full Self-Driving” software if you want steering assistance. 

Previously, the driver-assistance package known as Autopilot included two features — adaptive cruise control and steering assistance. Now, the steering assistance part is gone, and all that’s left — unless you’re willing to give Elon $99 a month for access to the so-called “Full Self-Driving” software that will go subscription-only next month. This move also shouldn’t be confused with Tesla’s previous decision to remove Autosteer from the decontented Modely 3 and Model Y, since it now applies to all Model 3 and Model Y trims. 

It also might not look like that’s the case at first, but when you get to the final order page, only “Traffic-Aware Cruise Control,” which is Tesla’s term for adaptive cruise control. As InsideEVs points out, that also means the Model 3 and Model Y are now less well-equipped than a base-model Toyota Corolla, which starts at $22,925 and includes both adaptive cruise-control and lane-centering steering assist as standard.

You can’t trust Elon Musk half as far as you can throw him, so as usual, take everything he says with a grain of salt big enough to preserve an entire school of cod, but the Tesla CEO also said on Twitter that you can expect the cost of an FSD subscription to get more expensive “as FSD’s capabilities improve.” In theory, that kind of statement should encourage people to get in early, but since FSD is moving to a subscription model, he’s mostly just advertising that the $99 a month he plans to charge is merely an introductory price, and you’ll end up paying more later if you join now. 

Meanwhile, believing the promise that FSD’s capabilities will see any meaningful improvement that might possibly justify paying more than $99 a month requires trusting the guy who’s been promising that full autonomy for more than a decade without delivering it. But you never know, maybe this time, it’s for real. Maybe this time it’s definitely happening. Tesla’s going to figure out how to make a camera-only system compete with far-superior lidar-based systems, Patrick Rothfuss is finally going to publish “The Doors Of Stone,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s going to date an age-appropriate woman, and I’m going to go through a midlife growth spurt and finally be six feet tall. 

Whether any of that ever happens or not, though, Musk has to find a way to get a bunch of people to pay for FSD subscriptions if he ever wants to hit the targets laid out in his $1 trillion pay package. And who doesn’t love feeling like a company is squeezing you for more money, just so a billionaire CEO can juice his numbers and get yet another multi-billion-dollar payout.