[HN Gopher] Tesla moving Full Self-Driving to a monthly subscrip...
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Tesla moving Full Self-Driving to a monthly subscription
Author : leopoldj
Score : 42 points
Date : 2026-01-14 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Ran out of suckers to pay the lump sum.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Make hay while the sun shines. BYD will force self driving to
| table stakes in a few years.
| blackoil wrote:
| Not just BYD, huawei solution is almost at par with Tesla.
| German, Korean, Chinese all will be there in few years.
| graemep wrote:
| Once they are established they will require a subscription, or
| they will stop support after a few years so you have to buy a
| new car or pay more to get extended support.
|
| Whatever it takes to extract more money from you.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Once they are established they will require a
| subscription, or they will stop support after a few years so
| you have to buy a new car or pay more to get extended
| support_
|
| Not how competition and commoditisation works.
| graemep wrote:
| No, its how vendor lock in and deceptive pricing work.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Is "Full Self-Driving" still the term they use to describe a mode
| that does not actually fully self-drive the car?
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Hey! I'll have you know that trillionaire-because-he-
| absolutely-deserved-it Elon of Musky promised Full Self Driving
| in 2017. That's next year! /s
| gdulli wrote:
| Sounds like you're using an LLM as your calendar.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| The joke was meant to be that next year is actually 2027.
| Which means Elmo's promised FSD is almost a decade late
| gdulli wrote:
| I know, I was adding on the joke that LLMs can't get the
| year right.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is "Full Self-Driving" still the term they use to describe a
| mode that does not actually fully self-drive the car?_
|
| To be fair it's appended with "(Supervised)".
| IvyMike wrote:
| This is very forthright (misleading)
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yes, after being battered by everyone from NHTSA to the FTC
| to threats from class action lawyers, that was added, several
| years later. To be fair.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure. Was just responding to OP's "still."
| UltraSane wrote:
| That is extremely (dis)honest
| darkteflon wrote:
| What happens to people who paid for it as part of the sticker
| price? Are they grandfathered permanently?
| graemep wrote:
| It sounds as though they are from the wording, but who knows
| what a future update may bring?
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| doumented here:
|
| https://elontime.io/
| hnspirit95 wrote:
| I can't help but think of an absurd situation where your
| subscription ends mid use and results in a crash. Like I'm sure
| the engineers have thought of this but the image of someone
| cruising down the road and getting a popup to enter their payment
| info before careening off a cliff is just so humorous... until
| the horrifying possibility that it could be reality sinks in.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| I mean, at least in the U.S., an "FSD System" can't (yet) be held
| fully liable and there's not enough legal precedent for it (atm)
| even if it could.
|
| Thus, if you drive in the U.S., you're both stupid and
| irresponsible if you utilize _any_ "FSD" system while you're
| behind the wheel. Note that this legally distinct from
| "autonomous self-driving" like Waymo.
|
| I have zero doubt we'll eventually get there, but it's going to
| be quite some time (over a decade?) for real FSD to be ubiquitous
| enough for the requisite traffic law changes and for this stuff
| to have gone through enough legal challenges in the various state
| courts.
| qwerpy wrote:
| Stupid and irresponsible driver here. It drives quite well and
| saves me considerable mental energy on every drive I make now.
| If it gets into a wreck I know I'm liable, but in years of
| using it, that hasn't happened. So why not enjoy the more
| relaxing drives now?
| jmpman wrote:
| I paid for FSD the first month it was offered monthly. Was so bad
| I wanted my money back but couldn't figure out how to get Tesla
| to refund. Feel worse for those who paid the full $8k
| m463 wrote:
| Their cars become less and less attractive.
|
| No dashboard, later no turn signals, no drive stalk, defrost on
| touchscreen, now car is becoming subscription-based...
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(page generated 2026-01-14 23:02 UTC)