Tesla’s self-driving option to get ‘substantially’ more expensive soon

Image: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Think Tesla’s done messing with its car prices? Think again. 

Days after the company’s announcement of Model 3 lineup and price changes, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the “price of the Tesla Full Self-Driving option will increase substantially over time.” 

In a subsequent tweet, Musk said these changes will start on May 1. And answering a comment which asked whether the price increase will be to the tune of “a few thousand dollars” or “something like +$3,000,” Musk said it would be “something like that.”

For those unfamiliar with Tesla’s nomenclature, the Full Self-Driving (FSD) package is an upgrade to the Autopilot set of features, and enables more advanced features such as automated driving on the highway, automated parking, and Summon, which has the car come to you all by itself, for example on a parking lot. Additionally, Tesla says the feature will also include recognition and responding to traffic lights and stop signs, as well as automatic driving on city streets (as opposed to highways only), in the future. 

The price for FSD is $5,000 if you order it while ordering the car, and $7,000 if you upgrade to it after delivery. 

Musk claims that with all this tech constantly being added to the car — the plan is that the car is eventually so autonomous that you can have it taxi other people and earn you money — Tesla cars become “appreciating assets.”

Tesla is also upgrading the FSD computer in all of its cars soon, and will even retrofit cars that have FSD with the new computer should the owner requests it. Electrek notes, however, that it’s unclear if all cars are getting the new computer or not. 

Tesla plans to demonstrate what the new FSD computer can do at an investor meeting on April 22. 

Tesla recently started bundling Autopilot on all its vehicles (it was previously available as an option), increasing the starting prices by $2,000. And the FSD price hike will likely be quite big — and that’s on top of the existing FSD price, which isn’t exactly insignificant either. But the good news for potential Tesla owners is that they still have a few weeks to buy a Tesla with FSD onboard at the old price, and have the new hardware installed when it becomes available.