Business

Tesla knocked $500 off a hardware upgrade for its Full Self Driving subscription after customer backlash, a report says

Tesla Model 3 Hamburg
A Tesla Model 3 (left) and other Tesla models are on display in a Tesla Service Center in Hamburg.

  • Tesla offered customers with older car models a $1,500 hardware upgrade to get “Full Self-Driving.”
  • This provoked backlash – Tesla said in 2016 its cars would come with Full Self-Driving hardware.
  • Tesla appears to have dropped the price to $1,000, Electrek reports.
  • See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Tesla appears to have dropped the price on a new hardware upgrade for its new Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscription.

Tesla announced on Friday that customers could get its FSD software, which does not make the car fully autonomous, through a $199 monthly subscription rather than paying $10,000 upfront, which was previously the only way to get FSD. The company said it would charge $1,500 to upgrade hardware on older Tesla models to make them FSD-compatible.

This provoked outrage among some Tesla owners: As Electrek noted, the company announced in 2016 all its cars would come with FSD hardware already built in. On Tuesday, some Tesla customers noticed the price for upgrading their FSD hardware had dropped from $1,500 to $1,000.

Two screenshots posted on Reddit, and various screenshots on Twitter, showed that the installation cost had dropped to $1,000 for some customers.

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FSD does not make Teslas fully autonomous, and when the company rolled out its most recent version of the software earlier this month it warned drivers to stay attentive as it could “do the wrong thing at the worst time.”

FSD is the name Tesla gives to its premium driver-assistance software, above its standard “Autopilot” feature. FSD lets drivers remotely summon their cars and change lanes automatically.

Tesla did not immediately respond when contacted by Insider on the reported price reduction.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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