Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
One of our former writers shared the news with us today that Tesla will no longer sell “Full Self Driving” with its cars after Valentine’s Day, February 14. However, it will still be offered as a subscription option. Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the announcement this morning.
Why Valentine’s Day? Who knows — Elon’s got like 20 kids, so good luck trying to understand his relationship to love.
Why stop selling FSD? There are different potential explanations, but it is a bit “funny” that it has been sold for almost a decade (beginning October 2016) without actually delivering full self driving. How many people who bought it in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, etc. got what they paid for? Well, many seem to be fine with what they got, but it still surprises me that there hasn’t been a big, successful class action lawsuit about this. Yes, there were always caveats and fine print, but there were also a lot of BIG claims made along the way that were way off.
Anyway, on to the speculation. Here are a few reasons why Tesla may be making this shift:
It’s on the verge of offering actual hands-off, eyes-off full self-driving capability and thinks the value of FSD will explode, but doesn’t know how to price it in terms of a flat fee, or just doesn’t want unlimited FSD capability forever more for new buyers. Perhaps it doesn’t know how the market will respond and wants more flexibility in adjusting prices without significant backlash. (Going from $100/mo to $150/mo, or vice versa, is not going to stimulate as much backlash as going from $10,000 to $15,000, or $15,000 to $10,000.)
Even if Tesla isn’t on the verge of releasing hands-off, eyes-off full self-driving capability in which Tesla takes on legal liability for a crash, perhaps there’s still that issue of not knowing how to price FSD in terms of a flat fee. Maybe the constantly changing goalposts have made that a headache and Musk is done with it.
Maybe the customer take rate on buying FSD up front is still so disappointing that Musk is tired of seeing the low number, especially as he feels it’s gotten so much better, and wants to just shift to subscriptions, which are presumably more popular.
Maybe they’re trying to stimulate sales demand in the midst of a serious problem moving vehicles and this is an option Musk and team thinks will work to get more people to buy a car today, or this quarter at least. That might explain the February 14 deadline a bit better, too. Orders made by that date should give Tesla enough time to produce and deliver cars in the 1st quarter. Hmm…. Could that work to jack up sales? Maybe. And even if it doesn’t lead to a ton more vehicle sales, it could give a big boost to Tesla revenue in a low-cost way if current owners decide to buy FSD. (If this is the reason, one has to wonder if the date won’t be moved. After all, you were only going to be able to transfer FSD from one Tesla to a new one in one quarter, but then Musk allowed it in another quarter, and then another, and then another — I forget how many in total — in order to keep using it as a sales driver.)
Well, whatever the reason, you supposedly will not be able to buy FSD after February 14, 2026.
Sign up for CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Advertisement
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
[embedded content]
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
Share this story!