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Yesterday, I wrote about Tesla’s decision to stop selling “Full Self Driving” after February 14. One of the main questions was, “Why February 14?” Well, one of our readers pointed out the now-obvious reason to us now.
Mark Spohr writes: “How about: February 14 is the deadline California imposed on Tesla to stop selling FSD since it isn’t FSD.”
Ahhhhh… that explains it.
There’s been a lawsuit ongoing in California regarding Tesla’s false advertising of “full self driving.” Here’s how I summarized things a month ago:
“After years of battle on this topic, a California judge has ruled that Tesla’s use of the terms ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Full Self Driving’ has effectively been false advertising. Judge Juliet Cox’s proposal was that Tesla’s license to manufacture and sell vehicles in California be suspended for 30 days.”
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) then told Tesla it had 60 days to comply. If it did not do so by then, its sales license would be halted. “Naturally, Tesla will not have to suspend vehicle production and sales. It will simply change how these features are named and marketed in California, if not more broadly,” I added.
The ruling was on December 16, 2025. February 14, 2026, is 60 days after that. Coincidence?
What about the subscription option? Well, I guess that doesn’t matter.
Why didn’t Tesla just change the name and marketing around FSD? They could have just changed it to “Fake Self Driving” or “Full Self Drooling” or something, like Musk changed the name of the flamethrower the company sold for a while to “Not-A-Flamethrower.”
I suspect there are a few reasons Tesla didn’t do that. For one, Musk probably didn’t want to give in. We all know how stubborn he is, and how much he hates to lose a fight. Then there are all the ideas I proposed yesterday, from it being a way to stimulate sales to it being easier to adjust pricing on subscriptions to it potentially being a way to make more money from customers in the long run.
In any case, though, it seems certain that the reason February 14 is the deadline is so that Tesla doesn’t have to do anything else to respond to the California DMV directive, like changing the names of these driver-assist features Tesla has been marketing and selling for about a decade. Thanks to Mark Spohr for connecting the dots.
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