Tesla was planning to increase the price of its “Full Self-Driving” package last week that was supposed to coincide with an update to its Autopilot features, like the new Smart Summon, but it now won’t happen until September/October.
Earlier this year, Tesla killed the Enhanced Autopilot package and unbundled some features to create a base Autopilot package, which they made standard on all Tesla vehicles.
They added the features to the Full Self-Driving option and increased the price to $6,000 if ordered before delivery — $8,000 if ordered after delivery.
The features include:
- Navigate on Autopilot: automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars.
- Auto Lane Change: automatic lane changes while driving on the highway.
- Autopark: both parallel and perpendicular spaces.
- Summon: your parked car will come find you anywhere in a parking lot. Really.
Later, Tesla changed this structure of having different prices before and after delivery.
Since May, any Tesla owner can upgrade to the Full Self-Driving package for $6,000, but the automaker reserved the right to still increase the price in the future.
Earlier this month, Tesla announced plans to increase its Full Self-Driving price again on August 16, but August 16 came and went without any price increase.
Today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk now confirmed that the price increase has been postponed until they release Version 10:
Price increase for Tesla FSD postponed until version 10 with smart summon is in wide release, which is about 4 to 8 weeks away, depending on how early access goes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2019
Tesla’s Version 10 software update is expected to include improvements to Tesla’s music app and other apps, especially Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features.
The most anticipated one is Smart Summon.
Smart Summon, also known as Enhanced Summon, builds on Tesla’s previous Summon feature, which was used by owners to move their cars autonomously for a few feet in their driveway or in tight parking situations.
With the new version, owners are able to Summon their Tesla vehicles from further away, and the cars will navigate more complex parking environments.
We published an exclusive first look at Tesla’s new Enhanced Summon earlier this year, and more recently, we have seen a few interesting demos.
Electrek’s Take
This isn’t surprising, but I’m still kind of disappointed.
It sounds like we are going to have to wait for Smart Summon to be sorted out in order to get version 10.
That’s probably the hardest feature to get to work safely, and it’s pushing a bunch of other features that I feel would be easier to launch, like the long-awaited music app updates.
I feel like Tesla should just release those features while Summon is still in the test program.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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