Tesla will stop selling FSD as a standalone package and switch to subscription only

As her Sales continue to slide And for her The robotaxi strategy seems to be falteringTesla CEO Elon Musk said today that the company will stop selling its Full Self-Driving feature as a standalone package. Instead, starting February 14, the Level 2 driver assistance system will be offered as a monthly subscription only.

This news represents a huge shift in how Tesla will market FSD, a software system that Musk has long claimed will lead to fully self-driving vehicles, and thus will be a “discretionary asset.” At one point, the FSD was sold for $15,000 as a one-time option. The price has since dropped to $8,000. Or as a $99 per month subscription.

Musk did not provide any justification for the move, which comes roughly two weeks before Tesla announces its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings. The company’s fourth-quarter delivery report revealed a year-over-year sales decline of 15.6 percent. FSD’s growing subscription base was a prerequisite for Musk’s recently approved pay package: He would need to add 10 million active subscribers to get compensation that could reach $1 trillion.

In the early years, Musk urged Tesla customers to buy the FSD package as much as possible, because as the software improves the price will certainly rise. He promised that FSD would eventually score so well from Tesla owners that they would be able to earn passive income on their cars as part of a fully autonomous robotaxi service. Musk was right about the price, but only briefly: The cost of FSD will peak in 2022 When it was raised to $15,000, but later dropped to $12,000, and eventually $8,000.

And the taxi? Well, this is a work in progress. Last year, Musk predicted this 50 percent of the US population will have access to a Tesla robotaxi By the end of 2025. So far, only a few company-owned vehicles are available in Austin and San Francisco to a limited number of customers. These vehicles feature safety drivers in the driver or passenger seats, with access to a kill switch if anything goes wrong — a backup option that Waymo’s automated car doesn’t have.

Tesla did not say how many customers currently subscribe to FSD. Older Tesla cars with less powerful computers You will need to update and update it To leverage existing FSD capabilities, a process that Musk admitted would be expensive and “painful.”

Tesla has also been criticized for the way it markets FSD. California Department of Motor Vehicles Recently ruled That the company is misleading customers and violating state law by selling the system as “full self-driving” when drivers are required to supervise the system.