Elon Musk has a Valentine’s Day present for Tesla owners: another subscription.
The billionaire said on Wednesday that Tesla will stop making its Full Self-Driving feature available as a one-off purchase and will only offer the assisted driving software as a subscription service.
“Tesla will stop selling FSD after Feb 14. FSD will only be available as a monthly subscription thereafter,” the Tesla CEO wrote in a post on X.
Tesla owners currently have the option to buy FSD for $8,000 or pay $99 a month to access the service.
It comes as the company struggles to get customers to pay for the technology, which Musk has regularly described as critical to Tesla’s future.
In Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call in October, the company’s CFO told investors that only around 12% of Tesla’s current fleet subscribed to FSD, with quarterly revenue decreasing compared to the same period the previous year.
Boosting FSD subscriptions is also a key part of Musk’s mammoth pay package, which was approved by Tesla investors in November. Reaching 10 million FSD subscriptions is among the milestones that Tesla needs to hit for Musk to unlock the full $1 trillion payout.
Musk has long insisted that Tesla — which has a market cap of $1.4 trillion — should be valued like an AI company, not a carmaker.
The billionaire has shifted Tesla’s focus to autonomous vehicles and robotics in recent years, telling investors in 2024 that it would be”pointless” to build a conventional $25,000 EV and suggesting that Tesla’s Optimus robot would be “the biggest product ever.”
While the majority of Tesla’s revenue still comes from its (declining) car sales, switching FSD to subscription-only is another step toward Musk’s goal of turning the company into a tech services giant.
It’s been a bumpy ride at times. Tesla’s rollout of Full Self-Driving, which allows a Tesla vehicle to drive itself in most situations but requires human supervision at all times, has attracted regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced investigations last year into whether Tesla correctly reported crashes linked to FSD, and over reports of Tesla vehicles with FSD activated running red lights and driving on the wrong side of the road.
Tesla also faces a potential ban on selling vehicles in California after a judge ruled that the company’s marketing of its Full Self Driving and Autopilot systems misled consumers.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
