This is a pretty boneheaded business decision on Tesla's part. But their technology remains clearly superior.

2. Elon's Trillion Dollar Payout is tied to a certain number of FSD Subscriptions.

3. Some consumers were sold that they would get hardware upgrades for FSD. I'm pretty sure Tesla would like to minimize that, and I expect incentives for those people to purchase new vehicle without FSD.

4. Subscriptions drive our economy, I don't know the details but it seems like every company wants subscriptions over one time purchases.

I honestly don't think they want a lot of people with lifetime FSD, it's disappearing without a lot of news.

The price is high, but it's not unique to Tesla. Ford has Blue Cruise, which is about $500/year.

People can, however, opt for openpilot/comma (https://comma.ai/openpilot), which random Youtubers tested and say it's about as good as Tesla's FSD, but has a simple one time fee of $1K But whether you want to trust open source is up to you.

This last week they had a guy who had completely passed out in his car and was fast asleep at the wheel. A state trooper pulled up alongside it and could see the guy slumped over his wheel. Apparently the car was essentially weaving back and forth between the lane lines because the car had LKAS enabled, effectively keeping the car from driving off the road.

The state trooper followed the car for several miles trying to decide what he should do. He tried several times by running his lights and sirens, honking, etc to no avail. He finally found a safe spot and successfully pitted the car to a stop. During the pit, the man suddenly woke up - for obvious reasons.

They later found out he had been working 22 hours straight and then was driving to his GF's house several hours away for the weekend and was just exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel.

I’ve been paying the monthly for a while. Very worth it to me.

I have a 2014 car that's connectable but no driver assistance; I had a 2017 (delivered mid 2016) with lane keeping and emergency braking which seemed pretty new and exciting, and it's connectable, all I would need to do is pay a big annual fee and also setup a 3g CDMA network. Couldn't do much with either if it's connected; I pulled the 3g modem from the 2014 when it was convenient cause I was worried it was using power while off.

Not that lane keeping needs a connection, just that I'm surprised they put it on a car without a modem.

I used it a couple of times, but then I stopped; for me, as a driver/passenger, it has very little value. Yes, maybe I can lower my attention from 100% to 95%, but it does not make much difference: I need to keep my hands on the wheel, it disengages at random (for me) times.

True autopilot is very different.

Heck, a cheap base model Maza 3 I rented had lane keep assist.

Tesla only stands to lose by gatekeeping what's now a basic feature behind a paywall.

That was my original main complaint with Tesla and why I distrusted them so much before Elon publicly lost the plot.

Even with Autopilot it was clear to me they were far more willing to force the risks of their systems on all other drivers on the road then the legacy auto makers who were much more cautious about testing things extremely thoroughly first. All those early videos of people climbing in the backs of their cars while they were driving down the highway? To me that was proof they couldn’t be trusted with public safety.

I daily a 30 year old car. There exists a sweet spot of reliability, safety, and comfort (probably the early-mid 2000s) that in theory, you should never have to buy a vehicle outside of, newer or older. There will always be clean old cars in good shape you can buy, you don't need a new vehicle.

Unless you can't buy gasoline anymore. But that's still quite a long ways away imo.

https://www.electrive.com/2026/01/12/mercedes-pauses-level-3...

I drove Mercedes and BMW L3 offering. Both had a really restricted ODD (Operational Design Domain) for it to be of much use outside high traffic situations on an Autobahn. It was restricted to good weather and speeds of around 60km/h. Basic all conditions under which their set of sensors and CPUs would work optimally.

But that was 2021 technology. L4 level of autonomy will be in the market during the next 4/5 years, no doubt. And that will be a game changer for anyone driving any significant amount of time. Sleeping, reading, watching a movie or just working on the laptop will be possible. And the manufacturer will take full responsibility of the driving while the functions are active.

I was honestly stunned by how far the tech has come. It basically drove us door to door without a single intervention.

https://insideevs.com/news/750244/byd-smart-driving-cheap/

It doesn't contain maps or context of the roads, it is just Auto-Steer + Lane-Change + Full-Range Cruise Control under one brand-umbrella. Mostly useful on the Motorways/Freeways, and commonly found in competitor's vehicles.

Pressing the brake pedal and maintaining a stationary position is billed at a rate of $0.003 per second of immobility.

Energy dissipation during the braking event costs an additional $0.00001 per Joule of heat generated.

If you turn on TACC, it will constantly whine that you're hugging the side of 'your lane'. But it's one lane for both directions, you're supposed to hug your side!

In my SAAB I used cruise control anywhere I expected to maintain speed for any amount of time. In the Y I don't bother on this type of road because it bitches at me constantly and sometimes even jerks me to the middle of the lane. That's never happened with oncoming traffic but I'm not risking it.

[1]https://shorturl.at/jSQhP (shortened, Maps links are huge)

There's even Teslas operating as "auto taxis" now in some cities - they drive entirely without anyone even in the driver seat.

Anecdotes like yours are often from the point of view of someone in California - sunny, clear weather most of the year. In monsoon rain, fog, snow, or unusual markings on the road, all these systems break down.

Of course this is the same system that likes to ignore train crossing red warning lights [3] so it can run into crossing trains. Very advanced.

[1] https://xcancel.com/joetegtmeyer/status/2014410572226322794

[2] https://electrek.co/2026/01/22/tesla-didnt-remove-the-robota...

[3] https://xcancel.com/RealDanODowd/status/1968788791805583629

Who is to say anyway? I don't trust Chinese company claims any more than I do Tesla's. Probably less because in America so many folks dislike Elon that even sometimes the negatives are blown out of proportion and are much more widely reported on.

Waymo's claims I trust a little bit more because they're often operated in extremely limited circumstances (why not just take a bus or walk or something), with supervision, and because I've heard of a number of bizarre incidents.

All of these tools and technologies are of moderate utility - if you're going to drive it's probably eventually going to be safer for most people (most of whom are exceptionally poor drivers) to just let the car drive. But if you remove the need for hopping in a car to go to Costco to get a jug of milk and instead allow people to just walk down the street a little ways you realize that these are just additive technologies.

If we built cities properly we wouldn't need to spend $50,000 on a car, plus maintenance and insurance, and now a $99.99 starting subscription which, will probably become mandatory at some point for insurance purposes, just to participate in daily life. That's not to say there's anything wrong with cars, I have one, a Tesla in fact, but requiring a car for existence leaves us all poorer and worse off.

- George Lucas

Autopilot is not self-driving, it is lane-centering with traffic aware cruise control. It has not gotten any maintenance or updates in years, as far as we can tell.

Identical functionality is available from many competitors with no subscription. This is a noteworthy decision for Tesla because AP has long been one of their defining features, dropping it is a big step backward just as the market caught up.

Nobody is forced to buy a Tesla, correct, but that isn't a requirement for newsworthiness.