Tesla lifts price of self-driving system for second time in 2022
Image: BLOOMBERG/DAVID PAUL MORRIS
Tesla will start charging $15,000 (roughly R255,029) for the driver-assistance system it calls Full Self-Driving (FSD), raising the price of the controversial product for the second time in 2022.
The hike for customers in North America will take effect on September 5, CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday. The current $12,000 (roughly R204,023) price will be honoured for orders made before that date, he wrote.
Tesla’s FSD has been a lightning rod because it requires active supervision and doesn’t make the company’s vehicles autonomous. California’s department of motor vehicles has accused the company of misleading consumers about FSD and its less-capable Autopilot system. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also has opened two separate investigations into whether Autopilot is defective.
Musk has said solving issues with the company’s self-driving technology was critical to the company’s valuation. “That’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero,” he told fan club members during a recent interview.
Tesla shares fell as much as 2.5% to $867.58 as of 9.40am Monday in New York. The stock has dropped about 16% in 2022.
NHTSA sent a letter to Tesla last week regarding the first of its two pending Autopilot defect investigations, posing several questions related to how the company is monitoring and enforcing driver engagement and attentiveness, including its use of in-car cameras. The agency gave the carmaker until September 19 to respond.
The regulator also warned consumers against using real people — and especially children — to test Tesla’s safety features after owners posted a video batting back criticism of how capable the company’s cars are at detecting pedestrians. NHTSA’s defect probes have focused on Teslas crashing into stationary first-responder vehicles and suddenly braking at high speeds.
Tesla last raised the price of FSD by $2,000 (roughly R34,004) in January. The company said in July more than 100,000 drivers had access to FSD Beta at the end of the second quarter.
Musk tweeted that a wide release of FSD Beta was one of his two big goals for 2022, the other being Space Exploration Technology getting its huge Starship to orbit. The closely held company has designed the rocket to eventually take humans to Mars.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com. Bloomberg