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Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

arstechnica.com

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Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#231

Post by ehfeng »

I've been using Autopilot for years, but recently subscribed to FSD for a long weekend roadtrip. It changed my mind on the value of FSD.

While unfortunate for consumers, it cleans up the offerings. For four years, I didn't buy FSD because Autopilot was good enough to cover highway driving and I couldn't justify $99/month for the "last mile". If you strip out Autopilot and given the latest FSD, I would 100% buy the FSD subscription.

Removing the lifetime purchase option also simplified my mental model. Before, I was always stressed that if I bought a few months, loved FSD, and then bought the lifetime, I would have "wasted" those few months. Plus, every month I owned the car yet didn't buy lifetime FSD made it worth "less" to me: I'd eventually sell the car, so I'd missed out on those few months of usage.

I do wish Tesla offered a price lock: so long as you maintain your FSD subscription, your price is guaranteed for 5 years. Otherwise, it does feel scary: I spend 50k on a car for its FSD and over time, they jack the price to $200 or $500/month. Also, if they jack up FSD prices and then lower base car prices, your Tesla's value decreases effectively, which feels even worse.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#232

Post by eldaisfish »

fortran77 wrote: post #207
eldaisfish wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cameras wired into an internet connected car is the #1 reason why I will never buy a car like a Tesla. 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.

> Cameras wired into an internet connected car is the #1 reason why I will never buy a car like a Tesla. Well then, this isn't the car for you. For many other people the safety features are important. I wouldn't mind if every car had a camera that made sure the driver was paying attention and didn't fall asleep.

That’s completely valid but the problem for me is the fact that you do not control the internet connection in these cars. A camera does not need an internet connection to monitor the driver.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#233

Post by Hikikomori »

barbazoo wrote: post #192
t0mas88 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true: What a total idiot in the police car. With a car on lane keeping / cruise control you could slow down in front of it all the way to a stop and it will gladly stop behind you.

That might work! > What a total idiot in the police car. It's important to make sure we have all the context before making a judgement like this. My rule of thumb is that if I think something is obviously stupid, I'm probably missing something.

Can safely assume that American cops are stupid, especially if they do this.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#234

Post by CuriouslyC »

jaggederest wrote: post #210
CuriouslyC wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of entrepreneurs hate the saasification of everything, and don't want to create sub services. They tow the line because investors LOVE subs and will look at you like you're insane if you disagree.

The reason is a very simple one - predicting future revenue is extremely difficult if you're selling an $X package one time (even with upgrades etc), but knowing that you have Y subscribers with a $Z subscription and a churn rate of N% gives you some kind of future forecast. Anything you can do to operationalize cash flows is a huge boon to continuity of business operations

There's also the fact that people are bad about cancelling when they don't use them, and it makes it easy to jack up prices.

I don't argue that they're great from a predatory business perspective. The consistency you state comes on the back of negative value for customers though. Particularly now that everything is a subscription. People are worn TF out by keeping track of the people hoovering their money away.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#235

Post by Banditoz »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #36
greenpresident wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pressing the lane assistant button on a Mercedes steering wheel and getting a “you’ll need to activate your subscription first” message really drove up my blood pressure.

You know you can just buy it?

You're missing the point.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#236

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

square_usual wrote: post #165
TacoCommander wrote: post #76

Our 2020 Model S came with Autopilot. It was part of the purchase price. We don't use FSD, we don't use Autopilot either. But I'll be goddamed if he tries to take away something I paid for.

This is only for new cars sold, as they can't take away features that were included in the advertised price for a car when it was sold.

They can't yet.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#237

Post by lowbloodsugar »

seshagiric wrote: post #55

It's a tradeoff, too early to say if it's a dumb move. Side A: Tesla can grow FSD subscription revenue by making FSD + Autopilot completely based on subscription. Lot more people use Autopilot than FSD. In the happy path such users will pay the subscription and that revenue will increase. Side B: Autopilot (aka lane keeping) is fast becoming default option across manufacturers. Tesla will take a dip in sales if such…

$22k Corolla has it.

Not paying $99/mo for it.

The issue is not that “FSD” is $99/mo. The issue is that a feature of $22k cars (lane keeping) is behind the $99/mo paywall.

Basically not enough people were buying the subscription for Elon to get his payout. But someone who just wants auto steering isn’t going to decide they’ll pay $99/mo for that. So this is just going to make people who like that feature not buy a new Tesla when the time comes.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#238

Post by MarkusWandel »

t0mas88 wrote: post #154
burningChrome wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was watching OPLive last week. Every week they have a segment called "Triple Play" where they have law enforcement send them videos of crazy chases and other interesting experiences. 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…

If that's true: What a total idiot in the police car. With a car on lane keeping / cruise control you could slow down in front of it all the way to a stop and it will gladly stop behind you.

There was a news story here in town a few years back where a private citizen - not cop - brought a ghost car (driver passed out) to a stop by driving up in front of it, making bumper contact and then braking both to a stop. Not recommended! But can be done even without adaptive cruise control.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#239

Post by 7e »

scottyah wrote: post #24
7e wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This sounds like almost every other product I buy, except it's designed to eventually save a lot of lives? Imagine being mad that a kitchen knife has no liability for what you do with it, or a motorcycle.

Currently it's more dangerous to use FSD than to not use FSD. They can charge me when it's not a danger to society; I will gladly pay. Most likely I will be paying Waymo.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#240

Post by lotsofpulp »

MBCook wrote: post #179
ajross wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, though, the subscription isn't for "Steering Assist", it's for FSD. You don't subscribe to the feature you have on your Corolla, you subscribe to an autonomous navigation solution. This is a pretty boneheaded business decision on Tesla's part. But their technology remains clearly superior.

They can rename it whatever they want. People had a feature for free, now they don’t, because Tesla wants money. “But it’s better…” only if you pay. If you don’t, still gone. What else matters? I see nothing wrong with them offering a cheap(er) FSD option. I object to them removing existing features to force adoption.

For now, the people that had the feature for free, will get to keep it. Presumably, Tesla advertised the lane assist features when they sold the car, so they cannot legally remove them.
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