Tesla is offering all U.S. customers a free trial of its more advanced Full Self Driving autonomous driving feature, CEO Elon Musk announced in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.
"All U.S. cars that are capable of FSD will be enabled for a one-month trial this week," Musk wrote on X.
Musk directed Tesla employees to provide a demo of FSD to new buyers and owners of vehicles it services, Reuters reported, citing two emails verified by a source.
"Almost no one actually realizes how well FSD actually works," Musk said in one of the emails sent to Tesla employees and viewed by Reuters.
Boosting FSD subscriptions could help Tesla overcome dwindling operating margins, which dropped from 16.8% in 2022 to 9.2% in 2023, as competition heats up and EV prices fall. FSD revenue could generate an additional $10 billion to $75 billion a year for Tesla by 2030, Yahoo Finance reported, citing a November 2023 note by Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney.
FSD and Enhanced Autopilot, both more advanced versions of Tesla’s Autopilot, are optional upgrades for Tesla vehicles. While Autopilot comes standard on every vehicle, customers can purchase Enhanced Autopilot for an additional $6,000 and FSD for an extra $12,000, according to the company’s website. Customers driving Tesla vehicles equipped with its FSD computer 3.0 can also pay for FSD as a subscription for $99 or $199 a month, depending on which Autopilot package they select.
However, while Enhanced Autopilot and FSD offer more features than the company’s standard Autopilot system, SAE International classifies all three as Level-2 autonomous driving systems. This means drivers must always pay attention to the road ahead and actively supervise the systems.
“Your car will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve,” Tesla says in a FSD system description.
Tesla has offered customers access to the beta versions of FSD as it refines the software for more widespread availability. However, regulators continue to focus on the safety of the company's autonomous driving systems amid numerous lawsuits and reported incidents. The automaker’s Autopilot system has been connected to over 700 crashes and at least 19 deaths since 2019, according to a Washington Post analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.
In February 2023, Tesla recalled 362,000 vehicles to update its FSD Beta software. The recall followed an investigation by NHTSA, which said equipped vehicles did not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws and could have caused crashes.
