Tesla increases the price of its full self-propelled alternative – TechCrunch

Within a few weeks, Tesla buyers will have to pay more for an option that is not completely functional, but that CEO Elon Musk promises one day will give full autonomous driving characteristics.

Musk ] tweeted Saturday that the price of his full self-propelled alternative will "substantially increase over time" from May 1[ads1].

Tesla vehicles are not self-propelled. Musk has promised that the advanced driver assistance on the Tesla vehicles will continue to improve eventually to reach the fully automatic high water market.

Musk did not give a particular figure but Answering a question on Twitter he said the increase would be "something like" around $ 3,000 + figure. Full self-drive currently costs $ 5,000.

The rise in prices comes among several notable changes and events, including an upcoming Investor Autonomy Day on April 22, to explain and present Tesla's autonomous driving technology. On Thursday, Tesla announced that Autopilot, its advanced driver assistance system offering a combination of adaptive cruise control and lane steering, is now a standard feature.

The price of vehicles with standard Autopilot is higher (although it should be noted that this default feature is less than the previous option price). The buyers had to pay $ 3,000 for the option in the past, and Tesla's examples suggest savings of $ 500.

The more robust version of Autopilot is called Full Self-Driving, or FSD, and currently costs an additional $ 5000. FSD includes Summon as well as Navigate on Autopilot, an active steering system that navigates from a highway ramp ramp to off-ramp. including switches and lane changes. When drivers have specified a destination in the navigation system, they can enable "Navigate on autopilot" for that trip.

Tesla continues to improve Navigate on Autopilot and the broader FSD system through software updates over the air. The company says on its website that the FSD will soon be able to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs and automatically run on city streets.

The next big step change is a new custom chip called Hardware 3, which Tesla recently started producing. Tesla-built hardware is designed to have greater processing power than the Nvidia computer at the moment in models S, X and 3.

On Saturday, Musk tweeted that Tesla will begin to switch the new custom chip to existing vehicles for a few months.

Musk has promised full self-drive for many years now. At the end of 2016, when Tesla began producing electric vehicles with a more robust series of sensors, radars and cameras that would allow higher levels of automated driving it also began to take money from customers for the FSD. Musk said at that time, it would be available if and when the technical challenges were conquered and government approvals were met.