Tesla demanding a monthly tithe to keep their vehicles from veering off the road and crashing into a ditch is somehow the most Elon Musk thing I've ever heard.
this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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As of now, you're still allowed to steer yourself.
I've steered clear of Tesla.
Smart move.
Seems like you can run OpenPilot on it, giving you back these features without a subscription.
So that would be an option for anyone reluctantly owning a Tesla
I'm not brave enough to try a 3rd party lane center solution.
In the EU, these features are extremely common anyways.
To be clear, I'm not encouraging getting that device, just saying - anyone owning a Tesla having their rug pulled once more could pursue alternative means as opposed to forking up a fun amount of money for what seems to be a pretty shit feature, all things considered.
Is it because they have to pay people in India to remotely drive your car for you?
“You’re still a premium subscriber and have access to all of our premium options, but some of our terms and plans have been altered, pray we do not alter them any further.”
Four or five years ago, (before the wind, before the snow) before the Cyber Dumpster came out, Louis Rossmann did a story about a guy who bought a used Tesla Model S with the upgraded range. When he took it in for some minor repair, Tesla "revoked" the range upgrade and tried to shake the guy down for $6k to "restore" said upgrade. I knew then that Tesla was a company I wanted nothing to do with.
I was out the minute I heard there was a $6000 option for the promise of self-driving some time in the future.
BS vaporware company.
Don't forget the Roadster, down payments started being accepted in November 2017, still no car. Wtf is that?
Smells like vapor.
How does get away with it? The mind bogles 😂
Destroying the parts of the government investigating Elon's companies is at least a factor
I'm horrified by subscription features on hardware, but if Tesla wants to pour gasoline on its dumpster fire, great.
Out of curiosity, $8,000/$99 = 6yr 9mo.
As commenters on Ars have pointed out, lane keeping is a pretty standard feature at this point.
My 2021 MG5 (itself a 2019 Roewe EI5) had lane centring (pro pilot) as standard. A 2026 Tesla can't match it for standard ADAS tech?! Unbelievable.
Surely they will not be able to get 5 stars from Euro NCAP now?
My toyota doesn't have lane keeping but it does have lane screaming. If I cross a lane I freaks out and beeps like crazy.
My father's toyota will do that when it senses you're approaching traffic too fast. It will start beeping and flashing indicators on the dashboard. Which I think should be banned, because at a critical moment the vehicle takes your attention off the road because you instinctively look down to see what the car is mad about.
The indicators on my Nissan are amber lights on the pillars, so they are in line of sight instead of making you look down.
I agree. I turned the setting off myself. Whulicb was a pain.
Yeah, my wife’s new Hyundai came with it. I still have to keep my hands on the steering wheel but it is actually nice to have. I don’t use it in heavy traffic but if traffic is light on a highway it is actually kind of helpful on long road trips reducing some of the mental fatigue. Chevrolet offers hands-off on many of their vehicles now and I think it’s about a $3,000 upgrade. It sounded like a lot until Tesla said $8,000 for theirs, and Tesla’s is dumb enough to drive through a wall painted to look like the road, like a Roadrunner cartoon.
You know what I think is the worst about the Tesla autopilot idiocy? Many of the newer Teslas have updated hardware... with built in radar... that they just don't use. At all.
My 2018 Civic has a great lane centering system. It's bog standard at this point.
The reuters article said that only 12% of all Tesla customers bought the FSD option, so clearly the vast majority of customers don't see the value in Tesla FSD.
To be fair, maybe the new monthly option is more attractive to customers, I don't know.
they can just throw the subscription on top of the $700 per month for 72 months that the rest of the car costs
Lane keeping is legally required on all cars now.
We are lucky/cursed enough to own a Tesla with FSD.
It got to the point where it did some things pretty well, and it was at least predictable.
About a year ago they revamped it completely where now it drives erratically and exhibits a lot of habits made by poor drivers.
Worst thing now is it will not maintain speed. I repeat, it is impossible to cruise on an open highway at a specific speed. It’s absolute garbage.
Sometimes I turn off FSD just to have cruise control, though it then runs an old driving model that has huge flaws. I’m talking initial release shit from 2018.
Whenever we rent a car I’m amazed at how any newer economy vehicle can do “basic” stuff like adaptive cruise control without fuss.
Even without all the political shite, they’ve really lost their way.
Elon never knew what he was doing, though. This was essentially bound to happen as he steamrolled over the actual engineers he hired.
They didn't even want the FSD label. He forced it.
Gotta make up for that huge loss on the Edsel of the twenty first century. SpaceX now owns a huge fleet of cyber trucks as elon uses one company to keep the other afloat in his own personal little fraud bubble.
How long can the fraud go on for? 😂 . He shifting "AI compute" between companies and all sorts to keep the books balanced.
There is no such thing as FSD for Tesla's, never was, stop calling it that
I think your issue is with the company, then. It is their marketing phrase.
What am I supposed to call it? Sure, the name is misleading, as of a recent ruling. But if I call it "level 2 driving assistant", it would probably confuse many.
The ruling did state that the FSD title is “actually, unambiguously false and counterfactual”
Tesler! The subscription surveillance death car. Get yours now! Operators are waiting to take your call (& invade your privacy).
Locks doors when on fire! The mechanical latches for the back seat are behind the speakers! Convenient child disposal device!
Did they ever fix the phantom braking issue? I haven't used their "cruise control" (Autopilot) for years because I'm tired of it randomly deciding to come to a complete stop in the middle of the interstate. Damned if I'm going to pay for it.
Using a Tesla is the issue.
I had the same experience circa 2021, but pressed the gas "go" pedal before I got below 45. Shit scared me from ever trying auto pilot again.
Subscribers should be studied. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people with undiagnosed learning disorders can be found
I would pay to be able to turn lane keeping off in my car. All it does is make it harder to dodge hazards in the road.
I recently got a new Chevy vehicle with 3 years free super cruise, works hands-free and flawlessly for about 90% of most of my main drives. No complaints.
Anyone stupid enough to pay for this deserves what they get.
I do own a Tesla and after trying that feature a few times I didn't think it was worth it even at $0/mo. I mean it works pretty ok, but doesn't do much. You could use it potentially to grab something that's hard to reach without killing yourself in the process, but I guess that's pretty much it.
It's pretty much the same for the lane-keeper of any other car. There might be some EU or Finnish legislation forcing the car to pester you about keeping your hands on the steering wheel etc.