Elon Musk announces a 25% hike in Tesla's FSD driver assistance software

Tesla Chief Elon Musk on Sunday announced that the price of his Tesla cars will increase with the price of the Full Self-Driving system (FSD) set to rise by $3,000 to $15,000.

Musk informed on Twitter by stating, "After wide release of FSD Beta 10.69.2, price of FSD will rise to $15k in North America on September 5th. Current price will be honored for orders made before Sept 5th, but delivered later."

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It is pertinent to note that Tesla has two separate paid tiers of 'automation' for its customers. New Tesla vehicles come saddled with the default driver assistance called Autopilot.

Under this feature, users are able to gain access to features like 'Autosteer' and 'Traffic-Aware Cruise Control'. It is a standard feature that allows a Tesla to stay centred in its lane and use relative speed, according to surrounding traffic.

Meanwhile, the second tier, also the highest paid package is the FSD system, whose price is set to increase. Under this tier, the user not only gets the facilities from the first tier but also other cool features such as 'Navigate on Autopilot' and 'Traffic and Stop Sign Control'.

Another impressive feature included in FSD is the 'Smart summon' feature which allows a user to remotely access the car and call the car across a parking lot, without anyone getting inside the car.

Read more: US: Nearly 400 crashes linked to self-driving, driver-assist technologies since last summer

Musk papering over the faults?

However, experts are wary that by making such demarcation, Musk is trying to paper over the faults of his default Autopilot system which has come under intense scrutiny in the last few weeks.

As reported by WION, according to data made public by American safety regulators, automakers recorded roughly 400 crashes involving vehicles with automated driver-assist systems, which included 273 Teslas.

Read more:Tesla cars with Autopilot register 273 crashes in US in less than year

According to CNBC, Autopilot, "full self-driving," traffic-aware cruise control, and other driver-assist technologies that have some steering and speed control were all in use when Tesla's vehicles crashed.

Meanwhile, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has already accused Tesla of misleading the customers about the features stamped as Autopilot and FSD.

(With inputs from agencies)

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