Tesla discontinues Autopilot in bid to boost adoption of its Full Self-Driving software

Tesla has discontinued Autopilot, its entry-level driver-assistance system, as the automaker pushes customers toward a more advanced, significantly more expensive product: Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

NEWS: Tesla has officially discontinued Autopilot in the U.S. and Canada. All new car purchases now come standard with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control.

The online configurator has now been updated to allow buyers to choose the $99/month FSD subscription, while still offering the… pic.twitter.com/I4so2m6vkk — Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 23, 2026

The change comes as Tesla faces a 30-day suspension of its manufacturing and dealer licenses in California, its largest U.S. market. In December, a judge ruled that Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing by overstating the capabilities of both Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) over several years. The California Department of Motor Vehicles, which initially brought the case, agreed to pause enforcement of the ruling for 60 days, giving Tesla time to comply. One of the requirements was dropping the Autopilot name.

Autopilot previously bundled two features: Traffic Aware Cruise Control, which maintains a set speed while adjusting for vehicles ahead, and Autosteer, a lane-centring function that guides the car through curves. Tesla’s online vehicle configurator now indicates that new vehicles come standard only with Traffic Aware Cruise Control. It remains unclear whether the change affects existing customers.

The decision follows a broader shift in Tesla’s pricing strategy around FSD. Last week, the company said it would stop offering Full Self-Driving as a one-time $8,000 purchase starting February 14. Instead, access will be limited to a $99-per-month subscription. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a post on Thursday that the subscription price will rise as the software’s capabilities improve.

Musk has long argued that Tesla vehicles equipped with newer hardware will eventually be capable of fully “unsupervised” driving. He has claimed future versions of FSD will allow drivers to be “on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride.” In December, Musk said an updated release already enabled phone use while driving, though texting behind the wheel is illegal in nearly every U.S. state.

On Thursday, Tesla also rolled out the first robotaxi versions of its Model Y SUVs in Austin, Texas. The vehicles operate without human safety personnel, though they are a more advanced version of Tesla’s driving software and are still followed by company vehicles for supervision.

Tesla introduced the beta version of Full Self-Driving in late 2020, but customer uptake has consistently fallen short of expectations. In October 2025, Tesla Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said only 12% of Tesla owners had paid for the software. Reaching “10 million active FSD subscriptions” by 2035 is listed as one of the core product targets tied to Musk’s eligibility for the full payout of his recently approved $1 trillion compensation package.

Autopilot itself dates back more than a decade. Tesla first introduced the system in the early 2010s after talks with Google collapsed over using technology from the search company’s early autonomous driving unit, which later became Waymo. Tesla made Autopilot standard across all of its vehicles in April 2019.

Throughout Autopilot’s lifespan, Tesla struggled to communicate the system’s limitationsclearly. The company frequently promoted the technology in ways that suggested greater autonomy than it actually provided, contributing to driver overconfidence. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that confusion has been linked to hundreds of crashes and at least 13 fatalities over the years.