Tesla slashes prices of Autopilot and Full Self-Driving upgrades

Tesla announced late Friday evening that it is significantly reducing the prices of upgrading existing vehicles with Autopilot and Full Self-Driving packages.

With the release of the $35,000 Model 3 and other options earlier this week, Tesla also updated Autopilot pricing and bundles on new orders.

Buyers don’t have to get Autopilot options but every car Tesla makes is equipped with Autopilot hardware and the features can be bought through over-the-air software updates after the fact.

For existing owners who have Autopilot hardware but who haven’t purchased those packages yet, Tesla is now reducing the prices significantly.

Tesla explained in a blog post:

“Any customer who bought a Tesla prior to this week’s price adjustment will be able to upgrade to Autopilot for $2,000 or Full Self-Driving capability for an additional $3,000. In other words, for a customer who previously hadn’t purchased Autopilot plus Full Self-Driving, they will soon be able to do so for $6,000 less than before.”

For owners who already bought the upgrades and are now seeing the price drop, Tesla is giving the consolation prize of having access to the Early Access Program (EAP):

“Customers who previously purchased Full Self-Driving will receive an invitation to Tesla’s Early Access Program (EAP). EAP members are invited to experience and provide feedback on new features and functionality before they are rolled out to other customers.”

The automaker says that it is also working on simplifying the over-the-air buying process for the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving packages.

Right now, Tesla owners can go in their Tesla account, click on their vehicle with Autopilot hardware and click on ‘Autopilot Upgrades’ – like pictured above.

Electrek’s Take

That’s nice because Tesla made a ton of price changes to those over-the-air updates over the years and sometimes, it would even increase the prices for people who already have the car.

It was a bummer because those people were buying cars thinking that they would eventually be able to order for a specific price when Tesla would actually deliver on the promised features, but now Tesla was increasing that promised price.

At first, the company told us that they would honor the original price, but some owners were having difficulties getting Tesla to respect that when ordering.

Now it looks like Tesla is simplifying the whole thing by slashing all prices altogether.

It’s a bummer for those who already bought the software updates, but they will get EAP, which is probably not really an advantage for everyone.

I like to get the latest features early, but not everyone likes to have to provide feedback and test beta features.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.