Soon you'll only be able to rent Tesla's FSD

Tesla $TSLA’s flagship driver assistance system will only be available via a monthly subscription soon, according to Elon Musk, taking away customers’ option to buy it outright.

It currently sells Full Self-Driving (FSD) for an $8,000 one-off payment or a $99 per month subscription. Musk has long claimed that buying FSD outright would lead to fully autonomous vehicles and would make the cars an “appreciating asset” — but that appears to have changed. One of his goals for earning share-based bonuses under a new pay deal is to hit 10 million active FSD subscriptions.

Tesla hasn’t said how many people have bought FSD, which requires the driver to actively supervise it and does not make the vehicles autonomous, versus how many currently pay monthly. The electric vehicle giant will make the switch so subscription-only on Feb. 14, the chief executive wrote on X $TWTR. 

The wider pay package, approved by shareholders in November, could see Musk get about $1 trillion in compensation if he hits several ambitions milestones with the business.

Tesla had a bumpy ride in 2025. Its annual sales dropped for the second year in a row in 2025, shipping 9% fewer vehicles than the previous 12 months. The result meant Chinese rival BYD snatched its crown as the biggest EV maker in the world.

The company's share price also fell 21.3% in the first half of the year due to a number of headwinds, including Musk's alienating political rhetoric, fiercer competition from Chinese and legacy U.S. automakers, and concerns among investors that the CEO's role heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would cause him to neglect his businesses.

Early last year, Musk also admitted that Tesla would need to retrofit some older cars that have weaker computers to offer FSD on them. “The honest answer is that we’re going to have to,” he said on an earnings call. “That’s going to be painful and difficult, but we’ll get it done. Now I’m kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package.”

However, shares rebounded in December, hitting an all-time high after Musk said the company had been testing driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas, with no occupants on board for the first time, almost six months after launching a pilot with safety drivers.

Tesla has also faced allegations that it was exaggerating the self-driving capabilities of its cars in California. The state's DMV said in December that the company misled drivers by using the names “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving,” given the assistance software needs a human in the driver’s seat. Tesla eventually discontinued the term “Full Self-Driving Capability,” shifting to “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” — a change that preserves the core promise while adding a bracketed reminder.