Tesla has quietly rewritten one of the core promises that helped sell hundreds of thousands of its cars: advanced driver assistance as a standard perk. Free autosteer and the broader Autopilot bundle are being stripped from new vehicles, and the company is steering owners toward a monthly subscription if they want lane centering and automated steering. The move completes Tesla’s pivot away from one-time software unlocks and toward a recurring revenue model built around its Full Self-Driving system.
The change is not just a pricing tweak, it is a structural shift in how Tesla positions safety and convenience tech. Features that many drivers had come to see as table stakes in a premium EV are now gated behind a paywall, raising questions about value, fairness, and even road safety as the company chases more predictable software income.
What exactly Tesla is taking away
The most immediate change for buyers is that standard Autopilot, which bundled Traffic-Aware Cruise Control with lane-keeping, is gone from new cars. Under the new 2026 pricing structure, Tesla has removed Autosteer from the default configuration, leaving only basic Traffic-Aware Cruise Contro in its place. That means a new Model 3 or Model Y will keep its distance from the car ahead but will no longer center itself in the lane unless the owner pays for a higher tier of software.
At the same time, Tesla has formally discontinued the broader Autopilot package and is repositioning its driver assistance stack around Full Self-Driving. Reporting on the change notes that Tesla cuts standard and now treats lane centering as part of a premium bundle rather than a baseline safety feature. In effect, what used to be Basic Autop has been carved up, with the more capable elements reserved for paying subscribers.
From one-time purchase to subscription-only FSD
Behind the removal of free autosteer is a broader strategy shift away from permanent unlocks. Earlier this year, Elon Musk signaled that the era of paying once for advanced driver assistance was ending, a move framed as the End of the One Time Purchase Era for software features. Analysis of the change explains that by mid February, Tesla wants every serious user of its driver assistance to be inside a subscription-only Full Self-Driving ecosystem, with the option to turn it on for a month and cancel it immediately after a trip.
The shift is especially stark for Full Self-Driving (Supervised). After Feb. 14, 2026, Tesla drivers will no longer be able to purchase FSD (Supervised) through a one-time $8,000 transaction, a cutoff that has been reiterated in multiple briefings. One analysis of the change notes that After Feb. 14, Tesla will rely entirely on recurring payments for FSD (Supervised), a system Elon Musk has repeatedly pitched as a software platform worth up to $1 trillion in long-term value.
How much the new driver-assist world will cost
For owners, the headline number is the monthly fee. The new driver assistance subscription is priced at $99 per month, a figure that Tesla is also using as a reference point in Canada where Full Self-Driving subscriptions are marketed at $99 per month in local currency. Coverage of the rollout in North America notes that Tesla is following up its recent decision to move its Full Self Driving option to a subscription by setting a recurring price of $99 per month in Canada as well.
That subscription is now the gateway not only to advanced city-street automation but also to the lane-centering behavior many drivers associate with Autopilot. Video coverage of the change underscores that Tesla has removed standard Autosteer and that drivers must subscribe to access lane-centering assistance. For buyers who might have stretched to afford a base Model 3 on the assumption that it came with robust driver aids, the new math is a higher effective price for the experience they expected.
Why Tesla is making the change now
From Tesla’s perspective, the subscription pivot is about more than squeezing extra dollars from existing customers. Company watchers describe it as a deliberate move to build a software-first business model, one that treats every vehicle as a node in a recurring revenue network. A detailed breakdown of the strategy frames it as the End of the One Time Purchase Era, explaining that Jan and the Introduction of this new approach are meant to lock in a steady stream of income that can fund ongoing development of Full Self Driving and other features, rather than relying on sporadic up-front payments. The same analysis notes that On January 14, 2026, Elon Musk used X to outline how this shift would echo the original introduction of the Model S, positioning software as the core of the product rather than a bolt-on extra, a message captured in a Jan announcement.
There is also a timing element that critics have seized on. The company got rid of its standard lane-keeping feature only a few days after making Full Self Driving a subscription only service, a sequence that effectively forces anyone who wants the old Autosteer behavior to pay the new monthly fee. Coverage of that decision notes that the company removed its standard lane-keeping feature shortly after turning FSD into a subscription, and that drivers now have to pay each month to subscribe to Full Self Driving. For a company facing demand and profit headwinds, as some analysts have pointed out, the appeal of a predictable software revenue stream is obvious.
Safety, trust, and the backlash risk
Relegating lane centering to a paid tier has sparked a debate over whether Tesla is effectively paywalling a basic safety feature. Under the new 2026 pricing structure, new vehicles will now only ship with Traffic-Aware Cruise Contro, while the more capable Autosteer is locked behind a subscription, a split that critics argue leaves Tesla lagging rivals that include lane-keeping on cars costing half as much. Reporting on the change highlights that Under the new pricing, Autosteer is no longer standard and that New buyers must opt into a higher tier if they want the car to help keep them in their lane, a shift documented in multiple analyses of the new structure.
The broader context is that Tesla is already under scrutiny for how it has marketed Autopilot and FSD. A recent court ruling found that the company deceived customers about the capabilities of its driver assistance systems, and some observers say the timing of the Autopilot shutdown is suspect. One analysis notes that As Ars Technica pointed out, a court ruled in December that Tesla misled buyers about Autopilot, and that the company is now replacing a one-time $8,000 unlock for FSD with a subscription model just as that legal pressure intensifies. For drivers who already felt burned by the gap between marketing and reality, being asked to pay again each month for features they once expected as standard may deepen the trust deficit.
