Tesla (TSLA) surprised its customers as the automaker quietly removed basic Autopilot from its online car order configurator.
In place of the standard Autopilot, Tesla now offers only Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC), included with all vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to X to explain why the automaker made this move (read below).
Tesla’s TACC can be attributed as an advanced adaptive cruise control, which maintains a set speed while automatically adjusting to keep a safe following distance from the vehicle ahead. TACC requires clear road markings to function on highways and city streets.
Instead of basic Autopilot, Tesla is now offering a free 30-day trial of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) for customers ordering new vehicles starting Friday, 23rd January 2026.
The one-time $8,000 FSD purchase option is still available when ordering a Tesla EV. The automaker will discontinue the outright purchase of the lifetime FSD package on 14th February 2026.
Tesla is also going to end the FSD Transfer Program on 31st March. Tesla owners have this grace period to transfer their outright FSD purchase from their previous Tesla to a new one.
On 23rd January, Tesla replaced ‘Autopilot’ with ‘Traffic-Aware Cruise Control’ in the pricing details section of the online configurator. However, Tesla hasn’t removed any Active Safety features that require the Autopilot Vision to function properly.
Tesla lists the following features as ‘Standard’ on every Tesla vehicle:
Driver Assistance
Traffic-aware cruise control automatically maintains your set speed while responding to the flow of traffic.
Active Safety
Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, Blind-Spot Collision Warning and Lane Departure Avoidance.
Interestingly, for Driver Assistance, Tesla mentions in footnotes, ‘features subject to change’. This suggests that Tesla might have further plans to edit the included features in TACC. Tesla is most probably going to enhance its TACC functionality with over-the-air (OTA) software updates in the future.
The End of Autopilot, the Rise of FSD (Supervised) Subscriptions
Tesla might stop using the ‘Autopilot’ terminology altogether. The automaker faced regulatory hurdles in Europe and general criticism for this name, as it suggests a fully autonomous driving experience to a common car buyer, which is not the case.
To clear the confusion, Tesla coined the term Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to sell its current self-driving AI technology. FSD (Supervised) gives the automaker a good chance of convincing the regulators to approve the technology for testing and public use.
The next phase is Unsupervised FSD, which has just recently been deployed on a limited scale to Robotaxis in Austin, Texas. However, the current version of Unsupervised FSD is not available for customer cars.
Instead, with progess and improvements demonstrated in FSD v14, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is hoping for a rise in $99 per month FSD subscriptions. Tesla’s online configurator now allows customers to directly purchase the $99/month FSD subscription at the time of buying the vehicle.
Elon Musk expressed his anticipation of Unsupervised FSD. Tesla will increase the $99/month price of the FSD subscription as the AI software improves. He wrote on X:
I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve.
The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD).
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 removes standard Autopilot from its new vehicles and replaces it with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC). Elon Musk explains why.){kind=link}