Tesla has quit Autopilot, the basic driver assistance system, as companies try to boost adoption of a more advanced version of the technology called Full Self-Driving (Supervised).
The decision comes as the company faces a 30-day suspension of manufacturing and dealer licenses in its largest US market, California. A judge ruled in December that Tesla was involved deceptive marketing by overstating Autopilot and FSD capabilities for years. The California DMV, which originally brought the case and had a say on the license, stayed its decision for 60 days to allow Tesla to comply by dropping the Autopilot name.
Autopilot is a combination of Traffic Aware Cruise Control, which maintains a set speed while maintaining a distance from the car in front, and Autosteer, a central feature that can steer the car around curves.
Tesla’s online configuration site now states that new cars now only come standard with Traffic Aware Cruise Control. It is unclear if current customers are affected.
The decision comes a week after the company said from February 14thwill stop charging a one-time $8,000 fee for FSD software. After that, customers can only access FSD through a $99 monthly subscription — even Tesla CEO Elon Musk write in the post there is that the subscription price will increase as the software capabilities increase.
Musk believes that Tesla’s newer cars will be able to drive “unsupervised,” saying FSD advances will allow drivers to “be on the phone or sleep during the trip.” In December, said the new version of FSD allows the former, though writing while driving is illegal in almost all countries.
On Thursday, Tesla launched the first robotaxi version of the Model Y SUV in Austin, Texas that had no human safety monitoring personnel in the car. The vehicle uses an advanced version of the company’s driving software, and is still followed by company cars for surveillance.
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Tesla launched a beta version of its Full Self-Driving software in late 2020, but adoption has lagged behind the expectations of executives like Musk. In October 2025, Tesla’s chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said only 12% of all Tesla customers have paid for the software. Hitting “10 million active FSD subscriptions” by 2035 is one of the main “product goals”. required for Musk to receive a full payout of the new $1 trillion pay package.
Tesla first introduced Autopilot in the early 2010s after discussing recently between Musk and Google to use technology developed by the search giant’s autonomous driving division (which eventually became Waymo). Tesla sets the standard for driver assistance systems all vehicles in April 2019.
During the decade-plus of Autopilot’s existence, Tesla struggled with communicating the software’s capabilities. The company often overpromised and made the technology seem more capable than it actually was, causing some drivers to become overconfident in its capabilities, which in turn led to hundreds of accidents and at least 13 fatalities, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.