Elon Musk says Tesla will hike the price of FSD driver assistance software by 25% in September

Tesla founder Elon Musk was practically apologetic on his company’s earnings call for hiking prices to meet higher costs.

The company's premium driver assistance system is marketed under the name Full Self-Driving. The price will go from $12,000 to $15,000 on September 5.

The price for a subscription is $199 per month.

Musk didn't mention an increase in the cost of the subscription when he was first contacted.

The standard driver assistance package for all new cars from the company is called autopilot. These rely on cameras, other sensors, hardware and software to keep a car in its lane and travel at the speed of traffic.

"Traffic and Stop Sign Control" and "Navigate on autopilot" are included in the highest priced driver assistance option.

The more advanced features of the car are intended to allow the car to detect and slow down for traffic signs and signals, navigate from highway on- ramp to off- ramp, engage turn signals, and make lane changes.

Drivers should be prepared to take over their cars' steering and brakes at any time while using the autopilot feature. It doesn't make the cars self-sufficient.

One feature of Smart summon is that it allows drivers to call their car from across a parking lot and drive to where they are standing.

Only customers who buy or subscribe to the premium option will be able to request access to the experimental version of the system known as the FSDBeta.

To maintain access to the system, users need a high safety score fromTesla.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as the California Department of Motor Vehicles, have criticized the approach taken byTesla.

The company is doing a limited release of the latest version of the software to a small group of users.

There are a lot of major code changes so this will be cautious. 10k customers will be released next week to accommodate feedback, then 10k customers will be released the following week.

When the system fails, owners can send feedback to the company via their car. Tens of thousands of drivers had already installed the free software.

The company is planning to make the game more popular.

By the end of the year, Musk said at the annual shareholder meeting, anyone who requests it will be able to do so. There is a quote from the transcript of the meeting.

There is still a lot of work to be done this year to have widespread deployment of the software. By the end of the year, anyone who requests it will be able to do so.

Many people who are receiving the limited-release update this weekend are followed on social media by people who run ad-supported videos on their channels where they review the latest releases from the company.

In the last two years, the NHTSA has opened 38 probes into crashes where driver assistance systems, such as autopilot, were thought to be a factor. There were 19 deaths reported as a result of those crashes.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles recently accusedTesla of deceptive marketing practices with regard to the features in its vehicles, and it is conducting a technical review of the company's system.

According to Elluswamy, autopilot prevents 40 crashes a day where human drivers press the pedal to the metal. Data about its systems is not usually made available to third-party researchers.