[z2]

Tesla also announced they will be discontinuing the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward. But this is now a standard (free) feature even in basic vehicles like the Toyota Corolla. Why would they intentionally cripple their vehicles to the point hat they would be inferior to most cars today?

Then I learned that Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-driving subscription hurdle, and it all made sense.

[jjice]

I have a newer Corolla that's pretty much the absolute floor of the base model (LE with I believe minimal packages) and it has all the technology one would expect now, all while having physical buttons where it matters. Lane assist and adaptive cruise control are table stakes now.

[tasty_freeze]

Indeed, I have a 2023 Corolla. The dealer didn't like it when I said "LE" stands for "Low End" as a joke (it means Limited Edition).

The technology for such a low end car is impressive. In addition to adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, the display shows the speed limit not by consulting a map but by reading the signs as you drive down the street. They call it RSA, Road Sign Assist. It also uses the camera and radar to alert when there are potential hazards (closing too quicky on the car in front, and lane changing into someone in the blind spot).

All that in a $23K car, built into that base price.

[sigio]

I think in (most of) europe, most of the safety-related features are mandatory on all new cars these days, so all these features must come on all trim levels. This does make the base model a lot more expensive then a few years back, but you get all the nice features, so that also makes them cheaper in general.

[octorian]

I'm very happy that the "base model" of cars now has a lot of the modern tech. Not because I'd personally buy a base model, but because its what you get whenever you travel and need to rent something.

In the past, when traveling, I'd be shocked at just how bare the rental cars were compared to my normal home experience. Fortunately that's no longer the case.

[esalman]

I have an acura Integra and a Toyota Highlander. Both have most of the capabilities as standard except stopping for obstacles/traffic lights and making lane change or turns. They can detect vehicles around it and follow the one in front. Theoretically once you are on the highway/interstate they can drive themselves.

[CGMthrowaway]

Tesla Model 3/Y will includes Lane Departure Avoidance (a reactive safety feature that nudges you back if you accidentally drift over a line), it just will not actively steer to keep you centered

[phil21]

Yeah, I rented a Corolla recently which was about as basic as it got - and within less than 90 seconds of entering the vehicle/driving I had everything I needed figured out.

CarPlay was trivial to pair up. Screen resolution was meh, but otherwise it Just Worked(tm).

Adaptive cruise was trivial to turn on and read the indicators for.

Lane keep assist was also overtly obvious - both if it was on, and how to turn it on/off.

The A/C controls were nice easily understood knobs and buttons.

Blindspot detection was standard, worked great.

Overall just a very intuitive vehicle.

[digiown]

Can you remove the modem or sim card to prevent it from phoning home without disabling these features?

[Alive-in-2025]

Unless they dramatically reduce the price, they won't get to 10 million any time soon if ever. This article discusses paid subscriptions info releases in the earnings report, https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/tesla-discloses-fsd-subscribe...

800k paid subs in q4/2024, about the same in q1/2025, 900k in q2/2025, 1 million in q3/25, and 1.1 million in q4/2025.

Let's call that 100k growth per quarter in 2025, and currently at 1.1 million subs. They'll have to significantly increase their growth rate. The interesting modeling point is tesla car sales are dropping, down 9% to 1.6 million last year. All their new vehicles are capable of fsd with subscription, but thats only about 1.5 million a year (and likely to keep shrinking).

I think the only way they get good uptake is to make the price cheap, like $1 a month, with 12 free months but you have to give your credit card (ie fees that people don't notice scam like every streaming company). Even if every new buyer gets it, it would take many years at 1.5 million sales a year. Need 8.9 million more subscribers, 8.9/1.5 sales = ~6 years at 100% uptake. There are about 9 million current owners, but I'd guess at least 50% can't run current FSD code - they are on version 4.5 of their hardware (they recently released 4.5 in some new cars, and they have a major upgrade to v5 coming in a year or two).

There's no harm if they don't get to 10 million, because Musk shouldn't have that really large stock payoff as he's killing the company.

[direwolf20]

To juice Copilot subscription numbers, Microsoft renamed Office to Copilot. Musk should do something similar. By renaming the heated seat subscription to "full self–driving" and making it free, I'm sure he could achieve 10 million.

[t0mas88]

Expect Musk to throw a tantrum and demand to get 80% of his payoff anyway or he'll leave. And nobody should be surprised if the board gives in, they've been selected to be on Musks side no matter what.

[kube-system]

Also California raised false advertising issues with the naming of “autopilot”

[netsharc]

> Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-driving subscription.

Step 1: > discontinu[e] the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control

Step 2: Redefine "Full Self-Driving" to be those things. Charge 50 cents per month subscription or whatever.

Step 3: Get 10 million subscribers.

Step 4: 100 billion dollar payout! (Number pulled out of my butt)

[TacoCommander]

Parallel steps:

Step 1: SpaceX IPO

Step 2: Trillion dollar payout

Step 3: Nothing matters any more

[tzs]

Most articles I've seen said that adaptive cruise control is not being moved to subscription.

[ben_w]

Step 5: Buy Hasbro

Step 6: Count sales of Transformer toy Optimus Prime units towards "Sell 1 million Optimus robots"

etc.

[vel0city]

> the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward

LKA existed well before Tesla HW1 released. Honda had cars on the road in 2003 with LKA systems. That's 11 years before Tesla HW1 was available.

[jjtheblunt]

our 2014 jeep cherokee had it too, and i'm not sure if it was available earlier though may have been (in jeep models i mean)

[FireBeyond]

> the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer

What? Basic lane keep and adaptive cruise control have been around a lot longer than Tesla.

Mercedes introduced ACC in 1999 (though Mitsubishi had an accelerator-only - could apply or ease off accelerator but not actively brake - in 1995).

Lane keeping was introduced again by Mitsubishi in the early 90s, though it was more 'lane departure warning'. But by 2000 Mercedes was offering it in some trucks and by 2003 Honda had it widely available in the Inspire with active lane keeping.

[moogly]

They should have discontinued the phantom braking instead.

[Xmd5a]

2 days ago: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/47744955/paok-fans-ki...

I'll let you find the video, it's brutal. Allegedly caused by lane assist activating out of the blue when overtaking other cars.

[nottorp]

That was 2 days ago and it caught my eye.

Unfortunately, today in Romanian news:

Google translated link:

https://hotnews-ro.translate.goog/cocaina-cannabis-si-alcool...

Original link:

https://hotnews.ro/cocaina-cannabis-si-alcool-in-sangele-sof...

Informative title:

Cocaine, cannabis and alcohol in the blood of the driver of the minibus with Greek supporters involved in the accident in Timiș, prosecutors announce

Lol part:

The hypothesis was rejected by the company that rented the minibus. The company's lawyer stated to the Greek publication naftemporiki.gr that the rented vehicle did not have the lane assist system.

[alterom]

> I'll let you find the video, it's brutal

This Daily Mail article¹ has it. It.. doesn't look brutal to me?

Just looks like the minibus driver, who was driving on the median, veered across it into the oncoming lane to crash with the semi.

He wasn't in a lane to begin with.

> Allegedly caused by lane assist activating out of the blue

Yeah dawg, imma need a second opinion on this.

This is alleged by the survivors of the crush.

Which is weird, because the passengers wouldn't know about what happened in the split-second that resulted in the crash.

Particularly, the passengers wouldn't know about whether lane assist interfered.

And the driver, who would, also happened to be drunk and high AF on cannabis, cocaine, and yet-to-be-identified stuff found in the vehicle at the moment of accident⁴.

Methinks, these allegations might be a lil' biased.

* * *

EDIT: the other comment revealed the news that the vehicle did not have a lane assist feature.

Such surprise.

_____

¹ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-15503545/...

² https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-15503545/...

³ https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/law-crime/new-u...

⁴ https://agerpres.ro/english/2026/01/29/toxicology-tests-reve...

[couchdb_ouchdb]

All he had to do was lower the cost of the FSD subscription to $50/month.

[SilverElfin]

> Then I learned that Musk's incentive pay has a 10 million full self-driving subscription hurdle, and it all made sense.

Wow that is diabolical and such a scam. I didn’t realize he was gaming the incentives this way. Is that what happened with that previous $54 billion package too?

[delecti]

As far as I can tell, the criteria previous package were basically about getting the market cap up. Based on all the "no"s in the "Met" column here [1], I think you could reasonably accuse him of hitting the goals for that bonus package by driving investor hype for what Telsa "might" accomplish some day.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

[Gud]

Helped pioneer? Get real

[agentcoops]

Honestly, I don't think it's irrational: the car industry is just horrible from a business perspective, which is why Tesla had to be financed for so long by crypto scams and most investors wouldn't touch it. Historically (if of course briefly/crudely), it was always a debt-backed gamble on overproduction hoping you could expand forever globally without competition (Ford) or into new market segments through financing (GM).

It's paywalled unfortunately, but [1] is an illustrative Financial Times article discussing car manufacturer behavior in relation to Covid shutdowns and strikes. Many firms found the manufacturing shutdowns to be a boon: the winning strategy to accept it as a cost cut and just raise prices on existing inventory for above average financial performance.

My sense is that Tesla is now just taking that a step further by getting rid of their Fordist aspirations and applying the unarguably successful Apple model to the automotive industry. They don't want to mass produce cars and hope for X% conversion rate to software and services over time: they literally don't want customers who are not able or not going to pay for recurring software services. Software is where free cash flow comes from and free cash flow is where dividends/buybacks come from, which determines the value of an equity. That, of course, is why we get paid well.

I end with the disclaimer that obviously I don't believe the world should be meticulously and exclusively organized for the production of free cash flow, but I do think it's important to understand the logic.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/4da6406a-c888-49c1-b07f-daa6b9797...

[mikestew]

…discontinuing the basic lane keep + adaptive speed cruise control they helped pioneer in cars sold going forward.

[Citation needed] Cars had adaptive cruise control and lane keeping well before Tesla showed up.

As for the feature itself, we have a camper van on a 2024 Ram chassis. It’s a work truck at its core, with fancy RV bits added on. And it has ACC/lane keeping. It claims it will even park itself, though I’ve not tried.

So Tesla is now charging for features that your roofer got for free with her work van. Such luxury.

[tzs]

Well before indeed...it first was available in the mid '90s.

It was 2006 that adaptive cruise control systems that could work in stop and go traffic came out.