The price of Tesla's full self-driving feature will increase by $1,000 beginning Aug. 16, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter on Tuesday.
The package currently costs $6,000 and it is the latest in a series of price changes by the company for the "full self-driving" package.
"Cost of Tesla full self-driving option increasing by ~$1000 on August 16," tweets Musk.
The price increase comes in less than 18 months away from the company's promised release of the full self-driving technology. Musk predicted back in April that Tesla cars would be operating as autonomous cars by the end of 2020.
Full 'Self-Driving' Technology Highly Ambitious
Tesla's "full self-driving" technology, however, is still highly ambitious as Musk's past predictions didn't hold up. In 2015, he stated that full autonomy is "a much easier problem than people think it is." He predicted that it would take about two years to happen.
In January 2016, Musk promised that car owners would be able to "summon" their cars from anywhere across the country and meet the owner. Along the way, the car charges itself and know exactly when to arrive because it is synched with the owner's calendar.
In October of that same year, Musk announced that by the end of 2017, Tesla cars would be fully capable of driving itself without the aid of human hands on the steering wheel. Roughly three years have passed but that didn't happen.
'Too Much, Too Soon'
Critics have called on Musk that he should prove that the technology is working before rolling out their automobiles' autonomous features. According to Consumer Reports, Tesla's autopilot upgrades were offered "too much, too soon." The German government even asked Tesla to drop the term autopilot because it makes people think its cars are much more capable than it actually is.
Musk instead continued his projects and full autonomy has always been his end goal. He believes that it will save peoples' lives. He said that the death of a Tesla autopilot passenger is nothing compared to the over 1.2 million people who die every year from accidents where humans are in control of the steering wheels.
Cost of Tesla full self-driving option increasing by ~$1000 on August 16 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2019
