Asger Risom
Buying a self-driving car was once pitched as a long-term bet on the future. Now, Tesla owners are being told that future comes with a recurring charge — and critics say it’s another step toward a world where ownership quietly disappears.
Elon Musk’s decision to stop selling Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software outright has reignited a simmering backlash against subscription-based technology — and raised uncomfortable questions about what it really means to own a modern car.
Starting February 14, Tesla will no longer allow customers to buy Full Self-Driving (FSD) as a one-time purchase. Instead, the feature will only be available as a monthly subscription. The announcement, made by Musk on X, was framed as a simple product shift. Online, it landed more like a warning shot.
“Imagine buying a self-driving car and still having to pay a monthly subscription just for it to actually drive itself,” one user replied. “You will own nothing and be happy.”
From ‘appreciating asset’ to permanent rent
For years, Musk sold FSD as something closer to an investment than a feature — an “appreciating asset” whose value would rise as Tesla solved autonomy. Early buyers were encouraged to lock in before prices increased.
And increase they did. Tesla raised the upfront price of FSD from $5,000 at launch to as high as $15,000 in 2022, before cutting it back to $8,000 in 2024. Alongside that drop came a reduction in the monthly subscription, from $199 to $99.
Now, the purchase option is disappearing altogether.
At the current rate, drivers would need to subscribe for roughly seven years to equal the old upfront cost — assuming prices stay flat. Tesla has not confirmed whether existing FSD owners will be able to transfer the software to future vehicles, something previously allowed only during limited-time promotions.
‘You never really own the car’
The reaction from Tesla owners and onlookers has been swift — and cutting. Many see the move as emblematic of a broader shift across the tech industry, where physical products increasingly act as shells for locked-in software.
“People want to own their stuff outright, not be eternally beholden,” one commenter wrote.
Another was blunter: “You will never actually own your EV, because it will be useless without the software that you can never remove, replace, or modify.”
The criticism taps into a growing discomfort with cars becoming, as the industry often boasts, “smartphones on wheels” — devices defined less by hardware than by ongoing access to cloud services and updates controlled by manufacturers.
Tesla isn’t alone — but it’s leading the charge
Tesla’s move fits squarely into a wider industry trend. Volkswagen now charges a monthly fee to unlock extra horsepower in some electric models. General Motors offers its Super Cruise hands-free driving system on a subscription after a trial period, a business it expects to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.
Even so, Tesla’s influence makes its decisions uniquely resonant. While CFO Vaibhav Taneja said last year that only around 12% of Tesla’s fleet uses FSD, Musk has long positioned autonomy as the company’s defining future.
That future, increasingly, looks less like ownership and more like a meter running in the background.
Consumer sentiment appears to be shifting. An S&P Global survey found that just 68% of consumers said they were willing to pay for car-connected services in 2025, down sharply from 86% the year before.
When software decides what your car can do
The stakes go beyond pricing. As vehicles become more dependent on connectivity, features can disappear overnight — sometimes permanently. When mobile networks phased out 3G in 2022, millions of cars lost access to built-in emergency services, regardless of whether they were electric or petrol-powered.
Tesla’s FSD shift doesn’t just ask drivers to pay monthly. It reinforces a deeper reality of modern tech: the most important parts of the product aren’t really yours.
As one commenter put it, only half jokingly, the future Musk is selling may already be here — and it comes with a familiar refrain.
You will own nothing. And you will keep paying.
Sources: Fortune, Tesla, S&P Global
