Yesterday, Tesla announced the absolutely berserk Model S P100D. Officially, it has a 0-60 mile an hour time of 2.5 (!) seconds, thus putting almost anything that isn’t a LaFerrari, a Porsche 918 or a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport to shame. And while we were all oohing and aahing over that, Tesla went and quietly raised the price for the Autopilot features without much notice.
It used to be that you had to pay $3,000 for the Autopilot feature after delivery when you were ordering the Model S or Model X. Today, if you go on Tesla’s Design Studio to customize a car, you’ll see that the price has jumped by 20 percent to $3,500, reports Electrek.
This price hike is most likely just Tesla trying to squeeze out a little more profit for itself. It’s doubtful that it’s because of any software improvements. We know that a more advanced version of Autopilot is in the pipeline, but this probably isn’t it.
Electrek asked Tesla for the official justification for the price increase, and was told that “it wasn’t because of new hardware, but to better reflect the value of the product.”
I don’t think the $500-increase is going to deter anyone who really wants the Autopilot feature.
Update: Tesla is charging $3,000 if you order the Autopilot feature and $3,500 if the customer chooses to “enable after delivery.” The screengrab above has been altered to show that.