【Down Town】

Tesla's FSD (Full Self-Driving) Beta software,Down Town while still far from perfect, is getting a lot pricier soon.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that after the wide release of the latest FSD Beta, the price for FSD will go up from $12,000 to $15,000 in North America. This will happen on Sept. 5, Musk tweeted, adding that the current price will be honored for orders made before that date.

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Tesla has been steadily raising the price of its FSD software package, with the most recent price hike, from $10,000 to $12,000, happening in January 2022. Back then, Musk said the price of FSD will keep increasing as the company gets closer to "production code release."

FSD, however, hasn't yet delivered on Musk's promise of turning Tesla into fully autonomous driving machines. The company started offering FSD as limited beta in October 2020, expanding it to a slightly wider user base in December 2021. Wide rollout keeps getting delayed, with issues such as phantom braking and crashes of Tesla vehicles while Autopilot was engaged slowing down progress.

Musk is still optimistic, though. In January, Musk said he would be "shocked" if Tesla didn't achieve "Full Self-Driving safer than human this year." In 2020, Musk explained some of the reasoning behind the constant price hikes, saying that the value of FSD will "probably be in excess of $100,000" once the self-driving package gets regulatory approval.

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The latest update to FSD Beta, which brings it to version 10.69.2, is gradually being rolled out to testers. Videos posted by testers indicate that this version has improved the car's performance in certain traffic situations, such as an unprotected left turn, but some issues, such as odd behavior in some crossings, persist.

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