Electric vehicle maker Tesla is set to offer a one-month free trial to U.S. customers of its driver-assist technology, Full Self-Driving (FSD), CEO Elon Musk announced on Monday.
“All U.S. cars that are capable of FSD will be enabled for a one-month trial this week,” Musk wrote on social media platform X.
Priced at $12,000, the FSD technology has fallen short of expectations in terms of being a profit driver. This comes after Tesla was faced with regulatory and legal hurdles regarding its safety and marketing efforts. In response, Musk claimed that critics do not understand how well the FSD works while supervised.
Tesla’s decision to provide a trial of the FSD to U.S. consumers comes across as a sales push amid declining adoption rates of the technology. While 53% of Tesla customers opted for the driver-assist technology in the third quarter of 2019, only 14% of customers purchased the FSD in the third quarter of 2022.