A $25,000 Toyota Corolla now offers lane-centering as standard equipment. A $35,000 Tesla Model 3 does not. That sentence captures the absurdity of Tesla’s latest move better than any analysis could.

Tesla quietly removed its Basic Autopilot package as a standard feature from new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in North America this week, report The Verge. The change strips Autosteer, Tesla’s lane-centering feature, from standard equipment. Buyers who want their Tesla to stay centered in a lane must now subscribe to Full Self-Driving at $99 per month.

Here is what buyers need to know:

The Fact: Tesla removed Autosteer (lane-centering) from standard equipment on Model 3 and Model Y. Only Traffic-Aware Cruise Control remains free.
The Delta: This comes nine days after Tesla announced FSD would become subscription-only, killing the $8,000 purchase option entirely. The Autopilot removal completes the strategy: everything beyond basic cruise control now sits behind a paywall.
The Buyer Impact: If you want lane-centering on a new Tesla, budget an additional $1,188 per year in subscription fees. Or buy a Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, or Hyundai Elantra, which all include lane-centering standard on their base trims.

Tesla strips Autopilot to boost FSD subscriptions

Tesla’s Basic Autopilot package combined two features: Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, which maintains speed and distance from vehicles ahead, and Autosteer, which keeps the car centered in its lane. New Tesla orders in North America now include only Traffic-Aware Cruise Control as standard. Autosteer has been moved behind the $99 monthly FSD subscription paywall, meaning buyers who previously received lane-centering at no additional cost must now pay recurring fees for the same functionality.

To be clear about what Tesla has not removed: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Warning, and Lane Departure Warning remain standard safety features. Tesla can legitimately argue that Autosteer is a convenience feature rather than a safety feature. The distinction matters for regulatory purposes and for how buyers should evaluate the change.

The timing is calculated. Last week, Tesla announced that Full Self-Driving would shift to subscription-only access starting February 14, 2026. The $8,000 one-time purchase option disappears. We covered that announcement in detail, noting how it fundamentally changes what FSD buyers are purchasing: a monthly rental instead of an appreciating asset.

Removing Autopilot as standard equipment completes the squeeze. Tesla has essentially created a two-tier ownership experience: basic cruise control for standard buyers, and anything resembling modern driver assistance for subscribers.

The 12% problem driving Tesla’s desperation

Only 12% of Tesla customers have paid for FSD, according to CFO Vaibhav Taneja during the Q3 2025 earnings call. That number haunts Tesla’s strategy. CEO Elon Musk’s new $1 trillion compensation package includes a product milestone requiring 10 million active FSD subscriptions by 2035. At current adoption rates, Tesla is nowhere close.

The math is straightforward. Tesla delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025. If 12% subscribe to FSD, that is roughly 197,000 active subscriptions from last year’s sales. Reaching 10 million requires either dramatically higher vehicle sales, dramatically higher FSD take rates, or both. Tesla’s vehicle sales declined 8.6% in 2025, marking the second consecutive year of falling deliveries. BYD outsold Tesla by more than 620,000 battery-electric vehicles last year, seizing the global EV crown while Tesla went backward.

Removing free Autopilot forces a binary choice: subscribe to FSD or drive without lane assistance. For buyers who relied on Autosteer for highway commutes, the missing feature creates friction that Tesla hopes converts to subscriptions.

The subscription math Tesla wants you to believe

Tesla supporters offer a reasonable counterargument: subscriptions lower the barrier to entry. The previous $8,000 FSD purchase price required significant upfront capital and did not transfer when owners sold their vehicles. At $99 per month, a buyer could use FSD for three years and pay $3,564 total, less than half the one-time cost. If they sell the car after two years, they have paid $2,376 rather than losing $8,000 in non-transferable software.

This logic holds for FSD specifically. It falls apart when applied to basic lane-centering.

Autosteer was never an $8,000 feature. It was bundled free with every Tesla for years. Toyota includes equivalent functionality in its $2,200 Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 package, which comes standard on a $24,050 Corolla LE. Honda Sensing is standard across the Civic lineup starting at $24,950. These are not subscription features. They are one-time costs baked into the vehicle price.

Tesla is not offering subscription access to premium autonomy features. Tesla is charging monthly rent for functionality that competitors include for free.

Competitors offer lane-centering on vehicles half the price

The competitive optics are brutal. Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, which includes Lane Tracing Assist (lane-centering), comes standard on the 2026 Corolla. That car starts under $25,000. Honda Sensing, including Lane Keeping Assist, is standard on every 2026 Civic trim from the base LX upward. Hyundai includes lane-centering in SmartSense on the Elantra. Even Kia’s base Forte includes lane-following assist.

Tesla defenders will note that Autosteer is more capable than these systems. Tesla’s neural network processes camera data to handle curves and lane changes with greater sophistication than the reactive ping-pong steering found in economy cars. That capability gap is real.

But capability is not the question. The question is whether mainstream buyers will pay $99 monthly for sophisticated lane-centering when functional lane-centering comes free on a Corolla. For highway commuting, which is the primary use case, the difference between Tesla’s system and Toyota’s matters far less than the price difference.

The reputational damage extends beyond feature comparisons. Tesla built its brand on technological leadership. Offering less standard equipment than a Corolla undermines that positioning in ways that matter to mainstream buyers, the exact customers Tesla needs to grow volume.

California’s deceptive marketing ruling looms over this change

Tesla faces a 30-day suspension of its California manufacturing and dealer licenses after Judge Juliet Cox ruled on December 16, 2025, that the company engaged in deceptive marketing around Autopilot and FSD capabilities. The California DMV, which brought the case, stayed the order for 60 days to allow Tesla to comply by changing product names or delivering software that matches the marketing claims.

Removing Autopilot as a standard feature while keeping the FSD name raises fresh questions. If Tesla is paywalling the features that made Autopilot controversial, does that reduce regulatory exposure? Multiple class-action lawsuits are proceeding over Tesla’s alleged false advertising of FSD capabilities. Shifting to subscription-only access may help cap future liabilities, as subscribers pay for what FSD does today rather than buying promises about future autonomy.

The subscription model also gives Tesla regulatory flexibility. If a feature faces legal challenges or requires name changes, Tesla can update terms of service for subscribers rather than dealing with ownership rights of one-time buyers. This is a genuine strategic advantage, though it comes at the cost of customer goodwill.

EVXL’s Take

This is the third major FSD-related policy change in the past two weeks, and each one extracts more value from existing and prospective Tesla owners. First, Tesla killed the $100,000 appreciating asset promise by eliminating one-time purchases. Then the company announced free FSD transfers end March 31. Now Autopilot itself disappears as standard equipment.

The pattern is unmistakable: Tesla is converting every driver assistance feature into recurring revenue. The company that once differentiated on technology now differentiates on monetization strategy.

I covered Tesla’s 1.5 million FSD trial deployment in December, calling it the company’s most aggressive conversion push yet. This Autopilot removal is the stick that follows that carrot. Owners who tried FSD during the holiday trial and let it lapse now drive cars without lane-centering, a feature they had on every previous Tesla.

Tesla bulls argue the subscription model funds continued R&D on AI chips and neural networks, preventing a “freeloader” problem where 2019 owners expect 2026 software performance for free. The argument has merit for genuine FSD development. It rings hollow when applied to lane-centering, which Tesla perfected years ago and which competitors offer at no recurring cost.

Expect used Tesla values to take another hit. A 2024 Model 3 with Autopilot included becomes more attractive than a 2026 Model 3 that requires $1,188 annually for the same functionality. The subscription model that was supposed to increase Tesla’s revenue per vehicle may accelerate depreciation on new inventory.

Musk stated on X that FSD subscription prices will rise as capabilities improve. The $99 monthly rate is a floor, not a ceiling. Buyers considering Tesla should factor ongoing subscription costs into their total ownership calculation, not just the sticker price.

By Q2 2026, I expect at least one legacy automaker to run advertising explicitly comparing their standard driver assistance features to Tesla’s paywalled options. The marketing writes itself: “Lane-centering included. No subscription required.”

Editorial Note: This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI to ensure technical accuracy and archive retrieval. All insights, industry analysis, and perspectives were provided exclusively by Haye Kesteloo and our other EVXL authors, editors, and YouTube partners to ensure the “Human-First” perspective our readers expect.