Tesla bait-and-switch: Cybertruck owners won’t get Autosteer feature they paid for

Tesla has confirmed its latest bait-and-switch: Cybertruck owners will not get the Autosteer feature they paid for.

Instead, they will get a year of ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’.

When Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck in late 2023, the software was incomplete, especially regarding its Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) features like ‘Supervised (FSD) Full Self-Driving’, which was included in the price of all early Cybertrucks.

It took Tesla almost a year to start releasing its FSD on the Cybertruck.

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After Tesla stopped making new Cybertruck Foundation Series, which are fully loaded with all options, buyers started to have the option of buying the $8,000 FSD package or keeping only the Autopilot package, which is included in the price.

Autopilot’s two main features are Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. The first is self-explanatory, while Autosteer is Tesla’s name for active lane keeping.

The vast majority of Tesla vehicle owners don’t buy the FSD package.

As of now, 16 months after Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck, the automaker has yet to deliver Autosteer on the electric pickup truck.

Today, Tesla started reaching out to Cybertruck owners to let them know that it won’t make Autosteer available for Cybertruck owners who haven’t bought FSD:

“As we improve our Autopilot technology, our feature sets will change. Accordingly, Autosteer will not be available for Cybertruck outside of Full Self-Driving (Supervised).“

Instead, Tesla offers a year of free FSD trial to Cybertruck owners.

Here’s Tesla’s full letter to Cybertruck owners announcing that it won’t deliver its Autosteer feature:

Your 1-Year Free FSD Trial is Here

Your Cybertruck, VIN _______, is eligible for a free, 1-year Full Self-Driving (Supervised) trial.

As we improve our Autopilot technology, our feature sets will change. Accordingly, Autosteer will not be available for Cybertruck outside of Full Self-Driving (Supervised). We encourage you to experience our latest version of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to immerse yourself in the power of its innovation.

As a thank you for being an early Cybertruck adopter, we are offering you a free, 1-year trial of Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

In order to qualify for the 1-year trial, you will need to subscribe to Full Self-Driving (Supervised) by June 6, 2025, using the link below. You can cancel your subscription at any time, and you will still receive the 1-year trial.

Electrek’s Take

You can’t do that. Tesla’s Autopilot, including Autosteer, was indicated as included in the price of the $80,000 to $100,000 Cybertruck that owners bought since Tesla started selling the non-Foundation Series.

Cybertruck owners paid for the feature, and Tesla is now saying: “just joking, you actually have to buy a $8,000 package to get it.”

I think this is another example of Tesla’s delusional belief or lie that it’s about to deliver unsupervised self-driving.

The automaker likely thinks that its bait and switch is not a big deal because it is compensating them with a free year of FSD, which is worth $1,200 if you go by the monthly subscription. Tesla believes that by the time the free trial ends, FSD will have improved so much, or even go unsupervised, based on Elon Musk’s consistently wrong predictions, that buyers will want to have it over Autopilot anyway.

That’s a wild gamble, and Musk has made it every year for the last six years and always gotten it wrong.

This is going to be interesting because it’s a clear example of Cybertruck owners getting wronged by Tesla. However, I wonder how much they will fight back. Cybertruck owners are probably the most rabid Tesla fans amongst all Tesla owners right now, and, therefore, the least likely to push back against the company and Musk.

Let’s see how they react.