On October 23, Tesla announced that just one month after launching its Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability in Australia and New Zealand, the company has now made the option to subscribe to the advanced driver-assistance feature available to local customers.
Tesla has expanded its FSD subscription service to the Australasian region, pricing it at AUD 149 per month in Australia and NZD 159 per month in New Zealand.
This subscription model makes strong commercial sense in the region, as Tesla vehicles have been sold there for several years, and many owners of older models are unlikely to pay a high one-time fee for the FSD package.
Since many existing owners did not purchase FSD—largely because its features were not seen as a major improvement over Enhanced Autopilot (EAP)—Tesla is offering a discounted subscription rate for customers who already own EAP. In Australia, EAP users can upgrade to FSD for AUD 75 per month (approximately RMB 346.2), and in New Zealand, for NZD 80 per month (approximately RMB 327.2).
As of now, FSD has been rolled out in several countries and regions, including the United States (including Puerto Rico), Canada, Mexico, China, Australia, and New Zealand. However, until recently, FSD subscriptions were only available in the U.S. and Canada. With this new expansion into Australia and New Zealand, the industry broadly expects Tesla to extend the subscription model to more international markets in the future.
Similar to the situation in China, the FSD feature in Australia and New Zealand is currently limited to vehicles equipped with Hardware 4 (HW4). However, Tesla is expected to gradually enable FSD support for Hardware 3 (HW3) vehicles after completing further testing.
Recently, Tesla discussed the adoption rate of FSD in the North American market. Considering that the number of FSD subscriptions is a key performance metric tied to Elon Musk’s upcoming compensation package, it is widely anticipated that Tesla will accelerate the rollout of FSD subscriptions worldwide to further boost overall penetration.
