News
Elon Musk speaks up on EV subsidies and government spending: “Don’t pass it.”
Elon Musk spoke in an interview with the Wall Street Journal at the publication’s CEO Council Summit recently. At the summit, Musk covered many topics related to the companies he heads, including Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink. He also shared his opinions about the US government’s latest EV subsidy policy and spending habits.
Tesla and EV Subsidies
US President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act includes EV subsidies of up to $12,500 per electric vehicle. The US government hopes the tax incentives will encourage consumers to make the EV switch. The bill has passed in the US House of Representatives and is now under deliberation in the Senate.
Tesla could benefit from EV subsidies distributed by the Build Back Better Act as a car company that solely manufactures electric vehicles. Tesla hasn’t relied on tax incentives to drive sales in a long time as it became eligible for EV subsidies way back during the Obama administration. Musk probably surprised everyone at the summit when he advocated for zero EV and fossil fuel subsidies.
“It’s worth noting that the (electric) vehicle purchase tax credit, the $7500, Tesla stopped getting that two years ago. Whereas everyone else except for GM gets the $7500 tax credit. So all of our sales this year and last year had nothing to do with the tax credit because we’re no longer eligible because we’ve made so many electric cars. Tesla’s made roughly two-thirds of all the electric cars made in the United States. I’m not sure if most people are aware of that. So Tesla’s made roughly twice as many electric vehicles as everyone else has made. Honestly, I would just can this whole bill. Don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” Musk suggested.
Government Spending
Instead of subsidies for EVs and the fossil fuel sector, which received $5.9 trillion last year, the Tesla CEO suggested that the US government should optimize its spending habits.
“We spend so much money. The federal budget deficit is insane. You know, it’s like $3 trillion, federal expenditures are $7 trillion, federal revenue is $4 trillion. That’s a $3 trillion difference. If this a company, it will be a $3 trillion loss. I don’t know if we should be adding to that loss. That seems pretty crazy. Something’s gotta give. You can’t just spend $3 trillion more than you own every year and don’t expect something bad to happen. You know, this is not good,” Musk said.
But Musk doesn’t seem to wholly disagree with Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He believes that the US government should put funds into specific infrastructure to support the growing number of vehicles on the road and the increase of congestion caused by traffic.
“I think we generally could have better airports, better highways, and I think, especially in cities that are congested, there should be something that can deal with extreme traffic, which I think is a combination of double deckers for highways and building tunnels. But if we don’t do something, we’ll be stuck in traffic forever. And as autonomous vehicles come to the fore… there will be more cars on the road, and the traffic will get much worse. So we really need to do some combination of tunnels, and double deckers on freeways… I don’t see a strong effort in this direction,” he said.
Musk’s venture into tunneling with The Boring Company addresses the traffic congestion seen in many cities. Las Vegas already as a Boring Company Loop system connecting the three halls in its Convention Center and is planning another tunnel system with TBC with stations at popular tourist spots. Fort Lauderdale has also started negotiations with The Boring Company for a potential loop to decrease traffic congestion.
The H.R. 3684 , Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law by President Biden on November 15. “This law makes this the most significant investment in roads and bridges in the past 70 years. It makes the most significant investment in passenger rail in the past 50 years and in public transit ever,” said President Biden during the signing.
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Tesla made a dramatic change to the Online Design Studio to show its plans for Full Self-Driving, a major part of the company’s plans moving forward, as CEO Elon Musk has been extremely clear on the direction moving forward.
With Tesla taking a stand and removing the ability to purchase Full Self-Driving outright next month, it is already taking steps to initiate that with owners and potential buyers.
On Thursday night, the company updated its Online Design Studio to reflect that in a new move that now lists the three purchase options that are currently available: Monthly Subscription, One-Time Purchase, or Add Later:
🚨 Check out the change Tesla made to its Online Design Studio:
It now lists the Monthly Subscription as an option for Full Self-Driving
It also shows the outright purchase option as expiring on February 14 pic.twitter.com/pM6Svmyy8d
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 23, 2026
This change replaces the former option for purchasing Full Self-Driving at the time of purchase, which was a simple and single box to purchase the suite outright. Subscriptions were activated through the vehicle exclusively.
However, with Musk announcing that Tesla would soon remove the outright purchase option, it is clearer than ever that the Subscription plan is where the company is headed.
The removal of the outright purchase option has been a polarizing topic among the Tesla community, especially considering that there are many people who are concerned about potential price increases or have been saving to purchase it for $8,000.
This would bring an end to the ability to pay for it once and never have to pay for it again. With the Subscription strategy, things are definitely going to change, and if people are paying for their cars monthly, it will essentially add $100 per month to their payment, pricing some people out. The price will increase as well, as Musk said on Thursday, as it improves in functionality.
I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve.
The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD). https://t.co/YDKhXN3aaG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2026
Those skeptics have grown concerned that this will actually lower the take rate of Full Self-Driving. While it is understandable that FSD would increase in price as the capabilities improve, there are arguments for a tiered system that would allow owners to pay for features that they appreciate and can afford, which would help with data accumulation for the company.
Musk’s new compensation package also would require Tesla to have 10 million active FSD subscriptions, but people are not sure if this will move the needle in the correct direction. If Tesla can potentially offer a cheaper alternative that is not quite unsupervised, things could improve in terms of the number of owners who pay for it.
News
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end with no interventions.
A Tesla Model S has completed the first-ever full Cannonball Run using Full Self-Driving (FSD), traveling from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions. The coast-to-coast drive marked the first time Tesla’s FSD system completed the iconic, 3,000-mile route end to end, fulfilling a long-discussed benchmark for autonomy.
A full FSD Cannonball Run
As per a report from The Drive, a 2024 Tesla Model S with AI4 and FSD v14.2.2.3 completed the 3,081-mile trip from Redondo Beach in Los Angeles to midtown Manhattan in New York City. The drive was completed by Alex Roy, a former automotive journalist and investor, along with a small team of autonomy experts.
Roy said FSD handled all driving tasks for the entirety of the route, including highway cruising, lane changes, navigation, and adverse weather conditions. The trip took a total of 58 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 64 mph, and about 10 hours were spent charging the vehicle. In later comments, Roy noted that he and his team cleaned out the Model S’ cameras during their stops to keep FSD’s performance optimal.
History made
The historic trip was quite impressive, considering that the journey was in the middle of winter. This meant that FSD didn’t just deal with other cars on the road. The vehicle also had to handle extreme cold, snow, ice, slush, and rain.
As per Roy in a post on X, FSD performed so well during the trip that the journey would have been completed faster if the Model S did not have people onboard. “Elon Musk was right. Once an autonomous vehicle is mature, most human input is error. A comedy of human errors added hours and hundreds of miles, but FSD stunned us with its consistent and comfortable behavior,” Roy wrote in a post on X.
Roy’s comments are quite notable as he has previously attempted Cannonball Runs using FSD on December 2024 and February 2025. Neither were zero intervention drives.
Elon Musk
Tesla removes Autopilot as standard, receives criticism online
The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders.
Tesla removed its basic Autopilot package as a standard feature in the United States. The move leaves only Traffic Aware Cruise Control as standard equipment on new Tesla orders, and shifts the company’s strategy towards paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
Tesla removes Autopilot
As per observations from the electric vehicle community on social media, Tesla no longer lists Autopilot as standard in its vehicles in the U.S. This suggests that features such as lane-centering and Autosteer have been removed as standard equipment. Previously, most Tesla vehicles came with Autopilot by default, which offers Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer.
The change resulted in backlash from some Tesla owners and EV observers, particularly as competing automakers, including mainstream players like Toyota, offer features like lane-centering as standard on many models, including budget vehicles.
That being said, the removal of Autopilot suggests that Tesla is concentrating its autonomy roadmap around FSD subscriptions rather than bundled driver-assistance features. It would be interesting to see how Tesla manages its vehicles’ standard safety features, as it seems out of character for Tesla to make its cars less safe over time.
Musk announces FSD price increases
Following the Autopilot changes, Elon Musk stated on X that Tesla is planning to raise subscription prices for FSD as its capabilities improve. In a post on X, Musk stated that the current $99-per-month price for supervised FSD would increase over time, especially as the system itself becomes more robust.
“I should also mention that the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (Unsupervised FSD),” Musk wrote.
At the time of his recent post, Tesla still offers FSD as a one-time purchase for $8,000, but Elon Musk has confirmed that this option will be discontinued on February 14, leaving subscriptions as the only way to access the system.
Tesla makes big Full Self-Driving change to reflect future plans
Tesla Model S completes first ever FSD Cannonball Run with zero interventions
