Tesla Announces API Pricing: Third-Party Service Costs Expected to Rise

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After several years of allowing third-party developers and tinkerers free access to the Tesla API, Tesla has finally announced a pricing for their API. Back in 2023, Tesla introduced their new API system, along with them being “temporarily free.” 

Back then, Tesla announced their Discovery tier, which had some limitations but set the groundwork for what was to come. For the first time, developers had official documentation and support, but pricing still was to be determined.

Tesla recently announced pricing for its APIs, which, unfortunately, is much higher than many were expecting. We’ll start by reviewing everything that’s been announced and then explore what could happen for both home users and larger third-party apps.

Fleet API - Usage Based Pricing

Tesla is implementing a pay-per-use pricing model that charges users based on overall usage. Some items, such as Streaming Signals and Commands, are at a lower cost, which helps to incentivize developers to be smart with the data they’re pulling from vehicles. Meanwhile, vehicle data via REST APIs and waking up vehicles is much more expensive.

Here’s the pricing chart:

Tesla seems like they want developers to focus on what’s happening in the now - rather than being able to track a long driving session or pull charging history from the vehicle. While some things seem cheap and some seem expensive, the overall cost is still fairly high, even for limited personal use.

Additionally, the new Fleet Telemetry doesn’t offer all the data points that are available from the older vehicle data API. That means that you won’t always be able to take advantage of the cheaper “Streaming Signals” data type - but have to fall back to the data package - which is far more expensive.

Many services use REST APIs for vehicle data at about a one-minute interval, which means that each hour of driving or charging could cost about $0.12. Since the average vehicle drives for about an hour a day and charges for an hour or two, that could cost about $0.36 cents per day — per vehicle.

Looking at a month’s worth, that’s about $10/month per vehicle. While the streaming signal API is much cheaper, the total cost would vary depending on the interval and data being collected. Each signal is a piece of data, so if you’re tracking the vehicle’s speed, location, odometer, state and battery level, that’s five signals.

Fleet API - Personal Use

Tesla’s Fleet API provides each Tesla account with a $10 monthly discount - which Tesla says can cover data streaming, 100 commands, and two wakes per day for two vehicles per month. There isn’t a discount per vehicle - it's per account, so if you have more vehicles, it’s less beneficial to you. This should allow home tinkerers to create some automations and track some data without having to pay for access.

However, this is a fairly restrictive amount of signals/requests for personal use - let’s look at the author’s Home Assistant integration for a fairly simple example.

On average, with a Home Assistant tablet at home to start/stop charging, check charge states, precondition vehicles, send Google Map targets, and a few more simple commands for just two vehicles - we make, on average, about 200 requests a week per vehicle. That comes out to 1,600 requests a month and 400 wake-ups a month. 

We’re also requesting data from the Data portion of the API - not the Streaming Signals portion of the API - and that’s about every five minutes while charging - so a wake isn’t needed. With 480 data requests per vehicle per month, we’re already starting to flex the basic $10. Of course, you also want to track your trip data and output that - so add in another 500-ish requests per vehicle based on the amount of driving and interval levels.

We’re looking at $8 in wake-ups, $4 for commands, $8 for data, and at least $1 in Streaming Signals. Just for two vehicles with a fairly basic set of data tracking and usage of commands, we’re already past the $10 mark.

If you’re keeping track, that’s a total of $21 per month—minus the $10 discount Tesla provides per account. At its current usage, our Home Assistant integration would require us to pay $11 for API access a month—as much as Premium Connectivity.

While switching to the streaming API is the answer here, it’ll take time for tools and services to transition to the new way of gathering data. Unfortunately, Tesla isn’t giving developers and home users a lot of time, with pricing taking effect on January 1st, 2025.

Third-Party Developers

Take all those fairly conservative numbers I’ve provided - and scale those up 3-4x. That’s how much data is requested by popular third-party apps. They’re looking at monthly costs well beyond $50 per vehicle, with current data draws. Again, they’ll need to transition to streaming APIs where possible and optimize the data they gather, but Tesla isn’t giving developers a lot of time to do so.

Third-party developers will need to find ways to optimize their workflows, potentially raise prices, and work within and around Tesla’s new strict rules on pulling data from vehicles.

Vehicle Support

Unfortunately, 2020 and older Model S and Model X vehicles don’t support the streaming API, which means that they may not be supported by most third-party services going forward.

We’re hoping Tesla takes some steps to make its API more flexible and affordable, as even simple home use can get quite expensive.

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Tesla Building Cortex 2.0 Supercomputer at Giga Texas to Power FSD

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FSD’s insatiable appetite for AI compute is taking shape once again at Giga Texas, where Tesla is building out Cortex 2.0 — its second large-scale GPU supercomputer cluster — on the facility’s north side.

This confirmation comes thanks to the detailed research and findings by Giga Texas drone pilot Joe Tegtmeyer, who shared his findings on X.

For months, there has been some speculation on what this new site would be - new storage, the Optimus production line, preparation for the Cybercab’s unboxed assembly process, and more. Now, thanks to permits filed by Tesla, we know that this new area is destined to become the second supercomputer destined for FSD training. 

Cortex 2.0

There are some key details we can unpack from what we’ve learned about Cortex 2.0. The new facility will be on the north side of Giga Texas, opposite Cortex 1.0, which is on the south side. The permits explicitly tie the usage of this expansion to Cortex 2.0, namely through the fact that it is a data center.

This is actually a change from Tesla’s original plans - the northern section was intended to be used as a central campus support facility, with three smaller facilities and water storage tanks. Now, it has been redesignated as Cortex 2.0 and is one large structure.

The permits that have been filed have already been approved and cover the foundations, underground water mains, and building itself. The steel structure is actively being put together on the concrete foundations, and about 50% of the roof decking is already complete, bringing the exterior shell closer to completion.

Fueling FSD’s Brain

The deployment of Cortex 2.0 is the latest in Tesla’s massive and ongoing investment in the computational power required to train FSD. While this primarily covers FSD for cars, this will also eventually apply to Optimus, which is powered by the same AI4 computer and also runs a variant of FSD.

This isn’t Tesla’s first foray into large-scale AI infrastructure and won’t be their last. Alongside Dojo, their home-grown AI supercomputer, Tesla has been partnering closely with Nvidia to ensure they have the GPUs necessary to do all the hard work. Cortex 2.0 is the next iteration, and once it's fully online, we can expect that Tesla’s work on FSD will accelerate even further.

Especially since Elon is planning something truly outrageous once again:

Been thinking about the fastest way to bring a terawatt of compute online.

That is roughly equivalent to all electrical power produced in America today.

— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 12, 2025

You can check out Joe’s full video below:

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Tesla FSD in Europe: Highway Approval Expected to Arrive in September

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With European Tesla owners eagerly awaiting any news on FSD in Europe, we’ve seen Tesla tease FSD, and also point out exactly what the barrier has been - regulatory approval. Now, following the latest meeting of UNECE, new regulatory amendments are set to unlock “System-Initiated Maneuvers” (SIM) on highways across participating European nations.

This development, highlighted by Kees Roelandschap on X, notes that the latest documents from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) center on amendments to UNECE regulation 171. These changes were formally adopted into UNECE during the WP29 World Forum in March 2025.

Now, the amendment that will enable SIM will come into force on September 26, 2025. This six-month period after approval is standard UNECE procedure and allows objections from party states that would halt the implementation. Objections to UNECE amendments are genuinely rare, with 95% of amendments passing without objection once the World Forum adopts them.

What This Means for FSD in Europe

System-initiated maneuvers will allow your Tesla to perform actions autonomously, such as changing lanes on a highway, while the driver remains fully responsible for supervision. This is a substantial step up from current regulatory standards that only allow for suggested maneuvers or require explicit driver initiation for every automated maneuver. 

This inches towards the more normal “hands-off, eyes-on” approach that Tesla has taken with FSD Supervised in North America and China. This regulatory change will help to provide the legal frameworks needed to deploy more advanced autonomy capabilities in Europe, at least matching what’s available on highways in North America.

Tesla is waiting for EU approval (sigh)

— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) May 12, 2025

Highways Only

The UNECE regulation will apply to all countries that adopt its standards, including the European Union, Japan, and South Korea - unless they specifically block it. This is a relatively positive development, but there are some hiccups.

This regulation only allows for system-initiated maneuvers on highways, not low-speed roadways. That means the city streets portion of FSD’s capabilities - including handling ‘Start FSD from Park` and reaching your destination’s parking spot - still won’t be available in Europe. 

In addition, the UNECE framework has stricter requirements for driver monitoring and attentiveness - which means that some nags, including the dreaded wheel nag, are likely to remain a key portion of the experience.

Progress on autonomous driving regulations in Europe has been fraught with indecision and caution, which has been a source of frustration for many who are watching the everyday progress of FSD in North America, and more recently, in China. Even with individual countries recently approving testing of FSD on public roads, harmonized UNECE regulations are the key to wider, consistent deployment, which will allow everyday customers to use it as well.

While the path to full parity with North America may be long and involve even more regulatory machinations, the upcoming implementation of System-Initiated Maneuvers is a big step forward for Tesla owners in Europe. It is a key piece of the puzzle that will help Tesla bring some more features of FSD to Europe, assuming the September timeline holds.

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