Tesla Will Not Offer Auto Steer on Cybertruck; Compensates with One Year of FSD

By Karan Singh
Chan Jaci on FB

Tesla has started reaching out to Cybertruck owners with a clarification regarding its Autosteer feature, coupled with an FSD offer. In emails sent to owners of non-Foundation Series Cybertrucks or those who have not purchased FSD outright, Tesla is offering a free, one-year trial of FSD Supervised, which initially sounds like a great deal.

However, there’s a reason for that. Tesla is taking a departure from its traditional stance, and standard Autosteer — which is usually a free feature, will not be offered on the Cybertruck

For context, all other Tesla vehicles include Basic Autopilot, which includes both Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Autosteer, which provides automated steering to keep the vehicle in the lane but doesn’t perform lane changes, handle traffic signs, etc. FSD is, of course, the ultimate vision of these features, handling almost everything the roadways have to offer.

The Cybertruck never shipped with the Basic Autopilot package. Since launch, non-FSD-equipped Cybertrucks have not had Autosteer, only the option to subscribe to FSD or use TACC, leaving out a notable feature.

One-Year FSD Trial

The email being sent to eligible Cybertruck owners extends a complimentary 12-month trial of FSD (Supervised). This effectively replaces and extends the earlier, shorter free access period that was provided and helps compensate for the absence of all Basic Autopilot features.

Any Cybertruck owners who have not purchased FSD outright or are not Foundation-Series owners will be offered this trial by email. To claim the free one-year offer, owners must subscribe to FSD Supervised by June 6th, 2025. Owners can cancel the subscription anytime after and they’ll retain the full one-year trial period.

This is a great offer if you weren’t expecting Autosteer to be included, as it equates to approximately $1,188 USD (or CAD) plus tax when compared to the equivalent subscription cost. Notably, there’s no fine print suggesting that owners are forfeiting access to a potential future Autosteer feature under Basic Autopilot.

Why No Autosteer?

Tesla’s email provides its official reasoning as to why Autosteer will not be available:

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

While Tesla didn’t explicitly state it - the likely reason is that the Autosteer stack is extremely old, and not designed to function on the Cybertruck, with its unique steering, camera placements, and size.

The Cybertruck’s FSD development is completely separate and as it stands today, can’t be used for Autosteer. Instead of adding support for the Cybertruck on the old Autosteer stack, Tesla wants to focus on its current technology, which powers FSD.

Autosteer in the Future?

While Autosteer and Autopilot are functionally subsets of FSD, they run on entirely separate software stacks. Tesla originally developed Autopilot using traditional code and later started from scratch with a new AI-driven architecture to build FSD. Today, FSD relies heavily on neural networks and machine learning, whereas Basic Autopilot still uses more conventional programming.

Eventually, we expect Tesla to migrate Basic Autopilot to the FSD tech stack, drastically improving its performance. At that point, Autosteer would effectively become a restricted version of FSD—capable of less, but built on the same foundation. When this transition occurs, it’s plausible that Autosteer could finally be added to the Cybertruck.

Lane Departure Avoidance Becomes Part of FSD

Cybertruck just recently received Lane Departure Avoidance and Lane Assist with the 2025 Spring Update, which previously relied on the Autopilot tech stack. Now, with these two features relying upon FSD rather than the old stack, they are available for the Cybertruck, and the feature has also been improved on other vehicles.

This is a pretty clear indication that Tesla is working to move away from the old Basic Autopilot stack and towards the FSD stack, which means we can maybe hope for a cut-down version of FSD becoming available as the future Basic Autopilot package.

Website Changes

Supporting this shift, Tesla's website has reportedly been updated in North America to list Autosteer as a feature only for Models S, 3, X, and Y, omitting Cybertruck. It remains unclear, however, if Tesla has amended the official purchase agreement language for new non-FSD Cybertrucks, which previously may have listed Basic Autopilot (implying Autosteer) as an included feature.

While the complimentary offer of FSD is generous, especially coming from Tesla, it is a divergence in how they’ve handled the availability of basic features on the vehicle fleet. Cybertruck already has a troubled history with FSD and Autopilot-related safety features not being on par with other vehicles in the lineup, but we hope this changes in the future.

Tesla to Reportedly Launch Robotaxi Network on June 12th

By Karan Singh
A concept of what the UI in the Robotaxi may look like
A concept of what the UI in the Robotaxi may look like
@dkrasniy

According to a report from Bloomberg (paywall), Tesla is planning to launch its Robotaxi network in Austin on June 12th. Bloomberg’s source noted that the date was still in flux, but this is the date Tesla is being planned around.

While the Robotaxi network may launch on June 12th, it’ll be exclusive to Tesla employees initially, allowing Tesla to iron out any issues.

The taxi network isn’t expected to open up to the public until late June at the earliest. During Tesla’s Q1 2025 Earnings Call, Elon stated that the Robotaxi service would only be available to the public in late June or early July.

June 12th is actually much sooner than we expected, so this is an excellent sign for Tesla, who typically pushes back events for finishing touches. The Robotaxi event, for example, was originally scheduled for August 8th but was rescheduled for October 10th.

The NHTSA recently reached out to Tesla, inquiring about how they’d handle certain scenarios, such as adverse weather conditions. This is a good sign that Tesla is satisfying those requirements.

Testing Happening Now

According to Bloomberg’s report, Tesla has already been operating test vehicles using FSD Unsupervised without a safety driver this week. A test engineer was in the passenger seat but did not intervene or provide any input.

Tesla has already been doing preliminary testing with employees in Austin and Los Angeles, but those have been with relatively small internal groups for the most part.

Start Small and Slow

Tesla plans to launch the service with approximately 10 Model Y taxi vehicles initially, providing an opportunity to gather data and user feedback. According to Elon, in the weeks following the launch, Tesla will expand the program to more vehicles, with it hitting several thousand by late 2025.

Tesla recently started the Early Access Program for FSD users in Texas. It’ll be interesting to see how Tesla leverages these users to gather more data or help expand the program when Tesla is finally ready to provide FSD Unsupervised to vehicle owners.

Reducing Variables

There are a ton of moving parts involved in launching an autonomous taxi network, including insurance, cleaning, charging, and more. There’s no doubt Tesla is eliminating as many variables as possible, such as automated charging. While the Robotaxi will support wireless charging, these Model Ys are expected to be charged manually since Tesla hasn’t built the “snake” charger, and Model Ys don’t support wireless charging.

Tesla already has at least some Robotaxi code built into the Tesla app, so it seems like they’re lining up all the pieces.

While Tesla has been relatively focused on California and Texas, we’ve also spotted some Robotaxi mules making their way around Boston and New Hampshire, meaning that Tesla is already thinking about expansion or at least finding out what it’ll take.

We may just be a couple of months away from seeing a Robotaxi revolution in some American cities. While expanding to additional cities with varying weather conditions may be slow, Tesla will be out there proving what they’ve been promising since 2016.

Tesla Adds Real-Time Charging Alerts With iOS Live Activities -- More Coming

By Not a Tesla App Staff
Geonardo10inchi

Tesla has updated its Tesla app for iPhones to version 4.45.0 and it adds a really helpful feature — Live Activities.

If you’re not familiar with Live Activities on iPhone, they’re essentially an interactive notification that displays real-time information. So, instead of receiving a notification that says that your vehicle has started charging, it’ll display real-time charging information.

What It Displays

Live Activities are displayed on your lock screen or Notification Center. With Tesla’s first implementation, it’ll display a variety of charging information when you’re Supercharging, such as the time until charging is complete, your current range, and the estimated cost.

The Live Activity will also display a photo of your vehicle with the color you’ve selected in the Colorizer feature, along with a charge meter, allowing you to easily see how much your vehicle is charged. The meter will be grayed out according to the charge limit you have set in your vehicle.

The “Charge” label of the notification shows your current range and will display percentage or distance, depending on which metric you use in your vehicle.

In all, the feature will display all of these details:

  • Time left to charge completion

  • Charge/range in miles or percentage

  • Estimated cost

  • Current Supercharger powe

  • Current Supercharger speed in miles/km

  • Total energy added in kWh

The battery meter is also different for the Cybertruck, featuring the same slashes for the meter as the vehicle uses inside the car.

triduchuynh

What It Will Support in the Future

Tesla may soon support Live Activities for more than just Supercharging. While the feature doesn’t support home charging, or other third-party fast charging, there are other areas that will receive this real-time information.

One that is not often used but is just as crucial as Supercharging is roadside assistance. Tesla could add a Live Activity that keeps you updated without having to open the Tesla app. It could give you the current status, such as help dispatched or offer an ETA when help will arrive.

Tesla will soon introduce a Supercharger queue system, which will be utilized when Superchargers are at full capacity. When you arrive at a Supercharger, you’ll be able to join the queue so that you don’t have to line up your vehicle to form a line physically. Instead, you’ll join the queue and be notified when it’s your turn to charge, letting you relax or eat until it’s your turn. This will be especially useful when there’s a long wait at a Supercharger.

Code for Tesla’s virtual Supercharger queue system is already being added to the Tesla app, and Live Activity support will be included according to code found in a recent Tesla app.

What It Supports

Dynamic Island

Geonardo10inchi

The Live Activity is great, but what happens if you’re not on your lock screen? If your phone includes a Dynamic Island (iPhone 14 Pro and later, iPhone 15 and later, but not the iPhone 16e or the iPhone SE), then the Tesla app also shows a circular indicator with your current charge percentage and the estimated time remaining until charging is complete

Apple Watch

JohnH2k23

The Apple Watch is also receiving support for Live Activities in this update as well. It’ll display the same information as the dynamic island, letting you know how many more minutes you have until charging is complete.

Android Support

While Live Activities has been an iPhone feature for years, Android will be offering similar capabilities in an upcoming OS release. Android 16, currently in beta testing and expected to be released in Q2, will add support for rich notifications similar to Live Activities.

Adding live notifications for Supercharger is a great addition that we hope Tesla will support on Android soon after the feature is released.

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