January 11, 2022: -On Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the company would raise the price of its premium driver assistance package, marketed as Full Self-Driving or FSD, from $10,000 to $12,000 on January 17, for customers in the U.S. only.

In a series of posts on Twitter with 69.2 million followers, Musk wrote, “Tesla FSD price rising to $12k on January 17. Just in the U.S., FSD price will increase as we get closer to FSD production code release.”

When a follower asked him regarding Tesla’s FSD subscription product, Musk noted, “Monthly subscription price will increase when FSD goes to wide release.” He also teased a recent release of FSD Beta, an invitation-only program that offers an advanced features to select drivers who meet Tesla’s qualifications.

Tesla does not disclose in its earnings reports how many of its customers pay for FSD up-front or subscribe to FSD each quarter. So it’s unclear how much a price hike in the U.S. could bolster its margins in the future.

The company’s standard driver assistance package is marketed as Autopilot and comes standard with its new vehicles (the Model S, X, Y, and 3).

Autopilot functionality includes but is unlimited to automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane-keeping, and adaptive cruise control, which matches the speed of your car to that of the surrounding traffic, according to Tesla’s website.

Tesla’s Full-Self Driving option, known as FSD, is a premium package that includes the Autopilot functions and more sophisticated features such as automatic lane-changing, stop light recognition, and “smart summons,” which lets drivers call their car from a parking spot to come pick them up, using their smartphone and the Tesla app such as a remote control. Despite the name, it does not today allow cars to drive themselves automatically with no driver intervention.

Only drivers receiving, purchase or subscribing to FSD and receiving high marks in a “safety score” from Tesla can get access to FSD Beta. Once they’re in, they can test unfinished features such as “autosteer on city streets,” which Tesla says will enable drivers to navigate around residential and urban surface streets, avoiding all obstacles, without having to steer on their own.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigate different aspects of Tesla’s FSD development and technology.

Tesla has told the agencies that its technology is a “level 2” system. By the DMV’s definition, “Level 2 systems may enhance safety or provide driver assistance but aren’t capable of driving or operating the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a human.”

Tesla has been promising self-driving cars since 2016, but the company still hasn’t demonstrated the hands-free drive across the U.S. that Elon Musk said would be possible by the end of 2017.