Amidst its ongoing financial struggles, Tesla is reducingthe subscription fee for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assist software. Thefee has been cut down from $199 a month to $99 a month.

The FSD is Tesla’s level 2 driver-assist system, that thecompany describes as FSD (Supervised), emphasizing that the drivers arerequired to pay attention to the road and stand ready to take control of thevehicle. This is because Tesla has been criticized for not incorporating properdriver monitoring and other safety measures to counter overreliance on thesystem.

While the FSD was available as a $99 monthly subscription toowners who already have Autopilot, Tesla now offers Autopilot as standard onall new car purchases, which cancels the need for the price variance. Thecompany has recently also started to promote a one-month free trial of FSD, asa way of attracting more customers to the subscription.

Despite all of what the FSD offers, it is often not consideredas a safe system. While most other automakers’ driver-assist software have limitswhen it comes to their use on highways, Tesla enables its customers to engageFSD on local roads with traffic signals, intersections, and vulnerable roadusers. It also controls acceleration and deceleration, makes turns that are sometimesparticularly difficult for automated systems, and is expected to recognize roadsigns and traffic signals.

These functions of the FSD, that go beyond the safety limitationsof driver-assist systems, are what concern federal regulators. There are 16accidents involving Tesla vehicles that Federal regulators are currently assessing,in which owners using Autopilot crashed into static emergency vehicles. The crasheshave resulted in 15 injuries and one casualty. The most Tesla has done to rectifythe damages, unfortunately, is push more software updates to ensure improvedsecurity. The updates are, however, deemed as inadequate by safety experts.