Tesla drops free 40-day Full Self-Driving trial for car owners

Got a Tesla car with the latest iteration of Full Self-Driving hardware (HW4) inside, but you haven't actually purchased FSD? Well, you'll be able to try it out for free over the holidays.

According to Tesla enthusiast and blogger Sawyer Merritt, Tesla has given a free trial of its latest FSD software (V14) to roughly 1.5 million Tesla owners in the U.S., and the trial lasts approximately forty days, until January 8.

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Tesla FSD is a set of driving assistance features that brings the car closer to self-driving, with features such as automatic lane changing, automatic parking, and route navigation. However, FSD still requires constant supervision from the driver.

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This is a pretty clever idea from Tesla; the company basically gifted the latest version of FSD to its entire eligible user base in the U.S. over the holidays, presumably hoping that some of them will like it so much that they'll purchase it after the trial ends.

FSD is not without issues, though. Tesla CEO Elon Musk keeps praising every new version of the software as the one that will make that final leap towards actual self-driving, but the progress is slower than he'd anticipated. Tesla FSD has been under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as the agency looks into whether FSD is making Tesla cars violate traffic safety laws.