Tesla grows FSD subscriptions to 1.7 million, up 67% year over year, FT reports

Tesla is building a larger recurring-software business alongside its cars. Active subscriptions to Full Self-Driving reached 1.7 million worldwide, up 67% from a year earlier, the Financial Times reported October 26. The growth gives Tesla a larger base for its software ambitions, even though the product still requires an attentive human driver.

Software gains ground inside a car business

The adoption figures extend beyond the global subscription total. More than 75% of new Teslas sold in North America included the supervised version of FSD, according to the FT. That figure measures uptake among new-car buyers in one region, rather than the share of Tesla’s entire worldwide customer base using the software.

Elon Musk called FSD the biggest driver of demand during Tesla’s Wednesday earnings briefing. The company also disclosed its largest vehicle order backlog in four years. His argument positions the software as a reason to buy a Tesla, not simply as another service to sell after the car leaves the showroom.

Vehicle sales remain central to that strategy. Tesla’s car business generates 75% of total revenue and supplies cash for its heavy AI investment, the FT reported. The software push is therefore developing alongside the automotive business, rather than replacing it as the company’s main source of sales.

The scale of Tesla’s vehicle ambitions has also changed. Its annual sales goal for 2030 has fallen from 20 million vehicles to 5 million, against 1.6 million delivered last year. The lower target still leaves substantial growth to achieve; Musk is presenting FSD as a source of demand for those future cars.

A subscription count is not a revenue figure

FSD costs $99 a month in the United States, with pricing varying by market. Tesla has not disclosed how much recurring revenue the product generates. The US price therefore cannot simply be applied to all 1.7 million global subscriptions to produce a reliable revenue total.

Dan Ives, a technology analyst and partner at merchant bank Yorkville Ives, told the FT that FSD was already Tesla’s highest-margin business segment. He argued that expanding its reach from roughly 10–15% of the global customer base to about half could transform the company’s financial model.

Ives’s comparison puts the opportunity in automotive terms: he said that expansion would contribute more than selling another 50,000–100,000 cars annually. That is an analyst’s assessment of the potential, not a revenue forecast disclosed by Tesla. His case also rests on investors valuing software sales more highly than vehicle sales.

For every dollar of FSD revenue, the market rewards it 50-70 percent more than that dollar they would generate from selling an actual car.

Dan Ives, Yorkville Ives, speaking to the Financial Times

Wider access still depends on regulators

Expanding the addressable market requires permission as well as customer interest. Tesla’s supervised FSD has approval in the Netherlands and several other European countries, but the company is seeking wider backing to roll it out across the EU. A member-state vote on that approval has been delayed until December.

That approval process concerns supervised software, not permission to remove the driver’s responsibility. Tesla has yet to secure regulatory approval anywhere for its fully autonomous version of FSD, the FT reported. The growing subscription business is built around assistance that requires human attention, while fully autonomous FSD remains a separate regulatory hurdle.