Tesla Avoids California Sales Halt After Autopilot Marketing Changes - Bloomberg

Paywall

Yeah, agreed. They probably will re-introduce it as the lowest paid tier of FSD.

The article is paywalled.

Right they’ll do what the AI companies are doing today. $20/month for Autopilot $50/month for Autpilot + 100 miles/month of FSD $100/month for both + 500 miles/FSD $200/month for unlimited FSD Something like this I can imagine.

No it’s not, they could have just renamed it. You are excusing consumer abusive behavior. Lots of companies have lane keep assist. They literally could have done nothing but renamed autopilot to Traffic Aware Cruise Control with lane keep assist which is what they did on their used cars.

Absolutely not, why would they?

The reasoning I think is more likely is that part of Elon's $1T pay package requires a certain number of FSD subscriptions.

California ruins another great thing for the rest of us, sad

> California Proceedings > California alleged that Tesla violated state law by making untrue or misleading statements in 2021 and 2022, including advertising that its cars would be “able to conduct short and long-distance trips with no action required in the driver’s seat.” > An amended complaint by the DMV filed in November 2023 said Tesla vehicles equipped with driver-assist technology “could not at the time of those advertisements, and cannot now, operate as autonomous vehicles.” > The agency argued that these actions justified the suspension or revocation of Tesla’s dealer and manufacturer license in the state, initiating a lengthy regulatory proceeding within the California Office of Administrative Hearings. A five-day hearing was held in July. > Now, California DMV Says Corrective Actions Are Sufficient > The California Department of Motor Vehicles said Tesla Inc. has come into compliance over marketing practices for its vehicles’ automated-driving capabilities and won’t face a 30-day suspension of sales in the state. > The agency said in a statement Tuesday that Tesla has taken “corrective action” to avoid the suspension. > In December the company was given 90 days to come into compliance after a ruling from an administrative judge on the state regulator’s allegations that Tesla was exaggerating the abilities of features marketed as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. > The EV maker discontinued its Autopilot product in January. The company also has increasingly been using the term Full Self Driving (Supervised) to advertise its driver assistance product that is not fully autonomous and requires constant supervision.

Yeah! Thank God I get to keep my phantom breaking that has almost caused multiple crashes

Why wouldn’t they? They’re trying to create additional revenue streams from their customers and they just took away your ability to out right own FSD. FSD isn’t cheap to develop or train and they’ll have to recoup their costs eventually.

This is exactly why. And his pay package is also why he cancelled the S and X. Need more robots.

FSD is coming down in price before they do a by the mile structure

Trump?

Maybe, maybe not. We’ll have to see where Elon’s strategy is at. Both are likely to be honest although Elon has indicated price will go up for FSD.

Why does it have to always be for just one reason?

But it’s not going to work? Many are turned off by needing to subscribe in general for basic lane centering… just reminder you’re still paying for the hardware and sensors when you buy the car. Now you don’t get to access it beyond adaptive cruise control. When FSD is truly FULL self driving “unsupervised” then a good chunk of people won’t need or want to own a car in general. What is the plan here besides massive brand damage exactly? https://x.com/tesla/status/1930271109187879381?s=46

I’d imagine the wrongful death lawsuits would’ve had a field day with a single rename. It basically admits that the name was misleading to consumers (at least how many interpreted it).

It's because one KPI that musk has to get that insane bonus is to force people to take up subscriptions.. Never mind it is utterly toxic to the brand, Musk wants a gazillion bucks even if it completely fucks the company

You can tell because they have to tell you how to feel about the comment at the end. Depressing.

Yeah, agreed. I had steak for dinner.

He’s said that every time it’s dropped lol. He needs 10 millions subs to reach his traunch goal

Putting the pricing on tiers would allow them to hit 10 million subs while also increase the price for full FSD. It’s the only strategy I see forward based on what they’ve publicly announced. It’s also the strategy in play right now with all AI companies, I don’t see them bucking that trend. Granted FSD inference is run on device instead of on the cloud, so that changes the math a bit vs AI model providers.

Unless they introduce it back for free to the cars that don’t have it.

FSD will be increasing in price as it gets more features.

I still don’t understand how people interpret it like that. The Autopilot in an airplane also just lets it fly straight ahead or follow a preprogrammed nav path. It doesn’t automatically avoid any collisions and it doesn’t replace a pilot who remains in control.

It has only truly dropped once. Every other time was an increase.

The reason was they were told their marketing needs to align with what they provide? Sounds about right. I don’t agree that they’ll bring backs AP or a free version. Elon wants to become a subscription company for its current cars, and hype robots for future growth. That’s all this is.

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Not so sure. A lot of people will just skip anything over $100. Better to get 1 mm x $100, rather than 0.25mm x $200. **100B in monthly** earned revenue would be huge for Tesla. Doesn’t cost them anything to unlock the feature. So that revenue gets added directly to the EBITDA with no expense deduction - what Elon needs for his package. But who knows. I’m sure there are experts in pricing who will figure this out. That said, I don’t even see how so called unsupervised can work without insurance being included in the process in some way. There is some walls that I’m not sure will be easy to overcome even if the tech was supposedly there. Tesla might say it’s ready, and you might believe/want it, but the insurance people might not be so eager or convinced.

Like seatbelts! And airbags! And not allowing false advertising. Oh no. All Elon had to do was change the name of AP. He clearly didn’t want free lane centering anymore because subs are how he gets his package.

Autopilot can make course, altitude, pitch, yaw and speed adjustments. So no, it doesn't just 'fly in a straight line'.

Prices dropped twice, 2023, 2024

Lemonade Insurance has stepped in as an early adopter of FSD-based pricing

Congratulations on having enough reading comprehension to take in two words from my comment. Now try the rest.

So essentially the equivalent of what the car does....

They argued that “full self driving” did not actually mean “full salf driving” because they had qualifiers in the manual (but not the advertising), but it is why they started adding “supervised” to the end.  It’s on par with no reasonable person thinks Fox News means news.

Except that they didn't do that. They didn't rebrand autopilot to satisfy California. They just got rid of it.

We’re not talking about FSD. We’re talking about Autopilot. The base package.

Your post is known to tire State of California to cause cancer.

The point is, all their marketing is deceptive about autopilot and fsd. Autopilot has a specific meaning in flying but it also has a generalized meaning. Tesla knew people would think autopilot is more than it actually is. It’s why they called it autopilot.  The “but planes” is just legal cover for their deception.

So let’s math it. Elons latest 10 year pay package stipulates 20 million cars and 10 million FSD subs. Tesla currently has about 8 million cars produced to date with most still on the roads and most HW3+. And about 1 million FSD subscribers (N.America+Australasia). Current Tesla production rate is and has been stabilizing at about 1.6M cars total this past year. So, assuming Tesla can maintain secular growth, I think 20 million cars is easy sauce in 10 years. FSD though to 10 million is a tall order. And I suspect that there will be tiers of subscription levels to match what market segments would pay and HW generations/capabilities out there; my napkin math below on how Elon will reach 10M FSD subs. I think most of it will be a new “autopilot” on the new stack with addition of stop light recognition rebranded as FSD light. > > * FSD light $20 (grows to 5-8M, ~18-30% eligible cars) > * FSD supervised $99 (1M now, grows to 3M,~11%) > * FSD unsupervised $199 (grows to 1M, ~4%) > * FSD comm/robotaxi $499+$/mi (X factor, 1M, ~4%)

>When FSD is truly FULL self driving “unsupervised” then a good chunk of people won’t need or want to own a car in general. Who are these mystery people?

>I still don’t understand how people interpret it like that ...Something about the CEO promising the car can drive itself across the country without driver intervention...

This not how to get the number of FSD subs. I dont see people $99/mo. They were not doing it b4 and this not the way to “incentivize “ FSD subs Elon is too out of touch with Tesla buyers and the avg car person.

But Autopilot and FSD have always been marketed separately, very clearly. Because they wanted people to pay more for FSD.

Because some folks have despised Tesla since day one and this was just one of the myriad of reasons used to try and justify it.

There are planes with an autopilot that can find and safely descend to the nearest airport if it senses the pilot is incapacitated. And nearly all g1000 autopilots will allow you to ascend and descend from 100’ to whatever flight level you put. Some require very little input from the pilot till the wheels touch the ground again. This isn’t much different than what people expect but pop off queen.

OP isn't excusing bad behavior he's speculating on Tesla's long term intentions.

An autopilot *can* have those features. But not all autopilots do, and they’re still all called autopilots. Most autopilots can only autoland with ILS systems and will not do any terrain avoidance, most won’t even to automatic TCAS RA. Standard behaviour in the case of strange things happening is always to disengage and hand back control to the pilots – same as Tesla’s autopilot.

r/TeslaLounge

Granted I’m just one person but I’ve been paying $99/month for the past year. I’m obviously not the only one. I think as FSD continues to improve (less nagging), people who were satisfied with autopilot will begin to migrate over. New owners with better hardware will see even bigger improvements and are more likely to spend on the sub, even if it’s only a few months out of the year for longer trips.

It “can”, and often “does” which negates your statement of “doesn’t replace a pilot who remains in control”. You can argue semantics all you want but the fact still remains. And they don’t require ILS. There’s plenty of landing systems. Which is far more complicated, yet they’re able to accomplish, than simple 2d driving. But, again, pop off queen. lol saying how you can’t understand how people think they’re the same thing in one post then using their similarities in your argument is wild.

If they do something by the mile they would need to be much more generous. 100 miles is just a day or two for a lot of people who use it and 500 miles would get many about a week of use. I suspect most subscribers like myself have longer commutes and would effectively see our prices doubled under your model. You would see more people downgrade to autopilot for $20/month than you’d see people upgrading to FSD.

But arguing semantics is **exactly** what this thread is about. Just because there are more advanced autopilot systems doesn’t change the fact that many systems that are called autopilot are still pretty “dumb”, yet are still called autopilot and deserve the name just as much as more advanced systems. So Tesla naming their system autopilot even for the “base package” that just has TACC + Autosteer really shouldn’t be misleading in any way – even the most basic autopilots installed in planes in the 20th century are still called autopilot to this day for those planes still in operation. You can’t reverse an implication. Every G1000 autopilot is an autopilot, but not every autopilot is a G1000.

Aviator of 17 years. Autopilot is exactly what you said. The term dates back decades and it wasn't until the last two decades that autopilot meant something more than altitude and heading hold. You can see society understood this concept in many popular movies up through the early 2000s. I don't understand the person's comment below stating it negates the pilot remaining in control. The FAA to this day still requires a pilot remain in the seat in control of the aircraft for the entirely of the flight. Even the new autonomous solo seat aircraft require controls still for the pilot to take control at any moment. But heh, don't let facts and more importantly history get in the way of a redditer.

“It’s nothing like aircraft autopilot so I don’t know why people confuse the two” “Here are ways the two are similar” Pick one. Putting in a course. Getting the vehicle on to the beginning of that course. Maintaining a modicum of awareness and supervision of that said course and vehicle behavior. Allowing the vehicle to navigate that course, autonomously. Taking over at the destination or if the course needs correction. Which one are we talking about? A plane or a car? If you said a plane then you agree that it’s not unreasonable for a person to equate the same actions to a car with the given nomenclature. Again, you don’t even agree with your own points so what is the point of your continued rambling?

Couldn't Musk simply bring FSD price to $4.99/m and get to that subscriber count pretty quickly?

Almost everything you said here is incorrect.

Exactly!

There’s a simple economic lever they could use: If they wanted to increase subs, just decrease the price. $100/mo is still too high for me when it provides little utility. Most of my miles are highway, which basic Autopilot excels at.

It's hard to imagine Elon getting on board with an FSD light version. It seems like a decent idea though, especially for $20 per month. My question is why couldn't they make that version free?

Putting a course (enable Tesla autopilot on to follow a highway lane). Getting a vehicle on to the beginning of a course (centre in lane). Maintaining a modicum of awareness and supervision (keep hands on steering wheel, but don’t make own inputs on steering wheel or pedals). Taking over at the destination or if the course needs correction (e.g. in the event of road construction or an obstacle, or if the system fails). It does what you describe, and nothing more.

So it is expected to do what an aircraft autopilot does and people aren’t wrong for equating the two things of the same name. Thank you for proving my point that you argued against for multiple posts now. Jesus Christ you’re insufferable.

You missed the "or a preprogrammed nav path" part of the comment.

Late but real. People have done it now.

Because you are confusing what airplane autopilot does in reality vs what the average person views autopilot. Average person from the public at large views auto pilot as a system you can fall asleep and get there safely. People here auto pilot and think it means they don’t have to pay attention. Hell we can even take the pre programmed route. We do that all the time by setting a destination in the gps. That makes a pre programmed route. Hit the highway you have a long cruise range with limited changes that people go on auto pilot while being human drivers. It is only worse when the car takes over.

FSD Unsupervised without walled gardens is decades away. **Decades** Less supervised? Sure. Full autonomy? Nationwide? Not happening anytime soon. So no, the most likely explanation is Elon's paycheck.

$99/mo is not a bad price. I mean I wish it was cheaper or the $99 included premium connectivity too, but.... $99 isn't bad and I pay it when I want to have FSD. Certainly a better deal than buying it outright for 8K was.

Speed adjustments are done by [autothrottle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autothrottle) on a plane.

Because Tesla’s goal is to make money as a business. And Elon has milestones to reach now.

It seems the price is still too high as they have few subscribers 8K was crazy since it didn’t stay with buyer, in my humble opinion

$50 to $60 for FSD supervised. Will be the sweet spot.

And FSD subscriptions is only one part of his potential bonus. It’s pretty unobtainable. edit: Downvotes? lol The trillion dollar bonus relies on extreme metrics-based milestones that are unlikely to be achieved. It's simply the upper-most tier in his bonus structure and not something that anyone expects him or Tesla to actually achieve right now. Just Google it. It includes massive market caps, production margins, stock performance, annual revenues, etc etc....

Its hard to say why the subscriber count is what it is. A lower price would obviously drive more people to try it, but I suspect a big reason is because a lot of people who buy Tesla's want to drive their Tesla. That's why I don't subscribe full time. If I'm not going on a road trip, I'd rather drive it. It's a fun car to drive.

> This is the reason. It’s not. If this were the reason, the changes would only be in CA, not globally.  The reason is that the changes align perfectly with Elon’s recent compensation package.  The changes aren’t designed to make Tesla vehicles more attractive or competitive. The changes are designed to increase FSD subscription uptake.

What exactly do you propose is in FSD light? Maybe autopilot + lane changes, and maybe parallel parking?

Hopefully AP comes back as FSD doesn't interest me in the slightest. No AP is a dealbreaker for me personally and if they don't bring it back, I'll be looking at other brands when I upgrade my EV next year - simple as that.

Question for people who bought the first version of model 3 and also bought self driving. At that time there was no concept of supervised/unsupervised. Does that mean those buyers will get supervised for free?

Autopilot + stop light/sign recognition = $20/month FSD light. City streets, Lane changes and parking would be higher tiers.

This is over 10 years time though. *Today* people are annoyed because they remember when things weren’t like this. 5-8 years from now and those new purchasers? I don’t think they see FSD subs as a linear progression.

It takes time to rebrand things or to change things like that. They did this because they were under immense pressure for a quick stopgap solution.

That's the most likely. Or even $10/month. Most people will sign up for that and that will account for most subscriptions to get Elon his pay package.

Yes. So that's obviously not the reason for this change. People just want to use him as a scapegoat for anything they perceive as negative.

Once they’re available in more states, I’m sure that could be a good incentive.

He probably will. Or someone came up with FSD tiers, 4.99 for lane keep and traffic aware cruise control to reach 10M subs.

The problem here is that these features will eventually be table stakes for all cars and you won't be able to charge for them. Unless all cars go to subscription models for basically everything... which may just be the unfortunately future.

> you’re still paying for the hardware and sensors when you buy the car If you don't think the car is worth what you're paying for it as you buy it, buy something else. It doesn't matter what is on it that you can't use if you approach buying it rationally.

Good luck with those prices on the rest of the world.

So no safety features will be free going forward? That's the plan?

Wouldn’t work. Autopilot + lane changes is good enough for 90% of people so they wouldn’t get enough upper tier subs.

Good point. I firmly believe if it were $50/mo or $500/yr sub rate would go up. I would buy just to have at that price point. Use when I am tired, stressed etc. Elon has a convoluted value on FSD and forgets his failed promises.

Safety (automatic braking, lane change collision warning, rear backup collision warning , etc.) is always present and running in the background *and separate than autopilot/FSD.*

Like Tesla car prices, FSD prices likely to be adjusted to market.

Boooo! Tesla is and should be bigger and better than just that.

Yes. Commoditization can happen as industry catches up and technology becomes faster, cheaper, better. Question is how long? I think that needing volumes and volumes of video driving training data for the AI is essentially a moat for Tesla and it will be a while before we see similar vision-based, drive-everywhere offerings from competitors.

*thoughts and prayers*

Nobody is paying $20/mo on a 50+ thousand dollar car for a feature every other car in the class has included. If "FSD Light" becomes a thing, and it's just a rebranded Autopilot that leverages the FSD software stack, it will be free or it will be DOA

Cambridge Dictionary: > **on autopilot** > *idiom* > > doing something without thinking about it or without making an effort Collins Dictionary: > **on automatic pilot** > *phrase* > > If you are on automatic pilot or on autopilot, you are acting without thinking about what you are doing, usually because you have done it many times before. Oxford Dictionary: > **on autopilot** > *phrase of autopilot* > > acting or functioning without conscious thought, as a result of routine or habit

I’m not sure how they maintain that growth. Looking at Canada it’s pretty clear that nations that don’t manufacture cars are willing to go to war with Tesla and even more concerning is that China is enacting two separate things that would impact Tesla. They don’t want the doors setup like they are and are coming out against infotainment control over all systems. Tesla will have to modify their Chinese cars in two ways already just to keep up and IMO it’s clear that Trump and Xi both played Musk for different reasons. The longer we block Chinese cars (effectively) the more pain will come to our companies over there.

I lucky still got autopilot in my new car, so I don’t mind paying 100bucks once or twice a year to go on a road trip. But having to pay 100bucks for something like autopilot+ would have driven me not to buy a Tesla.

😂 😂 😂. For real.

Me too. Apparently Elon doesn't like us being able to decide our own speed.

Yeah I was just being hopeful since I would sub to that lol, I don’t see what they could do between current autopilot and FSD to warrant $20/month, unless they are going to start charging that for autopilot.

I don’t understand the benefit of stop light and sign recognition if you can only use it on highways. If you can’t do city streets there isn’t any benefit to that.

Tesla has to somehow rebrand autopilot and add some features to justify a cost to differentiate from standard lane keeping in competitor cars (in my scenario). This to me means adding stop light recognition. (And autopilot has traditionally been used in highways and city streets. “City streets” you are referring means sharp/intersection turns and roundabouts which autopilot largely can’t do).

Depends on what is included as a feature of “FSD light”. I suspect Tesla would add enough to be “more feature rich” to justify a subscription cost.

They renamed it on the existing inventory a week ago.

They reused the name “Autosteer” for the lane keep portion, but they aren’t selling what had been marketed as “Autopilot” as “Autosteer”, as it was referring to both lane keep and the adaptive cruise as a suite.

Are we talking about different things? I love autopilot to pieces but it is unusable on anything that isn’t a separated highway. It’s bad on regular straight suburban streets in my experience so I don’t see any benefit for light recognition.

But he isn't, and instead removing what was a key feature of the car for many buyers, and requiring a rather astronomical subscription to retain lane keeping features.

Yup, and if there is another plane parked on the runway or otherwise in the way, it will typically crash into it. Some can automatically execute TCAS, but even that won't work for landing. Aircraft autopilots are generally less functional than what Tesla markets as "Autopilot." Of course they could do more with current technology.

Autopilot can be thought of as traffic-aware lane keeping with cruise control. It will follow any recognizable lane markings and not run into cars. It won’t though make turns, stop at a red light, or go into areas without lane markings like a parking lot. I use autopilot often on suburban streets that are long. Not so much neighborhood.

Which amazingly functions during auto pilot. You failed at being a smart ass.

No, it just has no relevance.

The Federal Rules of Evidence prohibit you from using subsequent remedial measures by a company as evidence of a defect in court. You've basically identified the reason why; they want to encourage companies to make things safer without worrying about pending litigation.

Difference being it works in planes and is certified

Tried and still left disappointed. Really sums up all your relationships, ay.

I was pointing out it's a separate system. While they can both be engaged at the same time, it is possible to have only one of them engaged. Which would make your assertion that autopilot controls speed inaccurate. Yes I'm being pedantic. It's all I have.

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> So, assuming Tesla can maintain secular growth, I think 20 million cars is easy sauce in 10 years. > > FSD though to 10 million is a tall order. They need to severely overhaul their lineup to be able to sell another 12m cars. The current Y and 3 won't cut it for long. They need compelling cars to sell another 9m subscription. Anyway you slice it, they need new models and features people have been begging for for years. At the moment it doesn't seem like Tesla is interested in investing more in cars.

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It's Karen mentality. These people make no sense and want to feel like victims.

> Uh what? Tesla’s not going to produce a special version of their car for 1 specific state. They already have. In jurisdictions where FSD/AP aren't allowed, they are disabled in software. That's why they aren't available in every country. So if this was a concern, they could simply sell cars in CA with the features disabled, as they already do. > If Tesla was trying to increase subscriptions to hit some threshold, they’d just lower the price or offer a sale. That reasoning is just bullshit Reddit hive mind speak. Why would they reduce profit margins when they could instead increase them? People with AP are less likely to subscribe to FSD. People without are more likely to subscribe.

Reasonable take noting slowing sales. But industry EV sales also slowing too. I think though Tesla still has some levers to maintain or improve sales rates like new markets, trims (Y-L), maybe retail cybercab?! and decreasing vehicle costs via their in-house all dry electrode program. Will be interesting to see if they start maximize range via increased battery capacities. Democrats likely take over in US politics for the next term or two and may see resurgence of green energy initiatives.

> Unless all cars go to subscription models for basically everything… which may just be the unfortunately future. “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” -Ida Auken, 2016 The predicted year for that was 2030, and with our projectory I wouldn’t be surprised if it came sooner.

No. If the KPI were simply "increase number of subscribers," that would work. It would also piss off the board and investors because it would also be a clear workaround for their KPIs. The publicly known KPIs are: * Deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles. * Deploy 1 million Optimus humanoid robots. * Deploy 1 million Robotaxis in commercial operation. * Acquire 10 million paid Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscription customers. * Achieve up to $400 billion in cumulative EBITDA. * Increase Tesla's market cap to about $8.5T (was at $1.5T at time of the deal). The problem is that some goals would work against each other. Tesla won't hit those last two targets if they are basically giving away FSD for free. And because space/capacity is an issue, the cancellation of the S/X was to make rook for Otpimus robot production (though to be fair, this was an eventuality anyway, as Tesla had scaled back their production and ended it in many countries several years ago).

With AI you're paying for server compute time. With FSD all the compute is done by hardware you've already purchased. Pitching that to a customer won't work.

Right it’s all onboard inference in Tesla’s case, but keeping their models updated isn’t simple or cheap.  Remember a lot of AI capacity coming online now is for training not just for inference.

It said Traffic Aware Cruise Control with Autosteer. That is what autopilot was.

It doesn’t replace the pilot though, they still have to monitor and pay attention. Autopilot on an airplane will fly directly into terrain or aircraft without human intervention. It’s a perfect name in theory, but your average joe doesn’t realize that planes are far from actually being able to fly themselves.

Dude…you are delusional lol. $20/month for someone buying a $50k car is absolutely nothing. Of course a shitton of people would do that

This makes absolutely no sense. Renting vs selling makes no difference in this context and they could have simply changed the autosteer name. These changes were Tesla's choice, full stop, but autosteer being eliminated may have been slightly influenced by the fact people will get confusion about the capabilities of the two systems.

This would only happen if it merged with the primary FSD stack. AP sucks as is and nobody would pay for it

It's a lot cheaper than running compute for several million cars. Again, you can get a lot of chatgpt for that price. There's no way they could justify those prices apart from being the first to have the technology. You can sure bet there's a bunch of other companies just behind them though. They're never priced FSD at how much it cost to produce, they've always priced it at what they think people are willing to pay.

100%. Expect FSD subscriptions prices to fall as tesla needs to average 10M active subs over what is i believe a 3 month period. Tesla will probably offer a discounted 3 month FSD bundle with new car purchases to juice the numbers.

can't even view the article, excellent submission OP.

I completely dislike Tesla's marketing strategies when it comes to loyal customers, I received notification that if I do not buy another Tesla vehicle and transfer my fully paid-off FSD before the end of March I will never be able to do so. So that means I will forever own the same car, and if and when I decide to buy another one I would have to pay a monthly fee. Let me just say that I do not like being threatened after being a customer of theirs, so if that happens, I will go with buy another brand. Period.