Price for Tesla's Autopilot jumps $500 without hardware change

Buried somewhere between longer range and furious acceleration (and resulting "meh" by the collective automotive journalism brain trust), Tesla on Tuesday nudged up the price of its Autopilot feature.

The fine folks over at Electrek were paying attention and noticed that Tesla's online configurator now notes that Autopilot is a $3,000 extra from the factory, or $3,500 if enabled later. That's an increase of $500 (or 20 percent for math majors) over the price Monday, which started at $2,500 and $3,000 respectively.

Tesla confirmed to Motor Authority that it hasn't changed the Autopilot hardware, but rather its price is reflective of its market value as beta software currently under development as an advanced feature. We know a new version of Autopilot is nearly complete from Tesla and could be included in the 8.0 software update that may arrive soon, which is free to owners.

However, $500 is $500, and it's easy to point the finger at Tesla and accuse the automaker of price gouging for relatively popular software—but they're hardly alone.

Buick is asking $4,000 for a cargo net, a power tilt-telescoping steering wheel, and satellite radio, so let's cool our jets a little.

Plus, it's one more chip to bargain for that cost-of-living-increase raise you've been angling for at work. How's a 20-percent pay hike sound, boss?