Tesla finally has some good news for owners of older Model S and Model X owners — the Summer Update (2024.26) enables FSD v12.3.6 on vehicles that have the MCU1 (Media Control Unit V1 / touchscreen display and its processor).
The MCU1 infotainment system is installed in Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles produced before March of 2018. This infotainment screen and Nvidia’s Tegra processor became legacy with time. Its speed also couldn’t match the constantly improving software and graphics.
The slow speed and processing power of the MCU1 system made it difficult for the automaker to allow these older vehicles to run Full Self-Driving (FSD Beta/Supervised) software. However, the 2024 Summer Update (2024.26) and following point releases have added support for MCU1 vehicles to run the previous wide release FSD v12.3.6.
The updated official release notes of the Tesla OTA software update 2024.26 include the following lines that explain the FSD v12.3.6 support for MCU1 vehicles.
FSD Supervised for MCU1 vehicles
Support for FSD Supervised 12.3.6 for MCU1 (Tegra) vehicles.
Tesla started offering FSD Beta for MCU1 vehicles in 2022. FSD V12 and its sub-versions are an upgraded end-to-end neural-net based AI system. With V12, Tesla utilizes the maximum capabilities of Tesla Vision and according to Elon Musk, 300K+ lines of code was removed in this version.
Tesla has now optimized FSD v12.3.6 code and systems that can even run on the legacy MCU1 vehicles. Tesla has enabled FSD v12.3.6 support of MCU1 vehicles but it seems these legacy vehicles will stop here and won’t receive the v12.4 or v12.5 FSD updates without upgrading to the improved MCU2 infotainment system.
However, the number of these vehicles is expected to be low in the Tesla vehicle fleet because in March 2020, the automaker announced a paid upgrade to the newer MCU2 system. The upgrade from MCU1 to MCU2 costs $2,000. This enables faster driving visualizations, smoother overall UI and navigations maps, especially the performance of Tesla Full Self-Driving.
Tesla explains the MCU1 to MCU2 upgrade retrofit as (complete details on official website):
Owners of Model S and Model X built March 2018 or earlier are eligible to purchase an Infotainment Upgrade, enabling access to some of our favorite features like video streaming and an expanded Tesla Arcade, in addition to a more responsive and faster touchscreen experience.
Owners of compatible vehicles can schedule an appointment through the Tesla app for purchase and installation. This upgrade is available for $2,000 plus applicable tax, including installation, for vehicles equipped with Autopilot Computer 2.0 or 2.5 and for $1,500 plus applicable tax, including installation, for all other vehicles. Owners may confirm Autopilot Computer type by selecting ‘Controls’ > ‘Software’ > ‘Additional Vehicle Information’ on the touchscreen.
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