During yesterday’s Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2024 Earnings Call, CEO Elon Musk gave out some good news for owners who have the legacy Hardware 3 (HW3) computer installed in their cars.
Elon Musk announced that Tesla is going to provided a free retrofit upgrade for HW3 cars if at any stage the company realizes this system is unable to run Unsupervised FSD. However, the free hardware upgrade will be provided only to customers who purchased the Full Self-Driving Capability software package with their vehicles.
Musk announced the HW3 retrofit upgrade to future-proof these legacy Tesla cars and keep their dreams of running their Teslas on a fully autonomous Level 5 self-driving system (Unsupervised FSD).
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Elon Musk and Tesla executives were asked “Will HW3 be capable of Level 5 FSD?” during yesterday’s Q3 2024 Earnings Call. Tesla’s head of AI Ashok Elluswamy responded to the question mostly by repeating what he had already stated on X in August. These included the technical limitations HW3 has compared to the new and more robust HW4 computer.
However, the big news came from Elon Musk himself. “We will take care of those who bought FSD with HW3,” he said at the end of his answer to the question. Here is what he said in its entirety:
We’re not 100% sure, but as Ashok mentioned, by some measures HW4 has really several times the capability of HW3.
It’s easier to get things to work with HW4 and then it takes a lot of effort to sort of squeeze that functionality into HW3.
There is some chance that HW3 does not achieve a safety level that allows for unsupervised FSD.
There is some chance of that. And if that turns out to be the case we will upgrade those who have bought HW3 FSD — for free — and we have designed the system to be upgradeable.
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So, it’s really just a “switch out the computer” type of thing. The cameras, they are capable.
Anyway, we don’t actually know the answer to that but if it does turn out we will make sure we take care of those who bought FSD on HW3.
Although there are still clouds covering the future of HW3, one thing is clear that only customers who bought FSD on their HW3 cars will get an upgrade retrofit. Customers who didn’t buy FSD on their HW3 cars, will probably need to either purchase FSD separately to avail the upgrade or pay a fee to do so.
However, Musk’s comments have created another confusion. If the need arises, and it will for sure, will the HW3 computers be simply upgraded to HW4?
This type of upgrade does not seem to be practically possible mainly because of two reasons. 1, the form-factor of both computers is different and 2, they both have a different architecture and power input and output numbers. The existing supportive hardware like writing on HW3 cars is not compatible with HW4 computers making the retrofit quite difficult or impossible at all.
Elon Musk also did not say that HW3 cars will be retrofitted with HW4 computers. The hardware upgrade will most likely be a trimmed-down version of HW4 or an enhanced HW3 to improve performance and support Unsupervised FSD. This new computer might be named HW3.5 for its median capabilities and retrofitability on legacy HW3 cars.
Do the right thing for customers and they will do the right thing for you
Elon Musk commented on the HW3 upgrade retrofit on his social media platform X today.
Tesla HW3 car owners have been hugely relieved by the news of getting Upsupervised FSD in the future with the upgrade retrofit that Elon Musk talked about on the Q3 call.
Earlier this month, at the Robotaxi unveiling event, Elon Musk said that Tesla plans to roll out Unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year (2025). Depending on regulatory approvals, it can extend to other states as well.
A successful earnings call and profit on the financial update sheet have regained investor confidence in Tesla. As of this writing, the Tesla(TSLA) stock price has gained around 22% until market close today.
The Tesla share price jumped from $213.65 at market close yesterday to $260.48 at market close today.
Tesla (TSLA) stock price at market close on 24th October 2024. Tesla (TSLA) stock price at market close on 24th October 2024. Credit: Google.
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Audio webcast: Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2024 Earnings Call and Financial Update. Call starts are HW3 FSD upgrade by Elon Musk.
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1 COMMENT
I own a 2023 MY with HW3 Full Self Driving hardware. They said it would be full self driving capable. Saying it will not be is, in my opinion, false advertising. Make it FSD capable or buy it back!
 CEO Elon Musk brings good news for legacy HW3 cars getting a free upgrade to run Unsupervised FSD in the future.){kind=link}
I own a 2023 MY with HW3 Full Self Driving hardware. They said it would be full self driving capable. Saying it will not be is, in my opinion, false advertising. Make it FSD capable or buy it back!