# HW4 - Will original HW2.5 FSD Owners Get Another Free Upgrade?



## littlD (Apr 17, 2016)

Seems like a lively point of discussion!


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

I voted no as a true "no" option doesn't exist. I don't think anyone will get this board unless you buy a brand new car with it in it, or pay extra someday for whatever benefit it brings. 

They have to continually innovate and work on the next generation. That chip and board will be ready by the time TX comes online and they build the Cybertruck and Roadster. I think come hell or high water with the rewrite coming soon - HW3.0 is all that anyone will get for now and none of the HW3.0 folks will be upgraded again. They will do whatever it takes to make 3.0 work for FSD.

If you've never bought FSD and have a car with 2.5 in it, if it is backward compatible and you purchase FSD in a few years, you might get 4.0 in that situation.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

Good point, @GDN. Perhaps the poll should be expanded. I voted yes, but I really mean yes only if it's necessary for my car to keep up with FSD improvements.


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## littlD (Apr 17, 2016)

FRC said:


> Good point, @GDN. Perhaps the poll should be expanded. I voted yes, but I really mean yes only if it's necessary for my car to keep up with FSD improvements.


Thanks gents! Poll updated.


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## Ed Woodrick (May 26, 2018)

The HW3 upgrade was promised because it was needed for FSD. If HW 4 ends up being required, then the answer may be yes, but if it can be delivered with the rewrite, then no. Why would they?

I was actually anticipating that since it was originally expected to be available the first of this year, that they would just skip HW3, but alas it doesn't seem to be the situation.


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

I think it’s pretty simple — if HW4 is “needed” to accomplish FSD then it will be supplied for free to anyone with the FSD option. If HW4 just brings efficiencies in processing and power usage but isn’t needed, it will not be provided for free.


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## M3OC Rules (Nov 18, 2016)

Ed Woodrick said:


> The HW3 upgrade was promised because it was needed for FSD. If HW 4 ends up being required, then the answer may be yes, but if it can be delivered with the rewrite, then no. Why would they?
> 
> I was actually anticipating that since it was originally expected to be available the first of this year, that they would just skip HW3, but alas it doesn't seem to be the situation.


I don't know that we have enough information to say HW3 was needed. They never said they couldn't do it with HW2.5. Maybe it was to save face but they said they didn't want to develop on two platforms. On the flip side, this is something no one ever has done with any hardware. Probably most engineers in this field would say this is the wrong approach based on the fact that most other serious projects are using different approaches. Until they accomplish it how can anyone say HW3, HW4 or HW16 is sufficient? They are flying by the seat of Elon's pants. It's crazy but it takes crazy sometimes and he has a good track record.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

I voted no as I don't think it'll be needed for FSD. It may offer additional features outside of that (maybe faster screen response times or higher end graphic capable games). But if it's eventually determined that HW3 won't suffice for FSD then they won't have a choice but to offer it for free to everyone that paid for FSD.


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## TomT (Apr 1, 2019)

Based on initial reports, HW4 will be much less of an upgrade then 3.0 was and thus, likely not as necessary.


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## M3OC Rules (Nov 18, 2016)

Is it safe to assume HW4 is a swap out upgrade to existing cars? That assumes the same power profile and the sensor suite remaining the same. I vaguely remember Elon mentioning a performance increase with the next version of their chip but what are these initial reports of HW4?


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## sduck (Nov 23, 2017)

Why a poll? Nothing official has been said, so all we can do is guess.


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## littlD (Apr 17, 2016)

sduck said:


> Why a poll? Nothing official has been said, so all we can do is guess.


Good point!

Some people like a poll for their guesses, allows for anonymous.


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

I think Tesla will do something clever to distinguish the FSD that many of us currently bought vs. a future version with a different name. Kind of like EAP ending up as a hybrid between AP and FSD.... I expect “Future Something” to render FSD as a partial implementation of something further.

The description of FSD on the Tesla ordering page lists 4 things the car can currently do if FSD is enabled, one future promise of autosteer on city streets, and a vague indication there could be more. I have been unable to find the Tesla description of FSD in web archives, but I’m pretty sure it was previously even more vague. While much has been discussed about whether FSD will go to level 5 and the word “full” means “everything” to many people, I think we will find that Tesla has carefully managed exactly what they have said/promised. And that FSD is not the end of the road. 

Just my thoughts. Curious if anyone has specific wording of more that has been promised with FSD.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

Bigriver said:


> I think Tesla will do something clever to distinguish the FSD that many of us currently bought vs. a future version with a different name. Kind of like EAP ending up as a hybrid between AP and FSD.... I expect "Future Something" to render FSD as a partial implementation of something further.
> 
> The description of FSD on the Tesla ordering page lists 4 things the car can currently do if FSD is enabled, one future promise of autosteer on city streets, and a vague indication there could be more. I have been unable to find the Tesla description of FSD in web archives, but I'm pretty sure it was previously even more vague. While much has been discussed about whether FSD will go to level 5 and the word "full" means "everything" to many people, I think we will find that Tesla has carefully managed exactly what they have said/promised. And that FSD is not the end of the road.
> 
> Just my thoughts. Curious if anyone has specific wording of more that has been promised with FSD.


I've had similar thoughts in the past about implementations that include renaming the level of the feature. Let's suppose that FSD is eventually superseded by a more extensive system, say Self-Piloted FSD. Where do you think that a Judge and Jury will land on what Tesla sold us as FSD? This thought convinces me that Tesla will consider to implement any self driving improvements in all cars where the owner paid Tesla directly for FSD.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

Bigriver said:


> I think Tesla will do something clever to distinguish the FSD that many of us currently bought vs. a future version with a different name. Kind of like EAP ending up as a hybrid between AP and FSD.... I expect "Future Something" to render FSD as a partial implementation of something further.
> 
> The description of FSD on the Tesla ordering page lists 4 things the car can currently do if FSD is enabled, one future promise of autosteer on city streets, and a vague indication there could be more. I have been unable to find the Tesla description of FSD in web archives, but I'm pretty sure it was previously even more vague. While much has been discussed about whether FSD will go to level 5 and the word "full" means "everything" to many people, I think we will find that Tesla has carefully managed exactly what they have said/promised. And that FSD is not the end of the road.
> 
> Just my thoughts. Curious if anyone has specific wording of more that has been promised with FSD.


Here is the description when I ordered.


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## M3OC Rules (Nov 18, 2016)

For now, Elon has left very little wiggle room stating they will achieve level 5 with current cars. You could have a safer level 5 car but otherwise level 5 handles all situations. They have backed off the language on new cars which will probably help with the lawsuits. They learned the hard way. The line saying "This functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval. It is not possible to know exactly when it will be available as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction." was very deceiving. This sounds like they had a finished solution that they were validating it. At that time they also had released a video of a car driving itself without intervention. Now we know they were not close at all. I think they are still years away so they will probably tweak things somehow along the way. They will be selling features on a subscription basis soon and continue to add features to justify higher prices. I think they will price people out but what do I know. Stock is at $2k. I slept in the back the other weekend and it was not too bad. Maybe someday I'll be paying rent to sleep in my car and all food will be sold at Tesla Supercharger Drive-Thrus.

Here is the wording on the website now:

_Autopilot Included_

_Enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically for other vehicles and pedestrians within its lane._
_
Full Self-Driving Capability_

_Navigate on Autopilot: automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars._
_Auto Lane Change: automatic lane changes while driving on the highway._
_Autopark: both parallel and perpendicular spaces._
_Summon: your parked car will come find you anywhere in a parking lot. Really._
_Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control: assisted stops at traffic controlled intersections._
_Coming later this year:_

_Autosteer on city streets._
_Select Option $8,000
Includes the Full Self Driving Computer
Full Self-Driving Capability is available for purchase post-delivery, prices are likely to increase over time with new feature releases
The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates._


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

iChris93 said:


> Here is the description when I ordered.
> View attachment 35266


"In the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver's seat."

That's actually a fairly limited claim. It doesn't say the person in the driver's seat wouldn't be expected to monitor the trips, and it doesn't say it would be capable of conducting _all_ trips that way. We're actually not all that far from fulfilling that goal. With a few more features (maybe a year's worth, at the current rate of progress), Teslas might be able to complete door-to-door trips without intervention 5% of the time. At that point, they've fulfilled the letter of that promise.

But robotaxi-type autonomy is much, much further away. It is, in fact, impossible with the current hardware, because the sensors are not capable of cleaning off mud or snow, and thus could not make trips that a human driver could.

Tesla's priorities have clearly been this "door-to-door sometimes" type autonomy, since they've been pushing forward with city-street features rather than, say, L3 autonomy on the highway or in traffic jams.

A car that can make 5% of trips without intervention, but needs to be monitored, is impressive, but I'm not sure it's all that _useful_. Over time, the 5% would go to 15%, then 20%, then 23%, and so on, but it would get harder and harder to squeeze out that next bit of improvement.

Tesla robotaxis driving around city streets with no one in the car? That's a long way away, and it won't happen with the cars currently being sold.


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## M3OC Rules (Nov 18, 2016)

DocScott said:


> "In the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver's seat."
> 
> That's actually a fairly limited claim. It doesn't say the person in the driver's seat wouldn't be expected to monitor the trips, and it doesn't say it would be capable of conducting _all_ trips that way. We're actually not all that far from fulfilling that goal. With a few more features (maybe a year's worth, at the current rate of progress), Teslas might be able to complete door-to-door trips without intervention 5% of the time. At that point, they've fulfilled the letter of that promise.
> But robotaxi-type autonomy is much, much further away. It is, in fact, impossible with the current hardware, because the sensors are not capable of cleaning off mud or snow, and thus could not make trips that a human driver could.
> ...


If you dive into the Autopilot info on the webpage now it has the same original video of full self driving. It also says this "The Future of Autopilot- All Tesla vehicles have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances, at a safety level we believe will be at least twice as good as the average human driver. "

I agree that improving autopilot that needs to be monitored has diminishing returns. And then not having to monitor or even be in the car would be huge and is almost hard to imagine how much it would impact our lives. I feel like Tesla is still selling the later while trying to maintain some distance for when they get sued again. And to some degree, that's necessary to justify the price. Is it that much better than other manufacturer's driver-assist now and won't they catch up?

In terms of mud and snow, they are definitely issues. But at the same time living in a metro area that gets a fair amount of snow and uses tons of salt, there are not that many days where its an issue especially if you clean the sensors before you start the trip. Sure its not level 5 and would be an issue for robotaxis but I'd guess much less than 5% of the time. I don't think that ruins the business model. I think its more of an issue of squeezing out the last bit as you say.


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## SkipperOFMO (Mar 15, 2019)

If a new sensor suite is required do you expect to be retrofitted?


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## M3OC Rules (Nov 18, 2016)

SkipperOFMO said:


> If a new sensor suite is required do you expect to be retrofitted?


No. But at this point there isn't any indication they are going in a different direction. Perhaps they could tweak things by adding sprayers for cleaning the cameras or something like that which they would not retrofit. I think they have heaters on everything now at least on the Model Y which added a radar heater. But their development of DoJo appears to be all about vision so messing around with lidar seems unlikely at this point.


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## EpsilonKore (Aug 16, 2018)

If hardware 4 has more processing power, not just energy efficiency improvements, that processing (depending on how gains it ala video stream or A.I. compute) could go toward higher camera resolution and additional ultrasonic/radar sensors in the back for cross traffic and reversing full self drive. That would not be a retrofit more than likely (extra sensors for the rear that is, though camera res/sensitivity bump could be retrofitted into existing locations). 
Alternatively, additional processing power can improve responsive performance. At some point we will see "Full Self Drive" complete for basic applications... after that improved processing/camera/sensor tech will be applied to performance aspects of Full Self Drive, ala "Track Mode Full Self Drive" and other bragging rights. I see that much further down the line than HW4 though.


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