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Has your car been retrofitted to the FSD HW3 computer?

Hardware 3 retrofit has begun!

130K views 1K replies 191 participants last post by  EchoCharlie3189 
#1 ·
#4 ·
I think this is exciting news. I do hope that they will have a priority list that, more or less, honors those who purchased FSD the earliest. With the report of a 2018 Model X being among the first, it's sounding like Tesla is doing this the "Tesla way" which often appears random and not honoring the earliest adopters.
 
#10 ·
In another thread I read where there was a rumor that the model 3 upgrades were troublesome from air leakage into the coolant lines, making it more difficult for rangers to perform the service. The fact that model 3's are not currently upgrading might support that. OR it could be that S & X are more expensive vehicles and they're getting first chance.

Too bad since I have a ranger visit scheduled for next week and getting my computer upgraded would be sweet. Might finally get my dual motor badge. (woo-hoo!)
 
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#11 ·
I just heard from a Tesla service employee that there may be a larger push coming soon for retrofits, and that in some areas they may have "pop-up events" where multiple cars/technicians can work on cars. Pretty clever way to improve efficiency of mobile techs. Step from car to car. And a little community chit-chat as well.
 
#12 ·
Let’s be real here. FSD isn’t happening for another year ... at a minimum. We got time for our upgrades.
 
#13 ·
The Tesla way with something like this would be that Elon will put out a tweet like “btw, HW3 is necessary for enhanced summon to almost not suck” making people start chomping at the bit to get the upgrade. Realistically, I can imagine they might be working out the kinks right now, and could very well prioritize S & X upgrades due to costs, and then roll out to the Model 3 masses. Hopefully in maybe 6 months this starts rolling steadily. I like the notion of ‘upgrade day’ gathering type of thing.
 
#14 ·
Any progress being made on the HW3 Upgrades? I am still doubting if this will ever happen. Since they already have the hardware in production for six months now at least there must be some benefit to it even before FSD is completed. If they’re too busy to do it now I can’t imagine once the Y rolls out that this will still be a priority for them. But the biggest frustration is all we have is a tweet telling us they will supply this to us. It would also help anyone trying to sell their car to say is that they’ve had the computer upgraded already.

Hopefully some of you with influence can continue to put pressure on Tesla to not forget about this. If it’s going to be another year they could at least notify the customers in writing that qualify for this and give us a general feel for the timeframe. I’ve had my car for over a year and I’ve only received about three messages in my inbox on the app.I don’t believe one more notification would be too taxing on them. I can’t imagine many of us check the inbox on the app looking for new info since there’s been virtually none.
 
#15 ·
Outside of a few reports of folks being upgraded while in for other service, things have been fairly quiet on the HW3 upgrade front. Not sure why that would lead you to believe that it’s not going to happen at all. By all accounts, they are sorting out how to best do the upgrades in an efficient manner and at a point where there is benefit for Tesla as well as the owner to justify the disruption. I’m not sure that there would be any discernible difference if I were to upgraded today vs say 1Q20 where perhaps more of the NN will be optimized for HW3.

The tech geek in me would absolutely love to get upgraded right now just so I can have the new shiny object, but realistically, it wouldn’t make any difference just yet. Definitely excited to see the improvements that it allows in the near future however.

Certainly Tesla’s communications haven’t always been top-notch, but if I recall correctly, there have been other, somewhat more official communications indicating the HW3 upgrades for existing FSD owners in things like the quarterly result calls. IANAL but I would suspect that if they were to try to completely reneg on the upgrades at some point, they’d have a massive loser of a lawsuit on their hands. If were modified to be HW4 upgrades, they could just kick the can down the road a bit.

Ultimately, I expect the upgrades to open up in Q1 or Q2 at the latest to get folks pushed to the new hardware and to allow them to get FSD ‘feature complete’.
 
#16 ·
I am concerned because it has been very quiet. I believe they changed the definition of auto pilot and FSD. Also the fact that it had the caveat that if it would be replaced when it was needed or helpful. I am worried that we will just be notified that because the new software is so efficient we will be fine with the older computer hardware. Since this is probably a couple thousand dollar upgrade and they are trying to keep their profits going and they are focused on the new models I just hope someone at Tesla is concerned about us. All I was asking for was an email saying that I qualify for it and it will be scheduled when it makes sense. I don’t see a mass email to everyone that purchase for FSD is a difficult thing to do. I do expect top-notch communications from a top-notch company. Their communication has sucked it hasn’t even been close to top-notch. For it to be already be November and no status or policy update is concerning to me. Very few companies historically have chose doing the right thing at the cost of profits. Tesla is a different type of company but I’m still waiting for them to prove it, because I do not have faith.
 
#17 ·
There’s ZERO difference in the way vehicles with HW2.5 and ones with HW3 drive today. Until there’s a verifiable difference, we shouldn’t be overly concerned with getting HW3.

Personally, I don’t see the HW3 deployments occurring till late 2020.
 
#18 ·
There's ZERO difference in the way vehicles with HW2.5 and ones with HW3 drive today. Until there's a verifiable difference, we shouldn't be overly concerned with getting HW3.

Personally, I don't see the HW3 deployments occurring till late 2020.
What facts are you basing your zero difference on? Having that much more processing power makes zero difference? So you're saying decisions aren't made any faster not even at a fraction of a millisecond? You're also saying at 80 miles an hour a millisecond doesn't matter? Zero really?This is exactly why I don't have faith. As faith is belief with the absence of evidence. I will stay a skeptic. I agree with your fourth quarter 2020. If it's going to be that long as I think a lot of people believe even more reason why an email would be very comforting. the only reason I could see you for not putting the promise in writing is they don't intend to follow through with it. But maybe they're just too busy
 
#19 ·
So you do raise a valid point regarding the costs of the HW3 retrofit. From Tesla’s perspective, suppose their cost of the FSD computer is ~ $1000/unit. If they were to start retrofitting cars right now, they would be essentially ‘losing’ $1000 plus labor costs times X number of cars that are eligible for the upgrade. If there is zero benefit currently for those owners to get the upgrade, plus there is the ’hassle‘ of scheduling the time etc which can annoy owners, plus there is risk of something going wrong - the guy doing the install scratches a seat, or accidentally breaks a connector, leading to further costs and annoyance. With all of the costs, that can amount to a real impact on their financials, perhaps turning the modest profit that they had in Q3 into a slight loss in Q4, where is the incentive for them to start upgrading in earnest?

If they were to wait until they have things ironed out, have software that actually takes advantage of HW3 so they can get headlines like ‘I just got upgraded to HW3 and now my car drives me to the grocery store while I sleep!’, the gains can outweigh the costs. Until that point, there isn’t a significant reason to start pushing things out.
 
#20 ·
They've held off realizing the income from FSD options owners had paid for. I would think the computer upgrade (knowing this was one of the things they provisioned for at the beginning) allows them to pull some more money from this reserve future income pool.

If they're already able to produce enough computers to match demand and service centers have periods of lower demand, why not start pushing upgrades as soon as you can?

Last quarter they pulled in some income due to advanced summon - similar milestones would help offset the continuous cost of developing FSD.
 
#21 · (Edited)
I talked to our ranger several weeks ago and he said they might try to rent a shop near here for a day, bring in the needed equipment and try to update all the 3's in this area.

He also mentioned that the computer is at the highest point in the liquid-coolant line so if there's air in the line, it could fry the chip in one second, so very important to get the air out.
 
#22 ·
  1. FSD is very much at the forefront of Tesla's strategy, and how it positions itself on earnings calls and at the annual shareholder meetings. Recordings and transcripts are available here and at ir.tesla.com.
  2. HW3 is required for FSD.
  3. The initial feature-complete FSD has already been demonstrated at Autonomy Day.
  4. Tesla has $500M of deferred revenue that they can recognize as feature-complete FSD is delivered to customers. This is significant because this will significantly boost Tesla profitability (though not cash) since it has very low cost associated with it. Tesla is motivated, both for past cars like ours as well as future ones.
  5. I have already heard from multiple people at Tesla (one a service manager) that Tesla is planning the most efficient way to execute the retrofits.
  6. We have already heard of the first swaps actually occurring. Though owners don't report any magic on current software.
  7. It's real. It's happening. When feature-complete FSD begins to roll out, there will be a push.
 
#24 ·
There is one additional piece of information to consider - currently, the HW3 module is not exempt from the China import tariffs - https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/03/trumps-tariffs-could-knock-teslas-autopilot-off-course/ - so it is more expensive for Tesla to import right now. Consequently, I would not expect to see the broad roll out of the HW3 to existing owners until one of two things happens: either the trade war is settled, or Tesla wants to roll out features that can only be implemented on the new hardware.
Since the owners of newer Model 3s are not reporting different features from what the rest of us have, it appears that Tesla has been able to implement everything so far with the older hardware. They have a trade-off between the technical debt of developing against the older hardware and the monetary cost of the tariff. It appears that right now, the monetary cost is larger than the technical cost, so development is going forward on the old hardware and only the minimum number of new HW3 modules are being imported (for new vehicles, replacements, etc). I would not expect that to be true forever, changes to either the development of FSD or to the trade war could significantly alter the equation and trigger the roll out, but for now enjoy what we have and the new features that are being released :)
 
#27 ·
Well it's been in the manual for model 3 for since at least 2019.16 (if not prior) and has been absent from my HW2.5 Model 3 since I received it (same timeframe). I doubt it being enabled in HW3 cars is a bug because of it being in the manual.
If it's a bug then Tesla doesn't know anything about it because I have been to my service center and had them look at it as well as have an ongoing dialogue with Tesla Support, neither of which have led to any sort of conclusive answer.
 
#28 ·
I don't have any way to prove this, but "Summon before exiting" not working on HW2.5 feels like a bug to me. That feature is built on the "old" summon code which only uses the ultrasonic sensors, not the cameras / radar. Since the ultrasonic based summon pre-dates HW2.5, it would be hard to say that there is a limitation of that hardware that prevents it from working in this specific instance. My guess is that it is a UI bug in the model 3, and only shows up on HW2.5 cars. If there was a difference in Enhanced Summon, then that could well be related to the hardware, since Enhanced Summon uses mostly the cameras / radar, but the legacy summon code is not CPU bound.
 
#29 ·
Whether there is a difference in the capabilities of the two hardware platforms now, I would be a lot more comfortable during my wait if I had some commitment, even an email, that I was inline for the upgrade. The longer the wait, the easier it will be for Tesla to renege on the tweet promise. I am concerned that the stockholders might be more important than the early adopters in the future. I don't even think a class action suit would work at that time because when I purchase Autopilot and FSD, there was no definition as to what that will be and what I was actually buying.
 
#30 ·
Relax.
Seriously. :)

You ordered full self-driving. If Tesla doesn't deliver it to vehicles that currently have hardware v2 (like yours and mine, and thousands of others), they would have a HUGE lawsuit on their hands, as well as an incredible PR nightmare. They're not going to allow that to happen.
 
#31 ·
Bless your Heart
Seriously o_O

All I am asking for is and email notification that I qualify. Not much effort from Tesla. You would think they have compiled a list by now of who qualifies. We also have to assume that VIN 01 and be upgraded as easy as VIN 200,000. They did make the caveat that it would be upgraded when we could benefit from it. If my version cameras or the buss is not compatible I would not be able to realize the benefits thus there would be no need to upgrade the computer. Then they would just need to change the definition of FSD and say we got it with advanced summon. But they don't even need to change the definition since they have yet to define it. What I currently have is not even full autopilot which I paid for also.

I guess you know exactly what you purchased when you bought Full-Self-Driving. I know what I thought it was but it appears that if it does get to the robotaxi level or even full self driving will be years away. Advance summon is 30% party trick 70% embarrassment each time I use it and that has only been in clear parking lots and it is moving at a crawl. Al lot of progress has been made on autopilot in the last year but at this or even and accelerated rate I feel FSD was way over sold and hyped.

If they delay long enough the PR nightmare will not even be a blip it will just be incentive to buy the new model.

I was also promised that as an early adopter I would get early access. This promise has been replaced by a button on the screen that says I would like software relases sooner that later. The goal post was definitely moved on that one as they should be able to push the update notifications out on the same day, like most software companies, and let the users decide if they want to download it. Maybe I just need to relax, since I am sure my invite for the early access program will be coming any day.
 
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#32 ·
If my version cameras or the buss is not compatible I would not be able to realize the benefits thus there would be no need to upgrade the computer.
Why do you think you would have hardware that is incompatible with HW3?
 
#33 ·
I don't have any reason other than the fact that many changes have been made since VIN 01. Also I am skeptical of computer upgrades as I have been involved in computers and have an automation/engineering company and I know that replacing one component on a holistic system rarely works, In fact I have never seen it work. One reason I ditched my Audi A7 was that the firmware updates on my 2012 A7 did not play well with my old computer and peripherals. What makes you believe that the only difference between Vin01 and VIN500000 is the computer? I don't even think I have seen a tweet that says that.
 
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#36 ·
#34 ·
I've been in IT for decades and I've swapped out components in holistic systems many, many times and had it work fabulously. With the M3 at this time, there is no reason to think that moving the HW3 is going to be some kind of massive concern. They swapped to installing HW3 seemingly overnight back in April and I can't say that I've heard of one hiccup in the process. While there have been some changes on the M3 from 'VIN 01' to 'VIN today', they've by-and-large been pretty small things, add another piece of plastic here, do a little something different with the rear seats. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any modification to the cameras, sensors, wiring to the FSD computer etc. Tesla 'owns' the whole FSD stack, so swapping out the one component should be just fine. Additionally, don't put more functionality onto the FSD computer than actually exists. It's a processing engine, it takes inputs and spits out outputs. Turning the wheel or pressing the accelerator are all still different systems. The infotainment is all a separate system.
 
#35 ·
As of yesterday, I've been told it's still S/X owners with priority for HW3 upgrades, and Model 3 if:
  1. Your car is in for work, AND
  2. Your car is on the priority list
By the way, my Model 3 VIN 9371 (March 2018) with FSD added earlier this year is NOT on that list.

For what it's worth.
 
#37 ·
As of yesterday, I've been told it's still S/X owners with priority for HW3 upgrades, and Model 3 if:
  1. Your car is in for work, AND
  2. Your car is on the priority list
How do we find out if our cars are on the "priority list?" And why is there a "priority list" to begin with? Why would some cars be ahead of others? Either you paid for FSD or you didn't...
 
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