An Old Promise About Full Self-Driving Catches Up to Tesla

Yahoo

31-01-2025

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says older versions of computing hardware for Full Self-Driving (Supervised) will need to be updated, contrary to Tesla's longtime position that the computer hardware would not need upgrades.
Tesla is expected to retrofit HW4 in place of HW3 for a certain population of Tesla models stretching back over half a decade.
FSD is still operating at SAE Level 2 and requires driver attention to the road at all times, though the automaker has indicated that future software updates will permit higher levels of automated driving.
Tesla's Full Self-Driving system, which recently received a Supervised suffix to hint at the limits of its actual capabilities, has seen no shortage of promises or controversy since its launch. And several years in, it appears that one particular promise is catching up to the automaker.
On this week's conference call with investors, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was asked by an audience member regarding the possibility of owners who have purchased Full Self-Driving years ago facing a hardware upgrade for the still-evolving system at some point.
In the past, Tesla had said FSD capabilities would increase via over-the-air updates, and that the hardware itself would not need to be upgraded. Specifically, hardware version 3, or HW3, which debuted in 2019 was signaled to not require updates in the future as FSD's own abilities grew via software.
However, this plan now appears to have been too confident, with the Tesla CEO indicating that hardware version 4, or HW4, will need to be installed in all cars for future FSD capabilities.
"We are going to have to upgrade Hardware 3 for people who bought FSD," Musk said during the call. "That's the honest answer. It's going to be painful and difficult but that's what we're going to have to do."
Aside from the optimistic view that computer hardware that debuted in 2019 would never need to be replaced, especially for a system that relies on processing power, plans to update the hardware itself could impose hefty service costs on the automaker.
However, one issue that this predicament ignores is the reality of how long people actually keep their cars.
Tesla had been selling FSD since 2016, before HW3 arrived, and had launched FSD Beta in October 2020. The system has been offered to buyers and lessees on a monthly subscription basis, as well as the one-time purchase, with the current one-time price set at $8,000 outright or $99 a month. FSD is also not transferrable to new owners once a Tesla is sold on the aftermarket.
Additionally, Tesla has not disclosed just how many FSD subscriptions or outright purchases have been made by Tesla owners in recent years, so the number of cars that would require this retrofit remains unknown.
Therefore, the pool of cars that Tesla would have to realistically worry about updating does not stretch all the way to 2016, but is likely far more recent.
When it comes to actual capabilities, at the moment FSD has not progressed beyond SAE Level 2, thus requiring driver attention to the road at all times, while some competitors' systems are already offering eyes-off capabilities of SAE Level 3.
"The currently enabled features require a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment," Tesla notes regarding FSD.
For now, SAE Level 3 is permitted in only two US states (California and Nevada), and Mercedes-Benz remains the sole automaker that has offered it to buyers in the US.
A nationwide regulatory standard for automated and autonomous driving is one of the things that is expected to emerge from the Tesla CEO's involvement in the Trump administration, possibly paving the way for a more permissive Level 3 landscape.
Will FSD need lidar and radar to achieve eyes-off, hands-off operation in coming years, or can it accomplish this with video alone, as Tesla proposes? Please comment below.