It’s official: HW3 will not be able to achieve unsupervised FSD.

[YDR37]

As a prior AP2 2016 Model X P100D owner, I already went through the upgrade to the HW3 computer (done when I upgraded to MCU 2) and camera upgrade (done when they released FSD Beta wide).

I don't imagine the process will be quick due to the much larger number of HW3 vehicles on the road, but I don't see any reason why Tesla can't do it at a larger scale now.

They can do it, but it apparently will be more difficult than previous upgrades:

Tesla announced it will eventually offer a massive hardware upgrade to owners who previously purchased the Full Self-Driving package. This is not a simple computer swap like previous retrofits.

Tesla also stated for the first time that cameras will need to be updated, bringing them up to the much higher-resolution cameras of HW4 vehicles. Upgrading a HW3 vehicle to the AI4 standard will require new cameras, an updated vehicle computer, and an extensive overhaul of the internal wiring harnesses to support the increased data bandwidth.

And it could be expensive, if you didn't purchase FSD::

Tesla is prioritizing owners who already paid for the FSD software suite, but the hardware upgrades will eventually expand. Once the initial wave of purchased FSD conversions is complete, Tesla will likely offer the hardware upgrade as a paid option for the rest of the HW3 fleet, similar to how it handled older MCU upgrades. This will include owners who subscribe to FSD.

Given the massive amount of labor required to gut the interior, route new wiring, and install new cameras, owners should expect a steep fee for this out-of-pocket upgrade, likely landing somewhere in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.

One potential plus is that HW3 owners could maybe get upgraded to tomorrow's AI4+ instead of today's AI4:

At the earnings call, Tesla also announced a new AI4+ computer that will come with double the memory and more computing power. This could potentially be the hardware that makes its way to HW3 vehicles. However, it’s not expected to enter production until mid-2027.

Or there will be a simpler alternative ...

Of course, they'd much prefer you just buy a new vehicle.

And Tesla will provide an incentive to go that route ...

Tesla will offer a compelling alternative [to HW3 upgrades]. Affected owners will have the option to accept a special discount on the trade-in of their vehicle, which will go toward the purchase of a brand-new AI4-equipped vehicle.

Tesla didn’t go into further detail about the discount, but we would expect it to be roughly equivalent to the cost of the new FSD hardware and labor. We’d expect about a $4-$6k discount toward a new vehicle. The discount would have to be less than the cost of FSD, or Tesla would simply offer a refund of the FSD purchase.

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