Tesla: Older models lack hardware for fully autonomous driving

Many Tesla owners paid thousands of dollars or euros several years ago for the prospect of autonomous driving, but have been waiting in vain for it to this day. This will also remain the case for the foreseeable future: As Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now made clear, several components of these older vehicles are technically insufficient for FSD.

For its Full Self-Driving technology (FSD), Tesla has installed four generations of retrofit kits in its cars over the past approximately 12 years, which bear the names Hardware 1 to Hardware 4. In April 2019, the sale of vehicles with Hardware 3 (HW3) began. The package was available for a one-time fee of $10,000 or €6,800 when purchasing a Tesla, but fully autonomous driving was at that time nothing more than a much-vaunted future vision of Tesla. Many customers bought their Tesla with the prospect that fully autonomous driving would be possible with HW3 later through corresponding software updates.

“Unfortunately, HW3 does not have the necessary capabilities”

Now that Hardware Generation 4 has been reached, Elon Musk has officially confirmed what many had already feared: Fully autonomous driving will not be possible with HW3 without extensive retrofitting. In a conference call on the first fiscal quarter results at Tesla, he addressed the topic (in the recording from minute 31). “Unfortunately hardware 3 I wish it were otherwise but hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD,” Musk explained.

“We did think at one point it it would have that, but relative to to hardware 4, it has only 1/8 of the memory bandwidth of hardware for and and memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD,” Musk said. For customers who purchased Hardware 3, Tesla wants to offer a “discounted trade-in” for a vehicle with Hardware 4. “We'll also be offering the ability to upgrade the car to replace the computer and you also need to replace the cameras unfortunately to go to hardware 4,” he said.

For large-scale retrofits, Musk believes “microfactories” in metropolitan areas would be needed; measures at the local Tesla partner would be too complex. Musk considers this step sensible, as the retrofitted vehicles could also be integrated into Tesla's robotaxi fleet. Musk did not comment on the timeline. However, it is likely to take years if Tesla ever actually implements these plans. In the meantime, Tesla promises another software update for HW3.

Tesla owners are fighting back

Many affected Tesla owners are not willing to accept this situation any longer. Dutchman Mischa Sigtermans is one of them and has now launched a website where affected European Tesla owners can register. He is aiming for a collective lawsuit or mass action under Dutch law. For Dutch Tesla owners, the HW3 setback is particularly bitter, as they live in the only European country where FSD is currently approved. However, only a Level 2 assistance system is currently permitted for Teslas there; the driver must be able to take back control at any time and is also always responsible.

A Tesla owner in the USA has already successfully sued the car manufacturer. A Small Claims Court, a court specifically for small disputes in US law, awarded him a refund of the full FSD fee of $10,600. However, this was also because Tesla did not respond to the court's attempts at contact at all. The car manufacturer is currently doing everything possible to delay the payment deadline, reports the e-car magazine Elektrek.

Tesla is taking a unique approach to autonomous driving technology: Musk is firmly convinced that vehicles only need cameras and artificial intelligence for this. Other providers like Waymo also rely on Lidar and Radar in addition to cameras for their robotaxis, which scan the vehicles' surroundings.

(nen)