Elon Musk has broken his silence on the fact that Tesla vehicles may not have the full autonomous driving (FSD) capability that has been promised for years. Tesla’s HW3 hardware, launched in 2019, was introduced as autonomous driving-ready at the time, and Tesla users were told that they could benefit from autonomous driving in the future by paying extra for this hardware. However, Musk’s recent statements revealed that the current HW3 hardware may not be sufficient for full autonomous driving. Here are the details…
Elon Musk: Tesla HW3 may not be fully autonomous!
Tesla says its recently developed HW4 hardware is several times more powerful than the HW3. The HW4 works like a brain with more processing power, allowing it to better respond to the needs of autonomous driving. “Everything works easier with HW4 and it’s much harder to achieve the same level of safety as HW3,” Musk said, admitting that he had some concerns about whether HW3 would be reliable enough to use FSD truly unattended.
Therefore, users with HW3 hardware for FSD features may have to upgrade to HW4 in the future. Nevertheless, Musk said Tesla will provide a free HW4 upgrade to users who have already purchased the current FSD package.
However, the different power and camera connectivity systems between HW3 and HW4 suggest that this transition could be hardware challenging. Integrating HW4 into existing vehicles will be a costly and technically challenging process for Tesla. Moreover, there is no certainty even about the success of this upgrade; Musk confirmed this uncertainty by saying, “We don’t know yet if HW3 is really upgradeable.”
Tesla’s ability to provide autonomous driving with only a camera-based system has been criticized by some experts. The absence of the LIDAR technology used by its competitors raises safety concerns and is thought to cause Tesla to fall behind in autonomous driving. For example, even the HW4 may not be enough to realize Musk’s long-promised autonomous taxi projects, and even more powerful hardware may be needed in the future.
Judging by recent developments, Musk’s long-standing promises of autonomous driving are still not fully realized.
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