Tesla Chip Upgrade Coming This Year To Cars, Says Elon Musk

Elon Musk has confirmed that the current fleet of older Tesla cars, or as they’re commonly known as “Hardware 2” or “HW2” cars, will start receiving chip upgrade at the end of this year.

End of Q4, most likely

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2019

Elon confirmed this via Twitter. The upgrade will require Tesla to retrofit thousands of current cars, including the Model S, 3 and X with the new Tesla Chip, unveiled a few months ago.

Tesla Cars Chip Upgrade For Complete Autonomous Driving

Tesla Chip Upgrade Model 3 Cars — Tesla Model 3

Hardware 2 or HW2 model Tesla cars began manufacturing in 2016. These models were equipped with necessary equipment including camera, radar, and sensors that could enable fully autonomous driving. One downside to them is the older Nvidia chip, which is less powerful than the latest Tesla chip.

Thus, in order to make fully autonomous Tesla cars, the HW2 models will be retrofitted with newer Tesla chips.

Currently, Tesla cars have two levels of “self-driving technology” with them:

Auto-pilot
Full-Self Driving or FSD

The AutoPilot, now offered as standard, offers lane steering and adaptive cruise control. Full-Self Driving or FSD, on the other hand, has features like Summon, which can allow the car to park itself without any human assistance, Navigate on AutoPilot and an active guidance system.

Anyone who purchased full self-driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free. This is the only change between Autopilot HW2.5 & HW3. Going forward “HW3” will just be called FSD Computer, which is accurate. No change to vehicle sensors or wire harness needed. This is v important. https://t.co/lICMpT7xnX

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 29, 2019

So all those people who have purchased an FSD package with their HW2 electric car, will get a free Tesla chip upgrade by the end of 2019.

Focus on Tesla Robotaxi

All these upgrades are in the preparation of Tesla Robotaxi, which Elon thinks will be the ultimate savior for his company. Elon is betting on Tesla to appreciate in value once they are equipped with full self-driving tech. He also tweeted earlier about how a future Tesla could retail at a ridiculously high price than current models.

Hence, prompting the fanboys and the market to start taking Tesla as a serious competitor in the future car business. Will it be true? Only time will tell.