is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Tesla vehicles with the company’s Hardware 3 (HW3) computer actually won’t receive unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD), CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday’s Q1 2026 earnings call. Approximately 4 million Tesla vehicles operate on the HW3 platform, meaning that a significant chunk of Tesla owners — including customers that paid for the feature when they bought their cars — are now locked out of being able to use unsupervised FSD, which has been something Musk has been hyping for years, unless they upgrade their car or their car’s hardware.
Musk:
I wish it were otherwise, but Hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD. We did think at one point it would have that, but relative to Hardware 4, it has only one-eighth of the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4. And memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD.
He added that:
For customers that have bought FSD, what we’re offering is essentially a discounted trade-in for cars that have AI4 hardware. 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. To do this efficiently, we’re going to have to set up microfactories, or small factories, in major metropolitan areas in order to do it efficiently. If it’s done at the service center, it’s extremely slow to do so and inefficient. We basically need mini production lines to make the change.
I do think over time it’s going to make sense for us to convert all Hardware 3 cars to Hardware 4, because that’s what enables them to enter the robotaxi fleet and have unsupervised FSD.
Musk admitted in January 2025, also on an earnings call, that Tesla would have to upgrade HW3 cars for people who bought FSD. One Dutch Tesla owner who has been waiting for FSD to come to HW3 cars was told by Tesla recently to “just be patient,” as reported by Electrek.
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