Tesla to upgrade all HW3 cameras and computers to HW4 - RJ, your move.

[Noplacelikeloam]

Well now a precedent has been set.

Rivian? G1 upgrades?

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[DuoRivians]

I’ll believe it when I see it

 

[godfodder0901]

Well now a precedent has been set.

Rivian? G1 upgrades?

Rivian will never do that. Makes no sense financially with only ~80k sold and way less than half that would use it.

 

[VSG]

Well now a precedent has been set.

Source? You didn't link to the article or any official press release, but if it's inferring this based on Elon's statements about HW3 on the earnings call, that's NOT what he said

 

[tbinmd]

cannot see Tesla taking this profit hit, unless they are being forced to do a recall. I saw the estimate was 4 million cars.

here‘s an article.

https://electrek.co/2026/04/22/tesl...rofit-hw3-cars-it-said-could-do-fsd-but-cant/

 

[VSG]

Yeah, nothing was promised. All speculation. Like a lot of other things Elon says to manipulate the market.

 

[Riviot]

The funny thing is, a lot of us would pay for this, even if it wasn't for Autonomy+. I just want to read the license plate of the guy riding my ass.

Rivian would have to make either an adapter for Gen1 to Gen2 camera or a completely different camera. And obviously a different AXM. The coax matches, but the plug does not. You really gotta RAM it in there, and the system won't accept it.

 

[SANZC02]

cannot see Tesla taking this profit hit, unless they are being forced to do a recall. I saw the estimate was 4 million cars.

here‘s an article.

https://electrek.co/2026/04/22/tesl...rofit-hw3-cars-it-said-could-do-fsd-but-cant/

Key part of this statement, nothing in there committing to it although statements like this do invite lawsuits.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk just proposed the company could build “microfactories” in urban areas in order to upgrade the computers and cameras in those videos, adding high costs for a company that is already running thin on profitability – but we’ll see if it actually happens.

 

[dleepnw]

You really think Elmo is going to do that? I doubt it. He misleads, deceives and outright lies about a lot of things to inflate stock prices and sales. Over 18% of CT sales in Q4 2025 were to Spacex.

There is no way Tesla is going to spend all that money to build microfactories, pay for all the h/w and the labor? This is just another delay tactic theyre using to keep owners in limbo and try to manipulate their stock prices. Remember, Elmo gets paid from Tesla in stocks not salary.

 

[AaronTV]

If Tesla does this it would be a paid upgrade for most owners and possibly a free upgrade for people who bought FSD on hardware 3. Elon also mentioned providing an incentive to upgrade to a HW 4 vehicle as a possibility as well.

I don't really see an analog for Rivian here. Gen 1 owners never had the option to buy any sort of autonomous package that Rivian then failed to deliver on their Gen 1 hardware.

I know Rivian said Gen 1 would have that capability eventually but that's not the same as actually SELLING owners that functionality and then abandoning them when Gen 2 arrived. It was always expected that, if available, those features would eventually incur a cost. They never became available. It'd be nice if Rivian could offer a paid hardware upgrade to Gen 1 owners but it's not gonna happen.

 

[ndmiller]

The seemingly illogical strategy idea is exactly the behavior incentivized in his pay package thats worth 1 trillion $. Part of that package target is 10 million FSD subscribers. If Tesla converts 4 million Teslas to HW4, a portion could subscribe to FSD towards achieving the target.

Who knows if it will happen, but the reason for the idea is pretty clear.

 

[Great Gatsby]

Can we keep a discussion about Tesla without going off the rails? It's exhausting.

What is happening here is not unheard of. Lucid offers a $950 upgrade for the Lucid Air for older models to upgrade the center console unit (https://store.lucidmotors.com/center-console-control-unit/). I hope Tesla goes through with this for their customers, even if at a premium. Extra revenue for the company and a way to keep cars up to date for the early adopters. I see it as a win win.

With EVs being partially computer on wheels, I see this as a good idea for the industry to adopt. Would help older models from feeling completely obsolete and from depreciating into oblivion. I hope to see other manufacturers take a similar approach as their fleet ages.

 

[VandalSibs]

Apparently it's not just a computer upgrade this time - all the cameras would need to be replaced as well, and that is a lot of disassembly involved.

I highly doubt this is gonna happen at any real scale.

 

[Motoarzon]

Apparently it's not just a computer upgrade this time - all the cameras would need to be replaced as well, and that is a lot of disassembly involved.

I highly doubt this is gonna happen at any real scale.

Yes, it's a big job that's why they are suggesting setting up retrofit stations with a mini assembly line with perhaps a couple dozen operations. But at $100/mth recurring FSD subscriptions (more $$$ when "unsupervised"), there is easily a business case to do an upgrade. And when FSD is "unsupervised" and the vehicle can be a full time robotaxi, It will easily make well over $36k plus per year in revenue. It only takes 10-20 cheap rides in 24hrs to make $100 of revenue, x365days.
Therefore $2k for hardware (estimated cost from Sandy Munro's analysis), and say effectively $500-$1000 in labor to completely retrofit a vehicle is very worth it.

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