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Tesla owner upgrades Autopilot 2.5 to 3.0 Hardware: Cost, results, and more
Back in October 2018, Elon Musk stated on Twitter that Tesla owners with HW2.5 vehicles who purchased the Full Self-Driving suite will be receiving a free upgrade to the company’s custom-designed, homegrown HW3 Autopilot computer. Today, Tesla appears to be staying true to the CEO’s word, as recently shared by a Model X owner from Canada.
A Tesla Model X P100D owner who runs the Electric Dreams channel on YouTube recently received the company’s latest iteration of its V10 software. Being equipped with Hardware 2.5, the Model X was not able to take advantage of some new features that were rolled out by the electric car maker, such as the company’s updated driving visualizations improvements.
This was a bit disappointing for the Model X owner, especially since his vehicle was equipped with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite. With this, the owner-enthusiast opted to schedule a home visit from a Tesla Mobile Service technician. The request: to conduct a retrofit that would replace the Model X P100D’s HW2.5 computer with Tesla’s newer, more powerful, custom-designed HW3 FSD unit.
Commenting on the experience, the Tesla owner noted that he was not really expecting Tesla to respond to his request, but much to his pleasant surprise, an appointment was indeed processed. After signing some documents, it did not take long before a member of Tesla’s Mobile Service Team drove over to the Model X owner’s house to conduct a HW2.5 to HW3 retrofit on the all-electric SUV.
Unfortunately, the Model X owner was informed that no videos were allowed during the entire HW3 retrofit process. Nevertheless, images taken by the Electric Dreams host during the new Autopilot computer’s installation show that Tesla’s HW3 does seem more robust than the NVIDIA-powered HW2.5, with its large radiators and somewhat heftier look. It took around an hour and a half for the installation to be completed and an additional two hours for the necessary firmware to be loaded into the vehicle.
After this was completed, the Model X P100D was updated once more with Tesla’s latest software. And sure enough, features that were unavailable prior to the HW2.5 to HW3 retrofit, such as V10’s driving visualizations improvements, were now enabled. Overall, it appears that Tesla’s HW3 retrofits for Model S and Model X owners who purchased the FSD suite seem to be ongoing now, and true to Elon Musk’s words, the process is completely painless. The entire upgrade was free as well, as indicated by the $0 charge for the HW3 installation.
Yet, perhaps the best thing here really is the sheer convenience of the entire retrofit process. Back in September, Tesla owner-enthusiast Sofiaan Fraval noted on Twitter that his Model S received a HW3 retrofit when he paid a visit to the service center. If the Electric Dreams channel host’s video is any indication, it appears that retrofits are now being conducted by Tesla’s Mobile Service team, and they are also available on demand.
This ultimately bodes well for Tesla’s rollout of its Full Self-Driving suite. Musk, after all, has stated that the company will push HW3 retrofits when FSD features actually warrant the additional computing power of the custom-built Autopilot unit. This was explained by Musk in a tweet back in March. “Retrofits will start when our software is able to take meaningful advantage of the Tesla FSD computer, which is an order of magnitude more capable. For now, it’s slightly disadvantageous to have Tesla FSD computer as our software is more refined for HW2,” Musk wrote.
Considering the company’s rollout of new FSD features such as Smart Summon, it appears that HW3’s additional computing power is now becoming more useful for Tesla’s advanced capabilities.
Watch Electric Dreams‘ video about his Model X P100D’s HW2.5 to HW3 retrofit in the video below.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor is proving to be a difficult task, according to some riders who made the journey to Austin to attempt to ride in one of its vehicles that has zero supervision.
Last week, Tesla officially removed Safety Monitors from some — not all — of its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin, Texas, answering skeptics who said the vehicles still needed supervision to operate safely and efficiently.
BREAKING: Tesla launches public Robotaxi rides in Austin with no Safety Monitor
Tesla aimed to remove Safety Monitors before the end of 2025, and it did, but only to company employees. It made the move last week to open the rides to the public, just a couple of weeks late to its original goal, but the accomplishment was impressive, nonetheless.
However, the small number of Robotaxis that are operating without Safety Monitors has proven difficult to hail for a ride. David Moss, who has gained notoriety recently as the person who has traveled over 10,000 miles in his Tesla on Full Self-Driving v14 without any interventions, made it to Austin last week.
He has tried to get a ride in a Safety Monitor-less Robotaxi for the better part of four days, and after 38 attempts, he still has yet to grab one:
Wow just wow!
It’s 8:30PM, 29° out ice storm hailing & Tesla Robotaxi service has turned back on!
Waymo is offline & vast majority of humans are home in the storm
Ride 38 was still supervised but by far most impressive yet pic.twitter.com/1aUnJkcYm8
— David Moss (@DavidMoss) January 25, 2026
Tesla said last week that it was rolling out a controlled test of the Safety Monitor-less Robotaxis. Ashok Elluswamy, who heads the AI program at Tesla, confirmed that the company was “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader Robotaxi fleet with Safety Monitors,” and that “the ratio will increase over time.”
This is a good strategy that prioritizes safety and keeps the company’s controlled rollout at the forefront of the Robotaxi rollout.
However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the company can scale these completely monitor-less rides. It has proven to be extremely difficult to get one, but that is understandable considering only a handful of the cars in the entire Austin fleet are operating with no supervision within the vehicle.
Tesla has given its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent, as a new feature seems to show that the company is preparing for frequent border crossings.
Tesla owner and influencer BLKMDL3, also known as Zack, recently took his Tesla to the border of California and Mexico at Tijuana, and at the international crossing, Full Self-Driving showed an interesting message: “Upcoming country border — FSD (Supervised) will become unavailable.”
FSD now shows a new message when approaching an international border crossing.
Stayed engaged the whole way as we crossed the border and worked great in Mexico! pic.twitter.com/bDzyLnyq0g
— Zack (@BLKMDL3) January 26, 2026
Due to regulatory approvals, once a Tesla operating on Full Self-Driving enters a new country, it is required to comply with the laws and regulations that are applicable to that territory. Even if legal, it seems Tesla will shut off FSD temporarily, confirming it is in a location where operation is approved.
This is something that will be extremely important in Europe, as crossing borders there is like crossing states in the U.S.; it’s pretty frequent compared to life in America, Canada, and Mexico.
Tesla has been working to get FSD approved in Europe for several years, and it has been getting close to being able to offer it to owners on the continent. However, it is still working through a lot of the red tape that is necessary for European regulators to approve use of the system on their continent.
This feature seems to be one that would be extremely useful in Europe, considering the fact that crossing borders into other countries is much more frequent than here in the U.S., and would cater to an area where approvals would differ.
Tesla has been testing FSD in Spain, France, England, and other European countries, and plans to continue expanding this effort. European owners have been fighting for a very long time to utilize the functionality, but the red tape has been the biggest bottleneck in the process.
Tesla Europe builds momentum with expanding FSD demos and regional launches
Tesla operates Full Self-Driving in the United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship V3 gets launch date update from Elon Musk
The first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX’s next Starship launch, Flight 12, is expected in about six weeks. This suggests that the first flight of Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor V3 engines could happen as early as March.
In a post on X, Elon Musk stated that the next Starship launch is in six weeks. He accompanied his announcement with a photo that seemed to have been taken when Starship’s upper stage was just about to separate from the Super Heavy Booster. Musk did not state whether SpaceX will attempt to catch the Super Heavy Booster during the upcoming flight.
The upcoming flight will mark the debut of Starship V3. The upgraded design includes the new Raptor V3 engine, which is expected to have nearly twice the thrust of the original Raptor 1, at a fraction of the cost and with significantly reduced weight. The Starship V3 platform is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability.
The Starship V3 Flight 12 launch timeline comes as SpaceX pursues an aggressive development cadence for the fully reusable launch system. Previous iterations of Starship have racked up a mixed but notable string of test flights, including multiple integrated flight tests in 2025.
Interestingly enough, SpaceX has teased an aggressive timeframe for Starship V3’s first flight. Way back in late November, SpaceX noted on X that it will be aiming to launch Starship V3’s maiden flight in the first quarter of 2026. This was despite setbacks like a structural anomaly on the first V3 booster during ground testing.
“Starship’s twelfth flight test remains targeted for the first quarter of 2026,” the company wrote in its post on X.
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing without a Safety Monitor proves to be difficult
Tesla gives its biggest hint that Full Self-Driving in Europe is imminent
