Customers who bought Tesla’s Full Self-Driving will get a free upgrade from Hardware 3 to Hardware 4. Elon Musk reiterated the free upgrades at a recent earnings call.
A retail investor submitted a question to Tesla about Hardware 3 in the company’s Q4 and Full Year 2024 earnings call.
Question: Is it expected that Tesla will need to upgrade Hardware 3 vehicles? And if so, what is the timeline and expected impact on Tesla’s capex? I think they’re referring to the cost there.
Elon Musk responded to the questions honestly, and reiterated that Tesla will provide free upgrades to FSD users.
“I mean, I think the honest answer is that we’re going to have to upgrade people’s Hardware 3 computers for those that have bought Full Self-Driving, and that is the honest answer, and that’s going to be painful and difficult, but we’ll get it done. Now I’m kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package,” Musk replied.
Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Viahbhav Taneja added that the company hasn’t stopped working on Hardware 3. He commented that Tesla still releases software for Hardware 3.
“We released the 12.6 release recently, which was like a baby V13, but it’s a significant improvement compared to what they had previously. People are still finding ways to distill larger models in the smaller models. So, we’re not giving up on Hardware. We’re still working on it. Just will trail the Hardware 4 releases,” said Tesla’s CFO.


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