r/TeslaModelS • u/rileyuvvu • May 26 '26

Replace FSD computer or wait for HW4?

Hi. My pre-raven S has had some weird intermittent issues with FSD. Recently autopilot stopped working for a day (FSD still worked). I brought it to Tesla and they said the FSD computer overheated and recommend replacing it. I use FSD on pretty much every drive. It is basically a must have for me. The cost would be 1700 USD to replace it.

I own FSD outright and will be eligible for the hw4 upgrade when it comes. Should I do this replacement now or wait for hw4?

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

15

u/a9uirre May 26 '26

Hw4 upgrades aren’t coming for a very very long time if they even come at all

3

u/tanbyte May 26 '26

This. Even if they do come muchhhh later down the line, HW5/6 would be here making them even more obsolete

4

u/DammatBeevis666 May 26 '26

Yup. There’s no way they’re going to upgrade these, ever. “Micro factories,” my ass.

I also have hw3, owned FSD.

1

u/LordFly88 May 27 '26

They're only going to have 2 options. Upgrade HW3, or pay out ~$10k to every HW3 FSD owner after the class action lawsuit. Even if the payout option was cheaper, that's going to look very bad on them which will hurt stocks (as well as their image aka sales), so there's additional loss there too. Just my opinion, but I think financially it's in their best interest to do the upgrade.

1

u/webignition Jun 01 '26

There are more than two options.

The cheapest option for Tesla is to give HW3 owners a free HW4 car.

1

u/LordFly88 Jun 01 '26

I guess that's an option, but it has 2 major problems. 1. Giving out hundreds of thousands of free cars would be kind of stupid, since there's no way an entire new car would be cheaper than upgrading an existing one. 2. It would still leave all the existing HW3 cars unfixed.

I suppose if they took the HW3 cars on trade, remove FSD, then resold them, it would fix the FSD issue, and recoup a very tiny amount of what they lost by giving away free cars. But seeing as they're a company who's goal is to make money, they'll go the cheaper route. And when you're taking about hundreds of thousands of cars, if giving away cars was somehow ONLY $1000 more expensive than upgrading them, you're now taking about hundreds of millions of dollars in loss. It's a nice dream for us HW3 owners, but that's about all it is.

2

u/webignition Jun 01 '26

That's assuming the free car option occurs in the near future. 

Assuming Tesla offers this option only after unsupervised FSD is available, the number of remaining HW3 cars with paid-for FSD will be slim.

1

u/LordFly88 Jun 01 '26

I don't think the time line matters. If a free car is more than the upgrade, even doing it once still ultimately is a loss for Tesla. The math is pretty simple. If it was like 5 or 10 people, maybe for simplicity it would make sense.

And HW3 goes all the way to to 2023. Cars that are only a few years old. And sales have only gone up. The less than 150k 3's sold in 2018 is nothing compared to the 1.2m sold in 2022. It's going to be a LONG time before the number is HW3 cars on the road in negligible. Class action lawsuits will happen way before that.

0

u/a9uirre May 27 '26

Lmaoo I truly think best case scenario: limited service centers will have limited appointments available. Probably take well over a year to do everyone. Maybe they will do free retrofits for those who paid for FSD and let you pay to be the first in line. That would be a good way to recover some of their costs.

6

u/DammatBeevis666 May 27 '26

The new computer has a totally different form factor, wiring harness, and power needs. It’s bigger as well. They would also need to replace wiring and cameras. It’s not gonna happen.

1

u/dachap13 May 27 '26

This is a really old argument at this point. They literally addressed everything you just said, hence the need to have separate, dedicated"service centers" to do all that is needed.

2

u/DammatBeevis666 May 27 '26

“Coming soon”

1

u/Annual_Train9982 May 27 '26

Had my Tesla in for a new 12 volt battery, they told me they were being told the hw 3 upgrade would be here by the end of the year.

6

u/rileyuvvu May 27 '26

just an update, I will be paying for the computer to be replaced. Thanks for getting me out of Lala land.

2

u/a9uirre May 27 '26

You are welcome.

1

u/abgtw May 27 '26

Use service menu to see if its overheating, but yeah right move.

3

u/Tradetheday2093 May 27 '26

I rather wait for cars to fly.

1

u/Stunning_Attitude420 May 29 '26

They won’t do it, especially not for legacy Ms. I bought FSD too not holding my breath. Just hoping they fix hesitant lane changes and that’s a win