Tesla has quietly begun deliveries of the Model S and Model X equipped with their latest Hardware 4.0 (HW4/AP4) self-driving computer. The deliveries have started even though Tesla hasn’t officially announced anything related to HW4, and we still don’t know much about the new computer.
Over the last few weeks there has been speculation that Tesla was already building Model S/X cars equipped with HW4 at the Fremont factory, but that deliveries weren’t going to begin until the software to go along with the new computers was completed.
It turns out that speculation was true, at least for the part about the new hardware being included in newly built cars. Over the weekend several Model S/X vehicles with HW4 and a new software version, 2023.2.200, were detected by third-party tracking service Teslascope.
However based on a report from one of those new owners who took delivery at the Fremont factory on Sunday of a Model X with HW4, the software is far from complete. According to Reddit user u/jasondclinton, his Model X was confirmed to have HW4 by his Delivery Advisor, and this was also confirmed as his car had the same 2023.2.200 software version listed above.
The Redditor shared that while his car has the new computer, the software is very incomplete. He noted that the driver-assist features like Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Autopilot are not available, and that no visualizations are displayed expect for lane markings. Even the feed for his backup camera was not functioning, although that will apparently be fixed through a service visit. You can check out his comprehensive photo album here.
Here are some other features he has noticed that are missing:
- Car agent representation on the legacy AP visualization (just the lanes are drawn)
- Cruise Control, Autopilot, and Navigate on Autopilot
- FSD opt-in
- Parking sensors
- Autopark
- Preview FSD Beta Visualization
- Summon
He also shared a video showing the lack of features.
So far this is a very strange rollout of HW4 and we know very little about its capabilities, at least officially. Noted Tesla hacker @greentheonly was able to get his hands on an early HW4 computer and perform a teardown analysis. According to green the step change from HW3 to HW4 is not as significant as many were hoping for, although the new computer did include additional camera inputs, hinting at the possibility of cameras being added to the front and rear bumpers to eliminate blind spots in these areas.
This Model X came without additional cameras, but it has been suggested that new cameras are coming to Tesla vehicles, but not until later this year, at which time they will be rolled out across the fleet to all models.
Hopefully we’ll be getting an official announcement from Tesla about HW4 and its capabilities, but more importantly for new owners Tesla will hopefully finish up the software so that they can have access to all the features they paid for.
This isn’t the only change to the Model S/X over the weekend. Last night Tesla lowered the prices of both vehicles in the US, while in Canada only the Model X saw price drops. With the changes the Plaid variants of both the Model S/X are now priced at the same amount.
