Tesla has been upgrading vehicles equipped with the older HW2.5 computers since September last year. Canadian Tesla owners started receiving the upgraded HW3.0 computers, which are capable of handling Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) package, earlier this year.
When the upgrades first rolled out in the US you had to take your vehicle to a Tesla Service Center and drop it off for the whole day, sometimes even overnight. After just a few months, we began hearing reports of a few lucky owners being selected to have a Tesla Mobile Ranger install the new computer.
Now it appears Tesla has created efficiencies and improved the process so much that a mobile ranger can now install the HW3.0 computer in a Model 3 in very little time. Jack Brown, a Tesla owner in California posted this video from his Nest camera showing the upgrade taking place in his driveway, noting it was done in “a little over an hour”.
Unfortunately we don’t get to see any details of what was done, but it is still interesting to see that it can be performed by mobile rangers in much less time than it used to.
There are however a few caveats with this.
The first is that not all mobile rangers are trained or have the necessary equipment to perform the upgrade at your home or place of work, so it will be hit or miss if this is offered in your area.
We have also yet to receive any reports of a mobile ranger performing the upgrade at someone’s home in Canada, so it appears this hasn’t reached north of the border just yet, but hopefully it will soon.
Have you had a mobile ranger perform your FSD upgrade? Let us know in the comments below.
UPDATE: Looks like this has made its way to Canada. Mike has reached out to Drive Tesla Canada on Twitter to let us know that a Tesla Mobile Service ranger is performing the HW3.0 upgrade on his car today (May 29, 2020) in Maple, Ontario.
UPDATE:: We’ve received word from another reader that Tesla Mobile Service has also completed the HW3.0 upgrade on Vancouver Island.
Maple Ontario just north of Toronto.
— mikæl21 (@mikel21) May 29, 2020