Tesla is expected to announce their new self-driving computer known as Hardware 4.0 in the coming days. That upgrade was expected to result in new and additional cameras being added to the cars, but a recent spotting at the Fremont factory reveals new cameras have been added, but not yet additional cameras as suspected.
Several new Model S and Model X cars were found in the Fremont factory parking lot yesterday by our friends over at The Kilowatts (@klwtts), who took several close up photos of all of the cameras showing that they feature new lenses and housings.
For the side repeater camera, it appears to have both a new camera and a new housing which points the camera out at more of an angle, as opposed to the original housing which points more towards the rear of the car. We can also see the light strip for the turn signals has been updated and shortened.
Use the slider below to see the old camera on the right and the new camera on the left.
The rear camera also seems have to had a substantial upgrade. Based on these photos it appears to have a larger lens potentially allowing for a wider field of view, and the camera housing is much larger on the right of the camera itself. It also appears to have changed position based on the license plate holder screws which can be seen in both photos.
It is a similar story for the b-pillar cameras, which again feature a larger lens, however the placement and angle of them appears to be roughly the same.
But perhaps most interesting of all is the forward facing cameras. Based on a previous leak out of Giga Shanghai we were expecting the forward facing cameras to be reduced to just two, however in this photo it appears there are still three cameras. It is possible that one of the housings was empty, but we can’t tell from this angle.
Unfortunately there were no additional cameras on either the Model S or the Model X by The Kilowatts. Based on a teardown of a HW4 computer it looked like new cameras were going to be added to the front and rear bumpers, possibly in the headlights and foglights, but none were found.
Based on the lack of new cameras and that there still appears to be forward facing cameras, we were reluctant to believe this was a HW4 vehicle, but hacker @greentheonly was supplied with the VIN and later confirmed it did indeed have HW4. Green did not divulge how he was able to confirm this.
yes, this one is hw4
— green (@greentheonly) February 22, 2023
The new hardware weren’t the only items discovered by The Kilowatts. They also found the new round steering wheel and the new ‘T E S L A’ lettering on the rear applique, which received mixed reviews by our followers on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/DriveTeslaca/status/1628136386967801857
Steering wheels now in production! 😅 pic.twitter.com/3iVsXQbGlY
— The Kilowatts 🚗⚡️ (@klwtts) February 21, 2023
