There has been a lot of speculation that Tesla was going to be adding new cameras to its vehicles with the introduction of Hardware 4.0 (HW4/AP4), led mainly by a teardown of the computer by hacker @greentheonly which revealed additional camera inputs. Those hopes seemed to be dashed when earlier this week newly built Model S and Model X vehicles spotted at Fremont had new cameras, but no additional cameras in the front or rear bumpers.
However it appears there will still be new cameras, but Tesla will be phasing them in to all of their vehicles over the coming year. According to Teslascope, who spoke with several employees, the new cameras won’t appear for at least another few months, but when they do they will first be on the Model S and Model X as we have suspected.
From there the additional cameras, the locations of which were not confirmed by the employees, will be phased in to the Model 3 and Model Y before the end of the year. This will happen for all Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built at Fremont, Giga Texas, Giga Berlin, and Giga Shanghai.
The Cybertruck will also get the new camera placements when it enters production later this summer. It was also said that in-production Semis will be receiving HW4 and the new cameras.
First Deliveries with HW4
The vehicles spotted earlier this week with the new cameras were confirmed to be equipped with HW4. However it will likely still be a few weeks until we see the first deliveries taking place. According to Teslascope the software to support HW4 isn’t finished yet, but the engineers have a deadline to complete the project by March, so if all goes according to plan the first deliveries will likely happen in early next month.
As for retrofits, nothing has changed from Elon Musk’s prior statements that it will not be economically feasible to upgrade from HW3 to HW4, with one of the reasons being the difference in physical size between the two computers. However it is unclear at this point if cars equipped with HW4 delivered but without the new cameras will be able to get those added at a later date.
You can read the full thread from Teslascope below.
https://twitter.com/teslascope/status/1628595371835551744
