Tesla has provided a new update on its plans for retrofits for vehicles equipped with the older HW3/AI3 hardware, and the update is not what many were hoping for.
Elon Musk first hinted plans to upgrade the older self-driving computers in October 2024. Musk made those plans official in January 2025, even saying it would “painful and difficult,” giving hope for many owners that they might soon benefit from the latest FSD versions and features.
However, after today’s update, it looks like an upgrade or retrofit won’t be happening any time soon.
According to CFO Vaibhav Taneja, the upgrades will not begin until the company rolls out Full Self-Driving (FSD) Unsupervised, in other words, the version of FSD where no driver will be required.
“What we want to do is get unsupervised [FSD] done on HW4 first. Once it’s done, then we will go back and look at what we need to do with the HW3 cars. The focus is first to get unsupervised out, and then we will go back and see what more work we will need to do,” Taneja said.
This is obviously not the news HW3/AI3 vehicle owners were hoping for, especially given Musk’s history of over-promising when it comes to achieving true Full Self-Driving (FSD). While Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin has so far been successful, with Musk saying earlier this week they plan to integrate elements of that build into the general production release, there have been no indications on when FSD Unsupervised will be available to the public.
The earliest Model 3 builds with AI3 are already approaching 8-9 years of age, so given the possibility for a protracted
The earliest Model 3 vehicles equipped with AI3 are now approaching 8–9 years old. If the rollout of FSD Unsupervised takes much longer, many owners may never benefit from an upgrade, particularly if they decide to sell their vehicle. A potential solution would be for Tesla to allow these owners to transfer their FSD package to a new vehicle—an incentive that has been offered sporadically in recent years but never made permanent.
There is also a chance that even HW4/AI4 might not fully support FSD Unsupervised, which could mean retrofits or hardware upgrades for those cars as well. According to today’s earnings call, HW5/AI5 is expected to debut in vehicles starting in late 2026.
Are you a HW3/AI3 owner? Will you stick it out, or buy a new Tesla and transfer FSD? Let us know in the comments below.
