Tesla vehicles equipped with Hardware 3 (HW3) will not receive unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities, according to CEO Elon Musk during the Q1 2026 earnings call. This affects around 4 million Tesla vehicles, which means many Tesla owners, including those who paid for the feature, are excluded from using unsupervised FSD unless they upgrade their vehicle or hardware.
Musk stated, “I wish it were otherwise, but Hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD. We did think at one point it would, but compared to Hardware 4, it only has one-eighth of the memory bandwidth. Memory bandwidth is crucial for unsupervised FSD.”
For customers who purchased FSD, Musk revealed that Tesla offers a discounted trade-in for cars with AI4 hardware. He also mentioned the possibility to upgrade the car’s computer and replace the cameras to transition to Hardware 4. To facilitate this, microfactories are planned in major cities, as service center upgrades are inefficient. Musk believes that eventually converting all Hardware 3 cars to Hardware 4 makes sense to access the robotaxi fleet and unsupervised FSD.
Previously, Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that Tesla would need to upgrade HW3 vehicles for FSD buyers. One Dutch Tesla owner, awaiting FSD for HW3 cars, was advised by Tesla to “just be patient,” as reported by Electrek.