Tesla has yet to announce their latest Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer often known as Hardware 4 (HW4), but well-known hacker @greentheonly has been in a position to get his hands on certainly one of the computers and perform a teardown, revealing some latest details about what we will expect, and confirming a few of what we already knew.
Based on a series of tweets published by green on Wednesday, Tesla is already constructing and including HW4 in latest Model X builds from Fremont, although none have been delivered to customers yet. Green doesn’t explain how he was in a position to obtain certainly one of the units, but he does share quite a few detailed photos to substantiate its legitimacy.
From the skin the brand new HW4 may be very different in shape and size, with green sharing side-by-side photos to indicate it is way thinner than the present HW3 computer. This all but confirms that a retrofit is not going to be possible, echoing what CEO Elon Musk said last month throughout the company’s Q4 2022 earnings call.
To start out with sorta bad news, The shape-factor is completely different, so definitely no retrofits on this one.
top/left is latest unit, bottom – current plaid unit) pic.twitter.com/iHziGZPIBj— green (@greentheonly) February 15, 2023
On the within there are various changes as well. Green explains the self-driving computer is more powerful than HW3, though lower than expected, and is now combined with the infotainment on the identical board, allowing for the thinner form factor. Nonetheless that extra power also means it should even have a much bigger impact in your vehicle’s battery. Based on green it consumes twice the quantity of power when idling in comparison with HW3.
Power consumption at idle is about double from HW3 based on my measurements and people power pins are pretty massive. which makes the “Input 16V@10A” label somewhat suspect. pic.twitter.com/dmXkRHkIce
— green (@greentheonly) February 15, 2023
Now on to the exciting pieces of knowledge green was in a position to uncover, the primary of which is the brand new computer has “12 fully populated camera connectors,” although one is marked as spare. Green speculates the extra camera inputs are for brand new front and rear bumper cameras that may eliminate the blind spots that exist with the present 8-camera setup. This again confirms that a retrofit is just not going to be “economically feasible,” as Musk described last month.
What’s SVC you would possibly wonder? Based on EPC, SVC is bumper. So I’d guess these are bumper cameras. There is a huge blindspot upfront on legacy cars up front (welcome to the legacy camp, Plaid owners!), so front bumper camera and two within the (rear?) bumper corners for x-traffic pic.twitter.com/sixzNo7qII
— green (@greentheonly) February 15, 2023
Then in fact there’s the brand new “bespoke Phoenix radar” unit, which we already knew was coming based on a filing with the FCC last 12 months.
Radar: Yes, there’s now the bespoken Phoenix radar (yes, in fact there’s and yes that is what it’s called within the properties too). There’s also the radar heater in fact. pic.twitter.com/7inrjGmBM0
— green (@greentheonly) February 15, 2023
Unfortunately the one big piece of knowledge, when HW4 might be launched, continues to be unknown. As noted earlier Tesla is already including HW4 in latest Model X builds at Fremont, but not yet delivering them to customers. That would change very soon nevertheless as the present inventory section of their website was recently flooded with latest Model X vehicles. There are currently 400 available within the US and 179 in Canada in accordance with third-party inventory tracker WaitingForTesla.com. This means that Tesla is attempting to filter out their inventory before launching the brand new hardware.
With Investor Day coming up on March 1, that looks as if pretty much as good of a time as any to announce the beginning of deliveries with HW4.
You may try green’s full Twitter thread by clicking on the tweet below, and likewise view high-res images of HW4 below that.
I’m sure you might be all wanting to know more about HW4, so I’m going to indicate you the refreshed automotive computer from a Model X. Just don’t tell anybody you saw it, since it’s really a secret still.
This unit made appearance on the EPC a couple of month ago, but the image was hidden. pic.twitter.com/7AENqP6h2Z— green (@greentheonly) February 15, 2023