Tesla Taps Mobile Service Team To Ramp Hardware 3.0 FSD Computer Upgrades

Tesla’s Mobile Service has started picking up the slack with HW 3.0 upgrade retrofits. If Tesla optimized Mobile Service for HW3.0 upgrades, more customers who purchased the company’s Full Self-Driving suite might finally have all the necessary hardware to run the company's premier driver-assist software. 

Tesla Model 3 owner, u/bh5000, shared on Reddit that s/he was able to get an appointment with the company’s Mobile Service Team to get his/her HW3.0 upgrade. “Just scheduled my appointment to have my M3 upgraded and they contacted me to let me know they could do it at my house. Next week should have the HW3 upgrade done!” the Model 3 owner wrote.  

Fellow Tesla owner u/Investisseur shared his/her experience with the Mobile Service team when s/he received the hardware update for FSD. Just had mine done today in the driveway. Super smooth,” the Tesla owner wrote. According to u/Investisseur in a later comment, the whole process took about two hours. 

Some Tesla owners who replied to u/bh5000’s post shared that HW3.0 retrofits through Mobile Service was not available in their area yet. They were told to go to a Tesla Service Center to get the retrofit. “Interesting.. I got mine scheduled to be done at a service center. They told me it couldn’t be done with the mobile service which I also had just done yesterday . He also told me the same thing,” shared u/cubanitoash.

Some might conclude that HW3 retrofits via Tesla Mobile Service were limited to California. However, u/bh5000 said s/he was in Utah and another Model 3 owner--u/seratonik--said that her/his HW3 mobile installation was scheduled for mid-June in Kelowna, BC, Canada. 

“I’ve got my retrofit for my Model 3 scheduled to be done at home mid June, was very surprised to find out mobile can do the installations now! Kelowna, BC, Canada - apparently our local tech doesn’t mind being a guinea pig for trying new procedures in a mobile environment,” commented u/seratonik. His/her comment indicated that Tesla Mobile Service teams might have a choice between offering the at-home service or not--for now, at least. 

A tweet from Elon Musk might explain why Tesla hasn’t ramped HW3 retrofits yet--seen below. However, Tesla may start ramping HW3 retrofits with Mobile Service teams in other locations soon.  

Retrofits will start when our software is able to take meaningful advantage of the Tesla FSD computer, which is an order of magnitude more capable. For now, it’s slightly disadvantageous to have Tesla FSD computer, as our software is more refined for HW2.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2019

Since the beginning of the year, Tesla’s OTA software updates/fixes seem to be dropping more often. New or improved Autopilot features seem to be released every month or two. If the improvements to Autopilot continue at this pace, Hardware 3.0 retrofits might need to happen sooner rather than later. If Tesla Mobile Service is the fastest way to get HW3 retrofits done, the company may start offering the option in more locations.