Tesla’s Q4 earnings call is coming up, and just like Tesla has done in the past, they’ll be answering popular investor questions during their Q&A session.
The earnings call itself opens up at 5:30 PM EST on January 29, 2025 - and Travis Axelrod, Head of Investor Relations at Tesla, will be heading the event, as usual. Tesla Investor Relations will livestream the event, and we’ll have links available for you once they’re posted.
Q4 2024 Top Questions
Tesla is once again accepting questions for their Q&A portion of the call through Say Technologies. While the Say Q&A question voting isn’t over, some of the most popular questions will likely stick at this point. The current batch of questions is interesting and should provide additional clarity on what Tesla hopes to accomplish in 2025.
Here are the current top 10 questions:
Is unsupervised FSD still planned to be released in Texas and California this year? What hurdles must be overcome to make this happen?
Is Optimus now mostly design locked for 2025 production?
When will Tesla start selling Optimus and price?
Elon has said publicly that long-term shareholders of Tesla will have the ability to invest in his other companies. Could you provide some clarity/color as to what that looks like? Brokerage firms use FIFO, so anyone who trades won’t have the true length of time as an investor.
Are there any discussions with other auto companies about licensing FSD?
Is it expected that Tesla will need to upgrade HW3 vehicles and if so, what is the timeline and expected impact to Tesla's CapEx?
What is the status on mass production of the Tesla Semi? How do you project it will affect revenue at scale?
Is there a new affordable Tesla model coming soon?
What technical breakthroughs will define "v14" of FSD, given then v13 is photon-to-control?
Is the Roadster still launching this year?
Note: We’ve made some grammatical corrections to the above questions to improve readability.
Interesting Questions
There are several other interesting questions that aren’t in the top 10, but making it into the top 10 isn’t a guarantee that Tesla will answer the question during their investor call, but they’ll at least be aware of what’s on investors’ minds.
Here are some of the more interesting questions investors have submitted:
Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
Full voice control of the car, via Grok, will be a huge improvement. Can you elaborate on that functionality and when we will see it in cars?
When are we going to get the extended battery pack for the Cybertruck, and what is the range?
When will we see additional states added to Tesla insurance? Can you provide any additional info about the projects status?
How will Tesla manage having a part-time CEO, with Elon being busy with DOGE, SpaceX, X and others? Is a strong COO, ala Gwynn Shotwell, being considered?
Can you tell us some of the safety statistics for FSD v13.2 so far? How close is Tesla to achieving 1000 miles per intervention? 10,000 miles? Can Tesla make any safety data/metrics available to investors so we can more accurately track the rate of autonomy progress?
Can you share the latest developments regarding the integration of dry cathode cells in the Cybertruck?
When will the lower-cost model launch? And at what price point?
Is there a supply continuity plan for LFP cell supply in the US pending tariffs or potential Chinese export restrictions - this includes both Megapacks and vehicles.
Has Tesla given up on ramping up its solar roof?
What is the status on mass production of the Tesla Semi? How do you project it will affect revenue at scale?
We’ve submitted our own question regarding FSD below:
Tesla frequently highlights the number of miles between critical interventions as a key safety metric for FSD. Could Tesla consider publishing these figures quarterly to provide investors with greater clarity on FSD's progress?
If you’re interested in seeing everything people have asked or would like to submit your own question, you can do that here. You must be logged into Say, the 3rd party shareholder verification site, with an account, with your Tesla shares linked in order to vote or propose questions. Question submission and voting closes on January 29, at 4:00 PM EST, right before the event.
It does take anywhere from 24-72 hours for your shares to be verified, depending on which institution holds them, so make sure you do that soon.
Once your ownership is validated, you can vote up questions you’re interested in hearing the answer to. Your vote weight is equivalent to the number of shares you have. If you choose to submit a question, your question will have an initial number of votes equivalent to your number of shares.
If you’re not able to join Tesla’s live call, we’ll have a highlight of the earnings call and the Q&A session soon afterward.
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For Tesla owners with vehicles equipped with Hardware 3 (HW3)—once hailed as the key to unlocking autonomy, Robotaxi functionality, and unsupervised Full Self-Driving—the landscape is quickly changing. FSD updates were previously available for HW3 and HW4, but now, HW3 is often excluded from newer FSD updates due to compute and memory constraints. While HW3 vehicles still run a capable version of FSD, they are considerably less smooth than HW4 vehicles.
This has many HW3 owners curious about Tesla’s plans to upgrade these older vehicles, which were once promised to be capable of true autonomy. Let’s take a look at everything Tesla has said and what we should expect.
The HW3 Predicament
Introduced around April 2019, HW3 was a big leap over HW 2.5 and HW 2, with Tesla billing it as the computer that would eventually deliver true self-driving. For a long time, it powered the FSD Beta program. However, as FSD Supervised becomes more complex and data-intensive, particularly with neural networks moving towards an end-to-end AI approach, questions about HW3’s long-term lifespan have grown.
While HW3 vehicles are still receiving FSD updates, with the latest version, V12.6, launching in January 2025, the latest improvements in FSD v13 appear to be stretching even the more modern capabilities of AI4 hardware. This has understandably led to concerns that HW3 will not support Robotaxis and true autonomy.
Tesla’s HW3 Upgrade Promise
To address these concerns, Elon Musk has made increasingly definitive statements. After initially suggesting an upgrade would happen "if needed," he confirmed at the Q4 2025 Earnings Call that Tesla will upgrade HW3 computers for customers who purchased the FSD package.
Musk stated, “That's going to be painful and difficult, but we'll get it done. Now I'm kinda glad that not that many people bought the FSD package, haha.”
While Musk initially stated that Tesla would offer a hardware upgrade if needed, he gave more details this time, stating that the complimentary upgrade would be available for those who purchased the FSD package. Subscribers and non-subscribers will likely need to pay a fee similar to the HW 2 / HW 2.5 upgrade. Interestingly, Tesla was later sued for charging a fee to upgrade to HW3 and had to waive the cost.
When Will the HW3 Upgrade Be Available?
Despite Musk’s confirmation of an upgrade, Tesla hasn’t provided any timelines or estimates for HW3 retrofits. The prevailing logic, and one that aligns with Tesla’s approach to engineering challenges, is that the company is unlikely to initiate a mass upgrade program until FSD is significantly closer to being “solved,” meaning it has achieved true, unsupervised autonomy where a driver is not needed.
Until Tesla knows the final, stable computing power and architectural requirements needed for that level of autonomy, rolling out an interim upgrade wouldn’t make sense. It would risk needing yet another upgrade down the line. Therefore, HW3 owners are in a waiting game - will they wait it out, or will they take one of Tesla’s FSD transfer deals?
What to Expect With the HW3 Upgrade
One thing is clear. The upgrade will not be a simple swap to the current generation of HW4 hardware. AI4, as found in newer Tesla vehicles, has different physical dimensions, power and cooling requirements, and connector configurations that make it incompatible as a direct retrofit into HW3-designed vehicles. It’d require a lot of effort and cost to adapt HW4 for HW3 vehicles.
This means Tesla will have to develop another custom-designed retrofit FSD computer specifically for HW3 replacements. This computer must fit within an existing and defined physical space and operate within the power and cooling budget of older vehicles.
Speculation naturally turns to Tesla’s next-generation FSD hardware, HW5 or AI5. Elon previously indicated that AI5 would appear in new vehicles near the end of 2025, initially citing a timeframe of 12-18 months back in mid-2023. However, it now looks like it’ll ship sometime in the first half of 2026.
Potentially, a variant of this new AI5 computer, perhaps a more power-efficient or underclocked version, could be engineered to form the basis of the HW3 retrofit solution. This is plausible, as newer chip architectures often bring considerably greater efficiency, potentially allowing a more powerful new design to operate within HW3’s constraints.
What About HW4 and HW5?
The current-generation FSD computer, HW4, is already facing some constraints with the latest FSD v13 updates. This means buyers and owners of AI4 vehicles are also starting to have this question creep into the back of their heads… “What about my vehicle?”
Based on Tesla’s official statements on AI5, it is poised to be a powerhouse of an upgrade. That means up to 10 times the processing capability of AI4. This is an immense increase in processing power, and over time, Tesla will likely use every bit of it to make FSD handle as many edge cases as possible. While AI4’s computing power was a modest increase from HW3, the leap from AI4 to AI5 is expected to be significantly larger.
Tesla’s executive team has stated that the existing cameras on HW3-equipped vehicles are “capable” and that the upgrade will be focused on the FSD computer. While the AI4 cameras offer a much higher resolution than HW3, Tesla says they’re not needed. This appears to contradict what Tesla is doing as of FSD v13.2. In that update, Tesla introduced processing FSD camera feeds at full resolution, suggesting that there is some advantage to the higher-resolution cameras.
Musk also stated that cameras would not be upgraded in HW3 vehicles.
As we’ve previously covered, the newer HW4 cameras offer several advantages over the HW3 camera generation, which include:
Higher Resolution: The AI4 cameras feature 5 megapixels, compared to the 1.2 megapixels on HW3 cameras, which allows the vehicle to see things further away and in sharper detail.
Improved Dynamic Range and Low-Light Performance: The improved dynamic range allows the system to see more clearly in low-light conditions, such as during sunrise or sunset, or at night.
Wider Field of View: The rear camera on AI4 features a significantly larger field of view, providing greater awareness of the vehicle's surroundings.
It's known that AI4 processes camera data at these higher resolutions, which undoubtedly contributes to its increased performance in decision-making, object recognition (especially at a distance or for small details, such as text on signs), and overall FSD smoothness.
Therefore, while a new, more powerful retrofit computer for HW3 vehicles will bring substantial improvements, it will still be processing input from the older-generation cameras. Another technical challenge that Tesla will need to address is how to maximize FSD performance using the existing HW3 cameras.
Infotainment (MCU) Upgrade?
Most HW3-era vehicles are equipped with the older Intel Atom-based infotainment computer, known as MCU 2. Newer Teslas, as well as newer HW3 vehicles, use the considerably faster AMD Ryzen-based MCU 3. Given that Tesla sometimes packages the FSD computer and infotainment computer together, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see an MCU upgrade as part of an FSD computer retrofit.
While this would be a welcome improvement, providing a snappier user interface and better media capabilities, Tesla has not confirmed any such plans. The FSD computer and the MCU are technically separate systems, but Tesla usually bundles them together to save on costs. While Tesla has offered paid MCU upgrades in the past (e.g., from the older MCU 1 to MCU 2), there is currently no official upgrade path from MCU 2 to MCU 3.
It’s best to assume that the promised free FSD computer upgrade will not automatically include an infotainment system upgrade as well, but it’s certainly possible, given that Tesla usually bundles these together.
Playing the Waiting Game
For Tesla owners who purchased FSD with their HW3 vehicles, the commitment for a free hardware upgrade is on the record. However, the "when" and "what" remain tied to the challenge of achieving true, unsupervised autonomy. Once Tesla understands the compute power required to solve FSD, we’ll likely hear more about this hardware upgrade. Until then, we’ll have to hold on tight with FSD v12.6.
In just 8 months, Tesla has gone from breaking ground to delivering electrons at its most ambitious Supercharger project to date, just in time to be ready for the busy Fourth of July holiday weekend. Project Oasis, the world’s largest Supercharger site, is now partially open to customers for its first phase in Lost Hills, California.
What makes this remarkable is the speed of execution. In just eight months, Tesla has constructed a site that will eventually feature 168 stalls (84 stalls are now open), supported by 11 MW of solar power and 10 Megapacks of battery storage. That construction speed is pretty impressive, but what is even more impressive is how this new station operates and what it means for future Supercharging infrastructure.
Self-Sufficient Energy Oasis
Not a Tesla App
The first 84 stalls at Lost Hills are now open, and according to the Tesla Charging team, they are currently powered solely by the sun and operate off-grid.
This makes it more than just a new Supercharger site. It serves as a proof of concept for a new type of Supercharger. Unlike nearly every other charging site in the world, which draws power from local utilities, this station generates its own clean electricity from its massive solar array and stores it in its array of on-site Megapacks.
Self-sufficient charging stations are something completely different than what we see today. They are highly resilient since they’re not reliant on the grid. That means that even if there is a local power outage, brownout, or blackout, one can always come to Lost Hills to Supercharge.
If you’ve got a Cybertruck, you could take advantage of the Cybertruck’s Powershare feature and charge up at Lost Hills to help keep your home powered during a blackout, utilizing the Cybertruck as a portable battery charger. Now that’s true independence and self-reliance.
The Future of Charging
Solar-powered Superchargers help avoid massive new loads on already stressed electrical grids, especially during peak afternoon and evening hours, when demand is the highest.
This is Tesla’s vision for the future of charging: a clean, fully closed-loop ecosystem that sustains itself. The sun’s energy is captured, stored, and delivered directly to vehicles on site at any time of day without relying on the electrical grid or fossil fuels.
Largest Supercharger in the World
This opening of 84 stalls is just the first phase of the project. Tesla says that the remaining stalls, as well as a new on-site lounge, are coming later this year. Once complete, the 168-stall site will be the largest Supercharger site in the world.
While the speed of building such a massive project in just eight months is a testament to Tesla’s execution, the true innovation is actually that self-sustainability. Let’s hope we see even more large, self-sufficient Supercharger sites across the world in the near future.
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