Tesla FSD Hardware 4.0 Revealed: More Cameras, New Placements

Tesla's FSD hardware 4.0 is uncovered

@GreenTheOnly/Twitter

News and rumors have been heating up about Tesla's upcoming FSD hardware 4.0. Now, thanks to @GreenTheOnly, we have our first look at Tesla's latest FSD hardware, version 4.0.

The new hardware will not only include a faster computer and higher resolution cameras but it will include HD radar, additional cameras and new camera placements.

Cameras

It's been rumored for a while now that Tesla will use upgraded camera sensors with increased resolution. We reported last year that these new cameras are also expected to have LED flicker mitigration that will aid in reading digital signs. 

Tesla's current cameras produce 1.2 megapixels, and while we don't know for a fact what the updated resolution will be, numerous rumors have pointed at them having 5 megapixel sensors.

One of our sources says that while the increased resolution will be useful in certain scenarios, it won't be 'critical' because the higher resolution also comes with some downsides, such as more noise and will require additional processing power.

However, we expect that it will be useful in certain scenarios and Tesla may even be selective about when the increased resolution is used. The new cameras will also provide a better picture and will benefit non-FSD features such as Sentry Mode.

However, the increased resolution of the new cameras is only a small part of the upcoming camera changes.

Camera Placement

Tesla's hardware 4.0 features 12 camera connectors

@GreenTheOnly/Twitter

Tesla's hardware 4.0 has 12 camera connectors on board, with one being labeled spare. All current Teslas feature nine cameras in total. Three of them are forward-facing cameras and located underneath the windshield, two are on the fenders, two on the B-pillars, one in the rear and one for the cabin camera.

A leak last month revealed that Tesla plans to reduce the number of front-facing cameras to two, down from three. This is likely due to the higher-resolution cameras, making the third telephoto lens unnecessary.

That means there may be up to three additional cameras in hardware 4.0, or possibly four if you count the spare. According to Green, these three cameras appear to be destined for the vehicle's front bumper, although it's not clear in which direction they'll be aimed.

There have been various documented issues where Tesla has a blindspot when the vehicle is coming out of a secondary road that is obstructed by buildings or other objects. Having a camera that could look to the sides near the front of the vehicle would solve these situations, by giving it better than human vision since they'd be placed near the front of the vehicle.

FSD struggles with obstructed views like these

Cyber Owners/YouTube

According to the camera port names, it appears that Tesla may also be repositioning some of its cameras. The B-pillar cameras, which look forward, may be moved onto the vehicle's fenders to presumably help provide a better view as well.

Another leak last month revealed that Tesla is added a heater element to cameras in the B-pillar of the vehicle, which will help with fog build-up underneath the glass. 

Processing Power

Hardware 4.0 was previously rumored to be about 2-4x faster than hardware 3.0. Some of this power will undoubtedly go toward processing the new camera feeds and additional pixels the new cameras are providing. However, the additional power is crucial given that hardware 3.0 is nearing its processing limit.

Green provided the specs from the new hardware's chips, revealing it contains 20 cores, up from 12, and it maxes out at 2.35 GHz. Green also talked about the number of TRIP cores increasing from two to three and maxing out at 2.2 GHz.

While the number of cores and its frequency don't reveal how powerful this new hardware may be, Green says that the new hardware has 'a lot less improvement than many hoped for.'

It's not clear how much faster hardware 4.0 will be compared to hardware 3, but it sounds like the improvement may be toward the lower limit of the 2-4x speed bump we were expecting.

The hardware specs provided are per node, with the board having two nodes, which are expected to be used for redundancy.

Redundancy

Tesla's FSD hardware 4.0 is uncovered

@GreenTheOnly/Twitter

When Tesla introduced hardware 3.0, they also built it for redundancy in case of emergencies. Each board was built with two identical nodes. Both nodes could compute the same data and compare the outputs, letting the vehicle know if there was an issue. If one node failed, the vehicle could also continue driving itself long enough to pull over safely.

However, as Tesla's processing requirements increased, redundancy was removed on hardware 3.0 so that Tesla could leverage the processing power of both nodes.

With hardware 4.0, Tesla has once again added redundancy into their hardware, not only in terms of chips and processing but power redundancy as well.

Retrofits

During Tesla's earnings call last month, Elon talked a little bit about hardware 4.0, saying that it would not be economically feasible to perform retrofits.

However, given this look at Tesla's latest FSD hardware, it all but confirms that Tesla has no plans to offer any sort of retrofit.

Hardware 4.0 is also much more than just a faster computer. The power draw is much higher on hardware 4.0 than on hardware 3. The form factor is also completely different and will not fit in a previous model without modifications.

Tesla's previous FSD hardware upgrades were either camera upgrades or a computer upgrade, both of which were easily swappable. However, the hardware 4.0 suite now includes additional cameras, new camera placements, a new computer form factor, and an HD radar, making a retrofit unrealistic in every way.

There may be hobbyists that will dedicate their time and money to retrofitting their vehicles, but that's as far as we expect retrofits to go. The time and money Tesla would spend on retrofitting a vehicle would not make 'economical sense.'

Radar

Tesla's hardware 4.0 package augments vision with an HD radar.

Tesla started removing radar from their vehicles in 2021 with the Model 3 and Model Y. They later removed radar from their Model S and Model X vehicles as well in favor of a vision-only system.

However, with hardware 4.0, Tesla is reintroduced radar with a high-definition radar named Phoenix. HD radar is a step up from traditional radar, letting Tesla more accurately create an image with radar alone.

The inclusion of an HD radar isn't a surprise, as Elon Musk has previously said vision with high-res radar would be better than pure vision.

With hardware 4.0 Tesla is also going the extra distance with protecting its sensors. Not only will some of the cameras contain heaters to prevent weather-related issues, but Tesla will include a heater for the radar as well.

The radar heater will prevent snow and ice from accumulating on the front of the vehicle and blocking the radar signals.

Power Consumption

Since hardware 4's chips are more powerful it isn't a big surprise that they also require additional power. 

According to Green, hardware 3 consumed about 100 watts max, which is about the same as hardware 2.5. Hardware 3 was created with the same power restrictions as hardware 2.5 since it needed to be easily retrofitted.

However, since hardware 4.0 isn't going to be retrofitted, it didn't come with the same design restrictions. We don't know what hardware 4's max processing power is based on the information disclosed, but it will apparently idle at 80 watts, which is about double the idle power of hardware 3.

Which Models Will Have Hardware 4.0

Green believes that Tesla is producing Model S and Model X vehicles with hardware 4.0 now. However, Tesla is hanging on to them and they're not being delivered yet.

Tesla has their upcoming March 1st event titled Investor Day, where they may reveal hardware 4.0 to everyone. Possibly with a surprise announcement that all current vehicles contain hardware 4.0.

It's not clear whether the Model 3 and Model Y are currently being manufactured with the new hardware, the Model 3 and Y lines in China are currently paused for retooling which could be related to hardware 4.

Is Tesla Planning to Add Steam Support to All Vehicles?

Not a Tesla App

Yesterday, we reported that Tesla updated their Steam integration on Model S and Model X vehicles. The update was part of their 2024 Holiday Update, but it looks like there may be more to this than a simple update.

Steam, a video game library app, makes it easy for users to buy or launch games on their computers. However, a couple of years ago, Valve, who created Steam, launched their own standalone device, the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck runs a custom OS based on Linux.

Steam Launch

When Tesla launched the redesigned Model S and Model X, Tesla introduced a dedicated gaming GPU with 16GB of RAM and touted the ability to play top-tier PC games in Tesla vehicles.

In 2022, Tesla finally launched the Steam app for the Model S and Model X as part of its 2022 Holiday Update. The Steam app runs Steam OS, the same OS as the Steam Deck in a virtual environment.

However, earlier this year, Tesla stopped including the GPU and Steam (Beta) in their vehicles, and we haven’t seen any updates to the Steam in quite some time. In fact, we thought Tesla was axing their gaming-on-the-go dreams.

SteamOS Update

The Steam app, which is still in Beta, is getting an interesting update for the Model S and Model X vehicles with the discrete GPU.

Those vehicles received an update to SteamOS 3.6 - the same version of SteamOS that runs on the Steam Deck. While nothing has visually changed, there’s a long list of performance optimizations under the hood to get things running smoother.

Comparing Steam Deck to Tesla Vehicles

Let’s take a look at the Steam Deck - according to Valve, its onboard Zen4 CPU and GPU combined push a total of 2 TFlops of data, which is fairly respectable, but much lower than today’s home consoles. The Steam Deck is capable of 720p gaming fairly seamlessly on low-to-medium settings on the go and is also built on the AMD platform.

AMD-equipped Teslas, including the Model 3 and Model Y, are packing an older Zen+ (Zen 1.5) APU (processor with a combined CPU and GPU). AMD claims that the V1000 - the same embedded chip as on AMD Tesla vehicles (YE1807C3T4MFB), brings up to 3.6 TFLops of processing power with it, including 4K encoding and decoding with the integrated GPU on board.

While that’s not enough for 4K gaming or comparable to a full-blown console or desktop GPU, that’s enough raw horsepower for light gaming and is currently more powerful than the Steam Deck.

The Model S and Model X’s GPU brings that up to about 10TFlops of power - comparable to modern consoles like the Xbox Series X at 12 TFlops.

Steam Gaming for All Vehicles?

The fact that Tesla is updating SteamOS even though the feature is no longer available in any new vehicles could indicate that Tesla is not only bringing Steam back to Teslas but that it’s going to play a much bigger role.

While SteamOS is run in a virtual environment on top of Tesla’s own OS, we could see Tesla bring SteamOS to all of its current vehicles, including the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. Steam in these vehicles would likely support any game that’s capable of running on the Steam Deck.

We think this Steam update, which includes performance improvements and a variety of fixes, has quietly passed under most people’s radars. This could be a very exciting update for those who enjoy gaming, especially for those who love to do it in their Tesla.

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Tesla Holiday Update Weather Features: All the Small Details

Robert Rosenfeld / YouTube

As part of Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, Tesla included two awesome new features - Weather at Destination and the long-awaited Weather Radar Overlay. These two features are big upgrades built upon the weather feature that was added in update 2024.26. The original weather feature added an hourly forecast, as well as the chance of precipitation, UV index, Air Quality Index, and other data.

However, this update also added some smaller weather touches, such as the vehicle alerting you if the weather at the destination will be drastically different from the current weather.

Not a Tesla App

Weather At Destination

When you’re navigating to a destination and viewing the full navigation direction list, the text under the arrival time will show you the expected weather next to your destination. You can also tap this, and the full weather pop-up will show up, showing your destination's full set of weather information.

Note the weather under the arrival time

Not a Tesla App

You can also tap the weather icon at the top of the interface at any time and tap Destination to switch between the weather at your current location and the weather at your destination.

You’re probably considering that the weather at your destination doesn’t matter when you’re three hours away - but that’s all taken into account by the trip planner. It will add in both charge time and travel time and show you the weather at your destination at your expected arrival time.

And if the weather is drastically different or inclement, such as rain or snow, while you’ve got sunshine and rainbows - the weather will be shown above the destination ETA for a few moments before it tucks itself away.

Tesla also recently introduced a new voice command. Asking, “What’s the weather?” or something similar will now bring up Tesla’s weather popup.

The weather pop-up above the ETA

Not a Tesla App

One limitation, though—if you’re planning a long road trip that is more than a day of driving, the weather at destination feature won’t be available until you get closer.

Weather Radar Overlay

As part of the improvements to weather, Tesla has also added a radar overlay for precipitation. You can access the new radar overlay by tapping the map and then tapping the weather icon on the right side of the map. It’ll bring up a radar overlay centered on your vehicle. It’ll animate through the radar data over the last 3 hours so that you can see the direction of the storm, but you can also pause it at any point.

You’re able to scroll around in this view and see the weather anywhere, even if you zoom out. It also works while you’re driving, although it can be a little confusing if you’re trying to pay attention to the navigation system. If you like to have Points of Interest enabled on your map, the weather overlay will hide POIs except for Charging POIs.

Requirements / Data

Unfortunately, you’ll need Premium Connectivity for any of the weather features to work, and being on WiFi or using a hotspot will not be enough to get the data to show up. The data, including the weather radar, is provided by The Weather Channel.

As for supported models, weather and weather at destination are available on all vehicles except for the 2012-2020 Model S and Model X. The weather radar has more strict requirements and requires the newer AMD Ryzen-powered infotainment center available on the 2021+ Model S and Model X and more recent Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

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