Elon Musk admits Tesla’s Hardware 3 can’t support full self-driving: “I think the honest answer is …”

Elon Musk recently acknowledged that Tesla vehicles equipped with Hardware 3 will require an upgrade to support unsupervised self-driving. Speaking on a conference call, Musk said the company will have to replace the computer in cars sold between 2019 and 2023 for owners who purchased the Full Self-Driving (Supervised) package.
“I think the honest answer is that we’re going to have to upgrade people’s Hardware 3 computer for those that have bought Full Self-Driving,” he said.“That’s going to be painful and difficult, but we’ll get it done.”

Tesla originally claimed in 2016 that all its vehicles had the necessary hardware for full autonomy, but previous hardware versions—Hardware 2.0 and 2.5—proved insufficient. When Tesla introduced Hardware 3 in 2019, owners with older systems had to upgrade to access Full Self-Driving. A judge later ruled that Tesla’s 2016 claim was false advertising, requiring the company to provide upgrades for free.
Tesla has since moved to Hardware 4, raising questions about the future of Hardware 3-equipped vehicles. While some Tesla executives still believe software updates could enable autonomy on Hardware 3, Musk stated that an upgrade is necessary.
During the call, Musk also announced plans to launch a pilot robotaxi program in Austin this June, followed by a software update for Hardware 4-equipped cars. He called 2025 “maybe the most important year in Tesla’s history.”
In a related news, Elon Musk recently reacted to a video showcasing Tesla's Unsupervised full self-driving (FSD) showcasing an electric vehicle autonomously driving from one location to another without any human supervision. Sharing the video, Tesla AI wrote “Teslas now drive themselves from their birthplace at the factory to their designated loading dock lanes without human intervention. One step closer to large-scale unsupervised FSD”. Musk responded saying “Unsupervised full self-driving begins”.