Just wanted to give a big kudos to the Tesla Railside team in Toronto. The HW3 retrofit on my Model 3 SR+ went great with no issues. The whole process of requesting it through the app, and getting constant communication via SMS on the status was great.
Got a great Model S P90D loaner, and the whole touchless drop-off and pickup of the loaner was smooth and efficient. The retrofit took about 5 hours. I could monitor through the Tesla app. For a little while, mobile access was disabled, but I got a notification that a SW update was completed. A great sign it was probably done. I went off to pick it up even without a notification, and lo and behold it was done right when I pulled up!
All my settings were preserved except a few:
* Bluetooth had to be forgotten and re-paired. But the entry for the locking via my phone was still intact
* Home, work, and fold addresses were intact
* Spotify and TuneIn logins were intact
* Youtube was logged out, and you have to do the login hack to get back in
* Didn't check all the games, but one chess game that was paused was still there.
* One radio station was missing, but easily added back
* USB music rescanned and loaded with no issues
* Home wifi did not connect and said there was a DHCP issue, but I waited like 15 min and came back to the car and it was connected.
* I started with 2020.12.5 and ended with the same FW.
When driving back, autopilot was recalibrating the cameras, and it took about 10-15 min on the highway. And you could see the steering wheel with a blue progress ring around it. When it was done, the steering wheel fully turned blue and all was working. I had already turned on autopilot preview so I could see all the extra info like street marking, traffic signs, and traffic lights.
For such a complicated vehicle and things that had to be done for this retrofit, the whole process was so smooth. Tesla is head and shoulders above all auto companies in this regard and in so many other areas. I cannot see GM and Ford lasting beyond this decade without either consolidation or help from the government (like they both did in 2008 and probably soon with this pandemic).