Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

MCU1 S Owners: Logic FOR/AGAINST Tesla's $2,500 "Infotainment Upgrade"? (Not required for FSD)

MCU1 Owners - Will you opt for the $2,500 Infotainment Upgrade?

  • I DO have the FSD package but will NOT opt for the Infotainment Upgrade.

  • I DO have the FSD package and WILL opt for the Infotainment Upgrade.

  • I do NOT have the FSD package and will NOT opt for the Infotainment Upgrade.

  • I do NOT have, nor am planning to buy, the FSD package but I WILL opt for the Infotainment Upgrade.

  • I do NOT have the FSD package and WILL opt for BOTH the Infotainment Upgrade and the FSD Upgrade.

  • I prefer to KEEP my MCU1, even if it means replacing it with another MCU1.

  • I DO have FSD BUT would only opt for the Infotainment Upgrade if my existing MCU1 broke.

  • I do NOT have FSD BUT would only opt for the Infotainment Upgrade if my existing MCU1 broke.

  • I own a S/X with MCU1 but NONE of these are applicable to me...I just want to see the results.

  • I don't own a S/X with MCU1 so NONE of these are applicable to me...I just want to see the results.


Results are only viewable after voting.
This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
No, FSD purchasers will get FSD computer but only later in the queue. This is their answer to entertainment gap. Plus its my solution to an aged MCU1 that is now out of warranty. No need for preventative eMMC. I'm FSD so I've got tons of reasons to upgrade and make my car like new (sans FM which I never use).

I'm somewhat in agreement, but the only thing keeping me from making it a no brainer is that my car already has 75,000 miles on it, and I'm not 100% sure what else will start to fail down the road...
 
  • Informative
Reactions: pilotSteve
Bit of breaking news - TWTR reporting FSD will require the new MCU. This implies if you purchased FSD, you're getting the new MCU for free (?)

http://archive.is/fSdqS

So a betting man that has EAP but not FSD could go buy the $4k FSD upgrade and possibly get both for that price - though probably after a long period of waiting at the back of the line.

On the other hand, how pissed would you be if you forked over $2500 for something they eventually decided they had to give away for free?
 
As for the actual poll question - I’m glad they’ve finally made this available but as is so common with Tesla the devil is in the details. As an AP2 EAP owner I’m neither compelled to jump at the chance to upgrade the MCU nor pay the additional $4k on top of it to add FSD.

The loss of FM radio is stupid and inexcusable.

Sounds like dashcam and possibly “real” sentry mode requires the HW3 upgrade.

While I wouldn’t mind a “snappier” interface I can’t say that’s worth $2500 and the games have precisely zero value to me.

I may upgrade when my MCU inevitably dies but I can’t see doing it before then. Best case for me might actually be if the availability of this upgrade means the price of a refurb MCU1 replacement drops down to $800-1000 or so. That would be fantastic.
 
Something I don't understand. HW2.0 cars have different camera's then HW2.5. The latter has full colour while the former has B/W with a red colour filter. HW2.5 with MCU1 has sentry mode and DashCam.

Now I saw this from the website for new infotainment
  • Records from all cameras for DashCam and Sentry Mode for cars with the Full Self-Driving Computer
So, does this mean that HW3.0 get new camera's for HW2.0 cars? If you keep your MCU and have HW3.0 does it mean that you have DashCam and sentry mode by keeping MCU1, just like people with MCU1 and HW2.5?
 
  • Like
Reactions: MIT_S60
Your options don't go far enough back You don't consider the cars that do not have full self-driving and can never have full self-driving. I have a 2012 S85 signature. And yes I would upgrade to be able to get a faster and better MCU and 5G capability, seeing that my car already has unlimited premium connectivity and unlimited free supercharging And I'm not necessarily a fan of autopilot.

Just an FYI, you're not getting 5G as in the evolution from 4G LTE. You will be getting 5Ghz Wif. These two are very different.
 
Why in the world would the remove radio? I’d love to upgrade but won’t even consider under that scenario.

Apparently Tesla decided not to upgrade the tuner module when performing the MCU2 upgrade to keep costs down. (Additional parts/wiring harness required as well as an additional ~2 hours of labor from what DIYers have said.)
 
The bigger question is if EVERY MCU2 car, S, X, 3 have FM radio, why would it NOT be in this upgrade? And since every car in existence has FM radio, that lowers the resale value of the car. Since MCU2 obviously has an FM chip and does FM, there is absolutely no reason why putting MCU2 into a 2017 MCU1 car would not have FM. I hope someone from Tesla chimes in here, as the ONLY logical reason FM would be lost is if it was NOT an MCU2 being installed, which leads me to think is it a newer MCU3? It is quite possible that they had to redesign the motherboard and new motherboard does not have the $1 FM chip, lol. But if that is the case, there is also a chance that the processor, memory, or other parts are faster or newer than even MCU2. I would really like to know technically what parts I would be buying for $2500 and forefiting FM radio for. Also if we have paid for FSD, Tesla has to install working HW 3.0 computer board or give everyone $5000 back, and I have a feeling that HW 3.0 board won't work with MCU1, so that means if people that bought FSD and don't want to pay $2500 and lose FM, eventually Tesla will most likely have to upgrade MCU1 to this unit to let HW 3.0 FSD work, and that would be at no cost, or they would have to give the FSD upgrade fee back. So many questions need to be publicly answered here.
 
I suspicion that they are not actually taking away FM, but -analog- FM. (keeping digital) And I don't see why they'd take away XM for those cars that have it.

They're not using the radio antenna for 5GHz. Radically different characteristics.

I'm not paying no $2,500 for an MCU2. My MCU1 is rooted and running a bunch of scripts that I'm happy with. Let me know how rooting MCU2 goes.

Given that my MCU1 eMMC chip is gonna go south at some point, costing around $1,800 to replace, the upgrade to MCU2 is interesting. That ought to solve the problem with that eMMC chip, right? Or not?
You can have the eMMC replaced by ce2078 or TonyT and it will then be good for the life of the car since they use an industrial-grade chip, so that's not a concern.
 
Last edited:
The bigger question is if EVERY MCU2 car, S, X, 3 have FM radio, why would it NOT be in this upgrade? And since every car in existence has FM radio, that lowers the resale value of the car. Since MCU2 obviously has an FM chip and does FM, there is absolutely no reason why putting MCU2 into a 2017 MCU1 car would not have FM. I hope someone from Tesla chimes in here, as the ONLY logical reason FM would be lost is if it was NOT an MCU2 being installed, which leads me to think is it a newer MCU3? It is quite possible that they had to redesign the motherboard and new motherboard does not have the $1 FM chip, lol. But if that is the case, there is also a chance that the processor, memory, or other parts are faster or newer than even MCU2. I would really like to know technically what parts I would be buying for $2500 and forefiting FM radio for. Also if we have paid for FSD, Tesla has to install working HW 3.0 computer board or give everyone $5000 back, and I have a feeling that HW 3.0 board won't work with MCU1, so that means if people that bought FSD and don't want to pay $2500 and lose FM, eventually Tesla will most likely have to upgrade MCU1 to this unit to let HW 3.0 FSD work, and that would be at no cost, or they would have to give the FSD upgrade fee back. So many questions need to be publicly answered here.

(1) It does NOT lower the resale value. It's FM/AM/SX radio. Everyone is now streaming and yes you can stream from radio.com.

(2) The reason is already explained all over twitter and in another thread here on TMC. Check it out as it explain exactly why it's not included.
 
Zanary, no offense but not everyone can just stream from radio.com. I live in a very good cell area, wealthy suburban area, yet the cell service drops off completely in many areas. Or it stops streaming for a few seconds and then resumes. This is very annoying, hence why I use FM radio (could care less about AM or Sirius). Also my wife and kids always put on their favorite local FM stations when in my car. The big issue is unless you have great cell signal, you will get drop offs, no service, ect. , and even in good cell areas ATT is giving you lower priority (do a speed test) then the same ATT phone in your hand on 4G, a lot lower. That is why the browser takes 1/2 an hour to load a webpage even after a reboot on cell, and why having live traffic, streaming radio, browser at the same time is impossible, just not enough bandwith and priority. Sure MCU2 is faster at rendering webpages, but it is not faster at streaming or getting the data for browsing from the cell towers. The Nvidia Tegra in MCU1 is way more than fast enough to render a website, hell it could play 3D video games, the problem is a few things (not enough ram, poor coding, poor LTE cell reception/bandwith). So unless MCU2 has a better cell receiver/transmitter and better antannae and higher priority to ATT towers, it will be no faster than MCU1 at streaming audio, and it will get the same pauses and drop outs.
And if you are going to do a job, an upgrade, do it right or don't do it at all. No reason to lose FM radio due to laziness or a few extra dollars.
 
Zanary, no offense but not everyone can just stream from radio.com. I live in a very good cell area, wealthy suburban area, yet the cell service drops off completely in many areas. Or it stops streaming for a few seconds and then resumes. This is very annoying, hence why I use FM radio (could care less about AM or Sirius). Also my wife and kids always put on their favorite local FM stations when in my car. The big issue is unless you have great cell signal, you will get drop offs, no service, ect. , and even in good cell areas ATT is giving you lower priority (do a speed test) then the same ATT phone in your hand on 4G, a lot lower. That is why the browser takes 1/2 an hour to load a webpage even after a reboot on cell, and why having live traffic, streaming radio, browser at the same time is impossible, just not enough bandwith and priority. Sure MCU2 is faster at rendering webpages, but it is not faster at streaming or getting the data for browsing from the cell towers. The Nvidia Tegra in MCU1 is way more than fast enough to render a website, hell it could play 3D video games, the problem is a few things (not enough ram, poor coding, poor LTE cell reception/bandwith). So unless MCU2 has a better cell receiver/transmitter and better antannae and higher priority to ATT towers, it will be no faster than MCU1 at streaming audio, and it will get the same pauses and drop outs.
And if you are going to do a job, an upgrade, do it right or don't do it at all. No reason to lose FM radio due to laziness or a few extra dollars.

You have so many inaccurate statements in here... It's just not worth time to explain why.

I think a Tesla is NOT the vehicle for you... and that's OK. There are plenty of other vehicles that may meet your needs. I'm sure you'll find that fits your needs.
 
Zanary, I'm as happy or happier with my Tesla than any of my previous dozens of cars. It is the car for me, but I'm not going to be a drink the Tesla kool-aid fanboi when an obvious dumb decision was made and is upsetting a lot of people. Omitting FM is a poor choice no matter how you look at it. And if an outside Tesla repair guy has already put the digital ethernet FM radio in that fits exactly where the analog is, then OBVIOUSLY it can be done. Sure it took him 2 hours, but he did it once. A trained Tesla team would be able to do it in far less time, and the part costs are negligible. I pride myself on years of wisdom and diplomacy. It seems like the best solution would have been to offer the upgrade to MCU2 without FM radio for $2000 and with FM radio for $2500, that would cover the labor cost for those who want FM radio. And I 100% disagree with you, it WILL hurt resale value as most buyers will be upset or think the car is defective without FM. Another poor choice I pointed out years ago and Tesla heard about this and solved it kinda was the fact that my 2017 had cheap small visor mirrors without lights. My wife said, "You paid $90K for a car that is missing something that every car for the last 30 years has, even $20K cars?" I said, "I didn't know, I just assumed like every car has a steering wheel, every car in this price category and far below has lighted visor mirrors (the ladies like to do their make-up). Then about a year later they all came with lighted visor mirrors. So I asked if I could upgrade, and was told it can't be done. Really? Installing some LEDs around a mirror and running two wires? Cmon, I could even do that if I wanted to, but I'm not going to void my warranty. I'm not here to get in a fight with you, I'm just saying there are a few things Tesla overlooks or decides on that really should be done better, more input, and offered multiple options instead of you just get what we decide to throw in the car this month. I mean at least have model years where you know what you are getting when you buy the car and what to expect if you buy next year's model (like any other auto company). Many people bought their cars Jan-March 2018 and missed MCU2 and lighted visor mirrors because they got unlucky due to Tesla just starting to throw them in randomly though out the year instead of properly announcing the new features and including them in all 2018 cars. I love my car, but I am not blind to some of the major complaints people have that are 100% valid. And to make sure it was not just me as you put it, because I assume you are a lot younger than myself thinking streaming is a fine replacement for FM, I asked everyone in my family which ranges from two teenagers (that stream on their phones all the time), to my early twenty year old, to my wife (early 40's) and myself (early 50's) and everyone had the same answer (the teenagers surprised me a little), they all said you need FM radio, we all listen to different FM stations all the time in our cars, and I've never heard of a car that doesn't have FM. So maybe FM doesn't matter to you, but I bet if you asked everyone you know what they thought of paying $2500 to get a faster browser and a few video games, but the car loses FM radio and you will be VERY surprised at the answers you get from everyone.
 
Last edited:
Omitting FM is a poor choice no matter how you look at it. And if an outside Tesla repair guy has already put the digital ethernet FM radio in that fits exactly where the analog is, then OBVIOUSLY it can be done. Sure it took him 2 hours, but he did it once. A trained Tesla team would be able to do it in far less time, and the part costs are negligible. I pride myself on years of wisdom and diplomacy. It seems like the best solution would have been to offer the upgrade to MCU2 without FM radio for $2000 and with FM radio for $2500, that would cover the labor cost for those who want FM radio. And I 100% disagree with you, it WILL hurt resale value as most buyers will be upset or think the car is defective without FM.

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Then again, it's already missing AM radio, which means I can't listen to KQED anymore while going up over Pacheco Pass (where there is approximately zero cell signal from any carrier). Not sure how much I'm going to cry over FM, which I haven't listened to in a couple of decades. (KQED FM doesn't reach that far.) [redacted swearing]
 
I just pulled out my BGA rework setup thinking this weekend I wanted to finally swap out my emmc, as it's obviously dying. Of course, there is always the risk that the MCU will not survive this, and if that happens and I have to pay Tesla for a new MCU, I'd prefer it be MCU2 rather than MCU1 (which is same price or more, and will die like the old one did), HOWEVER my car may not be "eligible" for the upgrade for months, as it's a 2015 with AP1. Now I'm thinking should I risk it waiting for eligibility (I am not upgrading if the emmc transplant succeeds btw), and I have a deadline from Tesla of May 1st since I have been refusing updates due to my emmc having more issues on the "other image half" *sigh*