MCU2 - Retrofit

[TaoJones]

I am reminded of when some people said we’d never have rear camera view back(ing)-up lines without hardware changes. And then one day, voila - there they were.

Thing about the MCU is that it can be as fast as greased lightning and it won’t matter until they fix aspects of media/audio management and UI/UX - and that will come not from a hardware swap but from software. Although maybe initial indexing would be considerably faster...

Soooooo...presuming that an MCU1 —> MCU2 upgrade will cost every bit of $2500 and potentially more (and possibly less), I dunno if I’m going to get in that line.

The 3G —> LTE board upgrade was worth every penny of $500, even if they did dent and bend 2 pieces of my fascia/trim in the process. It turned a wholly unusable feature set into a fairly reliable feature set overnight. After the first 8 hours of zero communication with the mother ship, but I digress.

In any case, it’s nice to hear we’ll be able to upgrade. Hopefully existing FSD owners will have a painless time getting those hardware upgrades as well.

 

[CK_Stuggi]

Quite surprising to read some replies here.

No such thing as a free lunch and Tesla would be outright crazy if they offered free MCU upgrades. Anyone with MCU1 got what they ordered (including me).

Looking at the pictures linked, it is known that the SoC driving the MCU1 is connected to the MCU1 display PCB using what looks like a PCIe connector. Hence it's very likely that can be swapped out against a new MCU2 SoC. Since there are no pictures of the actual MCU2 hardware yet, all of it is speculation. It just shows it's not all soldered to one big custom PCB as some suggest, and the whole point of it is ease of upgradeability.

The fact that there's a new mirror assembly with BT and 5GHz WiFi does not necessarily mean the new board would not work without it. I've never heard of a computer not running when Bluetooth or wifi isn't connected, and I've also never heard of a WiFi chipset that isn't downward compatible, meaning if you connect a 2.4GHz antenna to a 5GHz compatible chipset it will still work in 2.4GHz.
I also do not believe Tesla created their own PCB antenna connectors and then changed their design between MCU1 and MCU2.

So it's likely you can just hook up the old antenna to the new board. You won't get external Bluetooth, but you still have 2.4GHz WiFi on a drop-in board and save a huge amount of costly man-hours not having to replace the mirror and writing.

 

[whitex]

The fact that there's a new mirror assembly with BT and 5GHz WiFi does not necessarily mean the new board would not work without it.

Only assuming there is custom software on the MCU that can tell that it was plugged into the old mirror, so it doesn't allow the user to enable "passive entry" or other features that just wouldn't work.

I've never heard of a computer not running when Bluetooth or wifi isn't connected, and I've also never heard of a WiFi chipset that isn't downward compatible, meaning if you connect a 2.4GHz antenna to a 5GHz compatible chipset it will still work in 2.4GHz.

Well, use your imagination, if the computer thinks it has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, it may connect to an AP with band steering, tell it that it has 5GHz capabilities and keep trying to connect to 5GHz. Eventually it will time out, but then it might keep on trying to migrate and interrupt the connection. Another scenario, no BT antenna and yet it offers the user the ability to pair their phone, the user gets all frustrated because it doesn't work.

So it's likely you can just hook up the old antenna to the new board. You won't get external Bluetooth, but you still have 2.4GHz WiFi on a drop-in board and save a huge amount of costly man-hours not having to replace the mirror and writing.

You forgot about the instrument cluster which now is integrated in the MCU, before it was separate SoC with Ethernet interconnect.

 

[lunitiks]

Hey! Who changed my thread title???

 

[evster]

Really looking forward to the upgraded software. That might actually be enough if they can improve the browswer and by using optimized code and vector maps can create a snappier map experience.

Interesting about the Wifi/BT thing in the mirror. Did I read somewhere that this upgrade might already be in AP2.5 cars and was changed back in August? This would then mean that there might be a simpler upgrade path for AP2.5 cars.

 

[jaguar36]

Hey! Who changed my thread title???

Whoever did jumped the gun by quite a bit. Just because Elon says something in no way means that its actually going to happen.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Beyond the one time install cost, there is the benefit of having the same codebase running on all cars.

Tesla will never have 100% upgrade compliance. They're going to have to maintain the old codebase (or just ignore it) for a very very long time.

Hey, if anyone upgrades, I'd be interested in buying your old MCU. My screen has a bubble and I don't feel like paying $3400 to fix it.

I would bet big that if you upgrade, Tesla isn't going to just let you keep the old MCU1. They'll keep it and use it for refurb warranty replacements.

Is 2018.10.1 already on all cars? (MS/MX/M3)

Yes, as far as firmware upgrades, 2018.10.1 5e8433d has been confirmed installed on 1 MS and 4 M3.

Quite surprising to read some replies here.
No such thing as a free lunch and Tesla would be outright crazy if they offered free MCU upgrades. Anyone with MCU1 got what they ordered (including me).
Looking at the pictures linked, it is known that the SoC driving the MCU1 is connected to the MCU1 display PCB using what looks like a PCIe connector. Hence it's very likely that can be swapped out against a new MCU2 SoC. Since there are no pictures of the actual MCU2 hardware yet, all of it is speculation. It just shows it's not all soldered to one big custom PCB as some suggest, and the whole point of it is ease of upgradeability.

The fact that there's a new mirror assembly with BT and 5GHz WiFi does not necessarily mean the new board would not work without it. I've never heard of a computer not running when Bluetooth or wifi isn't connected, and I've also never heard of a WiFi chipset that isn't downward compatible, meaning if you connect a 2.4GHz antenna to a 5GHz compatible chipset it will still work in 2.4GHz.
I also do not believe Tesla created their own PCB antenna connectors and then changed their design between MCU1 and MCU2.

So it's likely you can just hook up the old antenna to the new board. You won't get external Bluetooth, but you still have 2.4GHz WiFi on a drop-in board and save a huge amount of costly man-hours not having to replace the mirror and writing.

As mentioned several times already, there is an entirely new IC display and no Tegra2 driving it (or so people have reported).. We've also seen a glimpse that the connectors on the back have changed. Unless the stock MCU2 already has code on board to drive the IC Tegra via ethernet, and the connectors and everything else is the same, I don't think the current MCU2 will be such a simple 'drop-in' replacement -- neither the entire unit nor the CPU board.

Whoever did jumped the gun by quite a bit. Just because Elon says something in no way means that its actually going to happen.

Totally. I'm actually pretty surprised a mod changed the title so quickly based on an Elon Musk tweet.

 

[ytwytw]

Honestly I see 5GhZ Wi-Fi and use Bluetooth-as-key are very useful feature

Especially I just got my car one month ago and they updated

I’m willing to shell out maximum $2000 but that’s it

I would happy to see retrofit to recent produced cars

 

[THXULTRA]

Will be interesting to see what the new MCU gives vs the old one. Will they also replace the mirrors so you can use the phone key like the model 3. I'm fine with my MCU as long as I don't lose out on functionality or updates.

 

[Xcelerator]

This may be covered elsewhere...I don't have time to read 22 screens of comments to find out. On Ride the Lightening Podcast, someone called in who had talked to a midwest Tesla SC and the upgrade cost to the new MCU would be about $2,500, plus a couple hundred in labor costs. Gotta want that new screen pretty bad to go there imo!

 

[Snowstorm]

This may be covered elsewhere...I don't have time to read 22 screens of comments to find out. On Ride the Lightening Podcast, someone called in who had talked to a midwest Tesla SC and the upgrade cost to the new MCU would be about $2,500, plus a couple hundred in labor costs. Gotta want that new screen pretty bad to go there imo!

$2500 + labor is definitely on the expensive side, and co-incidentally is the amount of the deposit one would forfeit to not take delivery. Maybe Tesla is charging this much to limit demand as to not overwhelm the SC.

It maybe worth it if there are significant incremental value or functional add, but we have to wait and see to find out the actual cost and functional delta.

 

[chillaban]

$2500 + labor is definitely on the expensive side, and co-incidentally is the amount of the deposit one would forfeit to not take delivery. Maybe Tesla is charging this much to limit demand as to not overwhelm the SC.

It maybe worth it if there are significant incremental value or functional add, but we have to wait and see to find out the actual cost and functional delta.

OTOH they sometimes offer a retrofit/upgrade and then mysteriously stop at some point in time (e.g. the high power charger swap, one of the Ludicrous retrofits, etc). I'd still love to hear confirmation about whether or not the procedure is actually available and actually costs this amount.


(Like you, though, at this point I'm kind of on the fence too. Yeah the new MCU is faster but you're still basically paying $2500 to have a Chromebook Atom chipset in your car with a 1080p display. Oooooh aaaaah.)

 

[CK_Stuggi]

I'd say it's too early to trust SeC info. Until the day before Elons tweet, the SeCs said "no way", and two days later they know the price? That's where I say no way. My guess is it'll be a while until Tesla has figured out pricing, especially considering they might first have this MCU1 rendering acceleration software deployed.
Maybe then a lot of people consider MCU1 performance good enough. Requires a timely rollout of both new maps/nav and render accelerator though, let's see about that.

 

[MXWing]

OTOH they sometimes offer a retrofit/upgrade and then mysteriously stop at some point in time (e.g. the high power charger swap, one of the Ludicrous retrofits, etc). I'd still love to hear confirmation about whether or not the procedure is actually available and actually costs this amount.


(Like you, though, at this point I'm kind of on the fence too. Yeah the new MCU is faster but you're still basically paying $2500 to have a Chromebook Atom chipset in your car with a 1080p display. Oooooh aaaaah.)

Yep. Get it while it's hot if it becomes an option.

No more Hepa filter after sale addition and tow kit is "out of stock".

 

[barjohn]

With FSD,assuming it ever comes, the navigation is supposed to be linked in so it can follow a navigation route. Might the upgraded MCU processor be needed to support this function? A slow MCU may not be able to provide the real-time location information that FSD would have to have. I'm sure many of you have seen where the current MCU has you in one location but you are actually in a different location and then it has to catch up to where you actually are. Not too cool if the car is driving instead of a human.

 

[MP3Mike]

With FSD,assuming it ever comes, the navigation is supposed to be linked in so it can follow a navigation route. Might the upgraded MCU processor be needed to support this function? A slow MCU may not be able to provide the real-time location information that FSD would have to have. I'm sure many of you have seen where the current MCU has you in one location but you are actually in a different location and then it has to catch up to where you actually are. Not too cool if the car is driving instead of a human.

Nope, the AP computer has its own GPS chip/connection. So all the MCU needs to do is send the route to the AP computer and all should be fine. The MCU will never be involved in FSD, partially because the person sitting in the drivers seat can reboot it at any time. (And TACC/AutoSteer continue to drive the car just fine while it is rebooting.)

 

[barjohn]

Does it have its own GPS antenna? If the location data from the MCU GPS differs from the AP computer GPS does one always win?

 

[MP3Mike]

Does it have its own GPS antenna? If the location data from the MCU GPS differs from the AP computer GPS does one always win?

I'm not positive but I think it does have its own. Only tesla would likely know that.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Christian von Koenigsegg

Sounds like an evangelical pornstar.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Aaaannnnd... cue every service center getting their phones rang off the hook and inboxes full....

I’m resisting...