A friend of mine spoke to a sales rep at the local Tesla store who confirmed that Tesla is indeed installing HW3 in Model 3’s now. However, he also said they have a significant amount of sitting inventory they are trying to sell, so if you place an order now you may get matched to an inventory car which still has 2.5. We are trying to find out if there is a way to place an order that is contingent on having HW3 installed. He is not planning on buying FSD but is still hoping to benefit from other features that are controlled by the Autopilot computer which HW3 may benefit from.
I can't be the only one unconcerned about HW3, am I? I'm scheduled for delivery next week of my LR AWD, but it's almost certainly with the current hardware chipset. (My VIN is 211xxx - but with a 'K' for 2019 model year; seems an early sequence for a 2019 build, but what do I know?)
I ordered with FSD and figure that by the time the hardware is needed, they'll have a way to install it for me. There's no way they'll turn on magical FSD features and leave folks that've already been promised those features hanging for a significant amount of time. The optics of that would be bad. They know *exactly* how many Model 3's are running around out there with the FSD feature, so as long as they manufacture and warehouse that number of modules (plus some spare stock), it'll be fine. In fact, I'd guess they'd delay releasing the features until that manufacturing is complete so they can do the Big Reveal. Remember, above all else, Elon is a marketer.
I'd be curious what the take rate is/was for FSD; my guess is somewhere around 10%. If that's the case, it's, what, maybe 50,000 modules? Not a big deal from a manufacturing perspective.
Unconcerned. HW2.5 is plenty fine with me, and when it's time for HW3, I'm sure I'll get it, one way or another.
