Well, the first FSD buyers were Model S and X cars, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t be smattered throughout the country. Tesla could start with all 2016 models first, then first 1/2 or quarter 2017 models depending on how small of chunks they need to keep them in. It makes sense to segregate us somehow so we don’t all rush our SCs like the mad people we are. Not literally by order date, of course, but in reasonable chunks. I have heard the install might be easier on the S and X so maybe they will segregate by model as well.
I don’t know how else it is best to do it, other than random hat draw I suppose. Tesla sends out the first batch to SCs and just contacts owners randomly or just does us as we pass through a service center for other items. Of course if that is the case, we will all NEED service right now!!
AFAIK S/X is a 30 minutes swap easily done by mobile rangers... so it'd make sense for them to do those, and let the SCs handle 3s that are more complex and apparently involve coolant lines... (and IIRC there's more mobile rangers than service centers anyway)
there's about 65k total Model S sales with AP2+ in the US.
Model X is about 55k.
So 120k total in the US (rough ballpark). Nobody officially knows FSD take rate... but the TMC take rate on the 3 was 15%, if it's the same on S/X you're talking 18k total cars... and a bit north of 400 ranger vehicles, so only 45 installs per Ranger and they're done.
Let's say at 30 minutes a pop, with travel time and the occasional other job, they can only do 3 30-minute FSD swaps a day.
They're entirely done with the S/X fleet in just over 2 weeks. With just rangers.
So breaking it down by FSD order date seems largely a waste of time with those numbers.
The 3 on the other hand is already probably 20% north of that in the US, and takes longer...let's say 150k cars total, so 22.5k with a 15% take rate.... but there's only about 95 service centers in the US per tesla.com
That's 237 installs per service center.... though they can usually handle at least 2-3 cars a time compared to a ranger...
And let's say it's a 2 hour job instead of 30 minutes.
They can do more than 1 car at a time though...but also have all the "needs a lift to get it running" work for the entire fleet...but let's say they can do 5 a day total which is probably low.... that's about 8 weeks to do the entire fleet (with SCs open 6 days a week)...and honestly after the 2-3 weeks of the rangers finishing up on the S/X they can probably chip in here too to make it even faster.... even if they can do 1 a day for the last 5 weeks that knocks a decent bit of time off.
Obviously there's some guesswork in most of those steps...I think I've been on the conservative side honestly but I don't expect any are off by MASSIVE amounts, to the point where people would be waiting 6-12 months or more to get the upgrade....again barring some display of utter logistical incompetence by Tesla which is always a real possibility.
Now of course once FSD is "real" it's possible a ton more of the fleet will suddenly buy it... and I'd certainly expect THOSE folks to be told to wait on swaps until everyone who bought before the "flip the switch to make HW3 useful" date in their area gets theirs.