Tesla infotainment system upgradeable from MCU1 to MCU2

[Cheburashka]

I ama victim of this

 

[SO16]

I ama victim of this

I see mine has about 4GB downloaded so far. I wonder if I should disable wi-fi for now since my MCU1 still seems to be running okay.

 

[scottf200]

After getting a new Navigation Data update this week to AU-2019.24-10589, my MCU1 has been painfully slow (multiple reboots daily, MCU freezing during entering pin-to-drive and text issues).

I went digging for answers and it seems Tesla has made a big mistake.

MCU1 is a 32-bit processor, which caps file sizes to 4GB... the maps file I was issued was 5GB... It seems this is causing MCU1 to attempt to install the maps file over and over without success which is causing all of the resources to be used up.

Source: green on Twitter

It appears Tesla just simply doesn't care about MCU1 anymore, I don't know how a tech company overlooks something like this... that's a pretty basic and huge problem.

"green @greentheonly 56m
Ok, so I wake up and the updater is no longer crashing. After some investigation it looks like the verification actually did complete on one of the next iterations instead of Tesla just withdrawing the maps. So the code is capable, just only *sometimes*?"

 

[ChrML]

Green seems to indicate the updater is now in a loop so further firmware upgrades may not be possible... Interesting to see how this plays out. May require a service visit

Fortunately they have access to all the cars remotely, and they are likely able to kill and patch the updater remotely on a large group of cars without visiting a service center or push a new update.

 

[neroden]

Green seems to indicate the updater is now in a loop so further firmware upgrades may not be possible... Interesting to see how this plays out. May require a service visit

Downright scary that this got pushed to customer cars. It'd fail on 100% of MCU1 cars. Do Tesla do any testing at all against their hardware revisions? Unfortunately I think I know the answer

Yeah, Tesla does no regression testing at all. Their testsuites appear severely deficient. I have no idea how their software team has been allowed to get away with this; it's terrible.

 

[ash9.58]

I see most here dont have a clue about updates relative to tech. Comparing My Tesla to all of my other tech toys, In one event Tesla updated my car 3 times in one day after I've received an update error. Within the day of an new build release I get one, and I'm on the east coast.

 

[VValleyEV]

March 2018

Yup, a few weeks after my S was built in late Feb 2018. I purchased the car in Sep as an inventory car, and didn’t know an MCU1 from a fruitcake.

I did purchase FSD, am hoping that by the time they upgrade my HW2.5 to HW3 there will be some definitive ruling from Musk and Tesla on this. I hate to think that my 2018 $100k purchase is limited in any way by a CPU made in 2011.

 

[HankLloydRight]

Yup, a few weeks after my S was built in late Feb 2018. I purchased the car in Sep as an inventory car, and didn’t know an MCU1 from a fruitcake.

I did purchase FSD, am hoping that by the time they upgrade my HW2.5 to HW3 there will be some definitive ruling from Musk and Tesla on this. I hate to think that my 2018 $100k purchase is limited in any way by a CPU made in 2011.

Has anyone determined that MCU2 is going to be required for FSD? They're separate computer modules and AFAIK, they're fully independent.

I still believe there will never be an official MCU2 retrofit program, even for future FSD upgrades.

 

[ucmndd]

Has anyone determined that MCU2 is going to be required for FSD? They're separate computer modules and AFAIK, they're fully independent.

I still believe there will never be an official MCU2 retrofit program, even for future FSD upgrades.

To my knowledge there’s zero evidence to suggest they’re in any way related. The confusion comes solely from people that don’t understand the difference.

I’m with you, MCU2 retrofit isn’t happening.

 

[chillaban]

To my knowledge there’s zero evidence to suggest they’re in any way related. The confusion comes solely from people that don’t understand the difference.

I’m with you, MCU2 retrofit isn’t happening.

I was holding out a little hope until this week. MCU1 maps had been stuck at 2018/09 while MCU2 was updated to 2019.6. Now they are both getting 2019.20.

The navigation portion of NoA/FSD does source data from the maps that the MCU owns. Is there a chance that MCU1 lacks some feature needed to deliver FSD like virtualization/hypervisor separation or just computation power? Maaaaaybe. But that is ridiculously slim. Tesla doesn’t even want to replace yellowing screens for about $150 in raw parts. They sure aren’t going to give everyone with FSD MCU2’s if they can find some software workaround.

 

[BigD0g]

Has anyone determined that MCU2 is going to be required for FSD? They're separate computer modules and AFAIK, they're fully independent.

I still believe there will never be an official MCU2 retrofit program, even for future FSD upgrades.

MCU is not required at all for FSD.

 

[DigAdrenaline]

I was holding out a little hope until this week. MCU1 maps had been stuck at 2018/09 while MCU2 was updated to 2019.6. Now they are both getting 2019.20.

The navigation portion of NoA/FSD does source data from the maps that the MCU owns. Is there a chance that MCU1 lacks some feature needed to deliver FSD like virtualization/hypervisor separation or just computation power? Maaaaaybe. But that is ridiculously slim. Tesla doesn’t even want to replace yellowing screens for about $150 in raw parts. They sure aren’t going to give everyone with FSD MCU2’s if they can find some software workaround.

I understand all of this. My main hope is that the easiest way to turn HW3 upgrades from a loss to a gain, is to do it at the same time as an MCU upgrade priced to cover the parts and labor from both upgrades, plus even some fair profit which I would gladly pay (I’m still waiting, years later, for FSD, which I already paid for, so be fair here). If Tesla did that in Q1 2020, it would dramatically increase the likelihood of profitability in what is traditionally an ugly quarter for them as. And there would be a bunch of raving fans again, right when they needed it....Q1.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Elon said it was going to happen so it better ****ing happen. I don’t care what Hank thinks.

 

[DigAdrenaline]

Elon said it was going to happen so it better ****ing happen. I don’t care what Hank thinks.

You must be new. Welcome to the Tesla forums, nice to meet you.

 

[ucmndd]

I understand all of this. My main hope is that the easiest way to turn HW3 upgrades from a loss to a gain, is to do it at the same time as an MCU upgrade priced to cover the parts and labor from both upgrades, plus even some fair profit which I would gladly pay (I’m still waiting, years later, for FSD, which I already paid for, so be fair here). If Tesla did that in Q1 2020, it would dramatically increase the likelihood of profitability in what is traditionally an ugly quarter for them as. And there would be a bunch of raving fans again, right when they needed it....Q1.

Making a couple hundred bucks per car on a complicated and labor intensive goodwill gesture is not going to “dramatically” increase any likelihood of a positive balance sheet.

In fact it might do the opposite. Bottom line, Tesla needs to sell new cars. Frankenstein electronics transplants to keep owners happy in their old cars longer is not in support of that reality.

 

[DigAdrenaline]

Making a couple hundred bucks per car on a complicated and labor intensive goodwill gesture is not going to “dramatically” increase any likelihood of a positive balance sheet.

In fact it might do the opposite. Bottom line, Tesla needs to sell new cars. Frankenstein electronics transplants to keep owners happy in their old cars longer is not in support of that reality.

Sheesh... My dreams have feelings too...

You’re right, I just don’t like it.

 

[ChrML]

Muskator just confirmed again that you can upgrade your MCU to MCU2: (this must be 4th time)

Twitter

Lot of people commenting that you can't. People here should comment too so he sees it.

(Note: Technically he could be replying only to the LTE part, but I believe that's very unlikely due to the question being so specific about missing out on Beach Buggy etc...)

 

[rnortman]

To my knowledge there’s zero evidence to suggest they’re in any way related. The confusion comes solely from people that don’t understand the difference.

I’m with you, MCU2 retrofit isn’t happening.

My Model 3 AP works better than AP2.5 in my MCU1 Model S. I believe this is because the GPS signal is received and processed in the MCU, and they do in fact use GPS positioning in AP, specifically to detect whether you are on a ramp so they can drop the set speed. When I pursued this with Tesla they acknowledged that they are using GPS to implement "Fleet Speed", which is the feature that slows you down on ramps and interchanges, and that my S was braking hard as I passed exits because I was at the limits of the GPS performance.

So in other words, I think this does affect AP in at least that way. I would be surprised if GPS were irrelevant to FSD city driving.

 

[ARMARM]

Muskator just confirmed again that you can upgrade your MCU to MCU2: (this must be 4th time)

Twitter

That was me!

My thinking is that either ...

1. he's misinformed about MCU & LTE upgrade options at service centres.

or

2. his reply “you can” was cryptic and meant, you can ... if you buy a new Tesla.

 

[emir-t]

My 2 year old car already needs so many upgrades. MCU2, AP3 for sentry and dashcam (I’m on 2), CCS retrofit etc. I’m very well aware Tesla is a fast pace company. I’m willing to pay for it. If not I’ll do these upgrades myself when warranty is over.