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Tesla infotainment system upgradeable from MCU1 to MCU2

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Adding data point. Mount Kisco, NY straight up denied my upgrade appointment week before last because my "car isn't queued for FSD" even though I was asking for MCU upgrade. Couldn't reach anyone to point out I'm talking about MCU upgrade.

Made an appointment with Paramus, NJ for this Friday and they reached out to say they don't have an FSD upgrade available for AP 2.0 yet but they can do MCU 2 upgrade if I want. They just need to push me back couple of weeks because the parts have limited availability.

I asked them to push me back to mid-June which they confirmed. They said that if FSD becomes available between now and then, they'll do it in that appointment. Otherwise, it'll be another appointment later to get FSD.

Ideally I'd get both done in one appointment but I've got a long road trip coming up that I really would like to have the MCU 2 for.
 
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Adding data point. Mount Kisco, NY straight up denied my upgrade appointment week before last because my "car isn't queued for FSD" even though I was asking for MCU upgrade. Couldn't reach anyone to point out I'm talking about MCU upgrade.

Made an appointment with Paramus, NJ for this Friday and they reached out to say they don't have an FSD upgrade available for AP 2.0 yet but they can do MCU 2 upgrade if I want. They just need to push me back couple of weeks because the parts have limited availability.

I asked them to push me back to mid-June which they confirmed. They said that if FSD becomes available between now and then, they'll do it in that appointment. Otherwise, it'll be another appointment later to get FSD.

Ideally I'd get both done in one appointment but I've got a long road trip coming up that I really would like to have the MCU 2 for.

Interesting -- my HW2 car was eligible for both HW3 and MCU2 at the same time. It sounds like they might not be scheduling HW2->HW3 for everyone yet.
 
I have Premium Connectivity and MCU1. When you upgrade to MCU2, you retain Premium Connectivity correct?

*implies no?

wut.PNG
 
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I have Premium Connectivity and MCU1. When you upgrade to MCU2, you retain Premium Connectivity correct?

*implies no?

View attachment 543073

Yes, you retain your premium connectivity. The warning is for people who have bought used Teslas with MCU1, for example, which may not come with premium connectivity.

If you have it already (which basically all original MCU1 owners have), you will continue to have it.
 
Reading some of these comments lately is sounding like there can be a scenario where you get the MCU2 upgrade but NOT AP3 computer? Is that true? Has anyone gotten MCU2 upgrade without new AP3 computer? How can you tell if you have MCU2 but not AP3?
 
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Reading some of these comments lately is sounding like there can be a scenario where you get the MCU2 upgrade but NOT AP3 computer? Is that true? Has anyone gotten MCU2 upgrade without new AP3 computer? How can you tell if you have MCU2 but not AP3?
The Hardware Info button of your infotainment software updates tells you which HW you have, both MCU and AP.
But yes, some people lately have gotten told that they can get MCU2+AP2.0 but not MCU2+AP3.0 yet. Others like me as recently as yesterday have been able to get both done at the same time with no fuss from the service center.

Seems like YMMV.

To date, though, I don't believe anyone has actually gone in for a MCU2-only retrofit on AP2.0, so in that sense it hasn't been confirmed yet that service centers are actually doing that.
 
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Reading some of these comments lately is sounding like there can be a scenario where you get the MCU2 upgrade but NOT AP3 computer? Is that true? Has anyone gotten MCU2 upgrade without new AP3 computer? How can you tell if you have MCU2 but not AP3?
Yes, it's possible to only get MCU2 and not the AP3 upgrade.

MCU2 would have Tesla Theater.
AP3 would have the new FSD visualizations and stopping at stop lights and stop signs.
 
Is Tesla doing cars with FSD first because they log more to the eMMC and will likely fail sooner than those without FSD? If an MCU1 fails on someone like me who isn't yet eligible for the upgrade (and out of warranty), would the need for repair convince them to go ahead and perform the upgrade?
They are doing cars with FSD because they are hoping to upgrade the majority of MCU1 FSD customers (at the customer cost), so they justify why it's not worth it to support FSD MCU related features on MCU1. I'm sure they will tell the remaining holdouts that some day, when FSD is Level 5, the MCU won't matter, since there will be no driver interaction required and that MCU2 is just an interim solution which the customer is free to skip and wait.

If MCU2 was to address MCU1 failures, they would prioritize customers with failed MCU1's, followed by the oldest AP1 cars, etc, etc.
 
But I thought they were only scheduling people with FSD for the Infotainment upgrade and that the people without FSD already purchased would be scheduled "soon". Did they throw that out the window? They even offered people to buy FSD now to get priority on doing the MCU upgrade.

Would it be safe to assume that if you are scheduled for the Infotainment upgrade, and you have FSD prepurchased, that you would get both at the same time? Or would I have to double check to make sure the service center wasn't just doing the MCU2 without AP3.
 
But I thought they were only scheduling people with FSD for the Infotainment upgrade and that the people without FSD already purchased would be scheduled "soon". Did they throw that out the window? They even offered people to buy FSD now to get priority on doing the MCU upgrade.
Tesla "soon" simply means "not available today, technically possible". The list of things available soon from Tesla is ever growing, some coming soon since 2012. They will probably start doing non-FSD MCU2 updates for HW2 equipped cars whenever the service centers get idle and this would just be good revenue source. MCU2 for AP1 or non-AP cars will only come if they really run out of things to do at the service centers and need revenue, or if Tesla runs out of MCU1 refurbished units.
 
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Confirmed: Got my car back and it went from AP2.0/MCU1 to AP2.0/HW3/MCU2, dropped off on a Friday afternoon, got back end of day today.

Service advisor actually sounded confused at drop off time why I'd replace a functioning MCU. Seems like they don't do a lot of these infotainment upgrades.

In terms of confirmations:
  • I had premium connectivity on MCU1, still have it on MCU2
  • 5GHz wifi just simply works with no other wiring changes. This is going to be amazing, living in an apartment complex 2.4GHz never goes faster than 5-10mbit because of all the nearby interference.
  • HW3 retrofit works just fine on AP2.0 cameras -- running plain old 2020.12.11.1.
  • Dashcam works! Color tone is creepy red instead of creepy orange but otherwise camera fidelity seems pretty much the same.
  • Most of my settings remained intact
In terms of improvements:

  • Holy CRAP this thing is fast! No UI stuttering or lag. Panning and zooming the map is instant. Routing a coast to coast trip takes about 1 second on MCU2 and took about a minute (not even joking) on MCU1
  • Cellular reception seems better -- am able to get reception deep within a garage where I couldn't get LTE before.
  • IC2 animations are a lot higher framerate and more realtime. IC1 was getting really choppy and most of the times when I'm passing a car I get 3 or 4 frames out of it, not a complete smooth transition.

Overall this has been exactly what I've wanted and breathed fresh new life into my Model S, and I no longer feel the desire to trade my 100D in for now. I know it's been greatly debated whether or not this upgrade is worth it, but honestly, if you are the kind of person who cares about your MCU1 being slow and stuttery, this upgrade is an expensive solution but brings you up to parity with the Model 3's infotainment speed. No matter how you try to pump new life into a MCU1, there is no getting around that the Tegra 3 is much much slower than the Apollo Lake Atom chip.
Had my upgrade performed today at the Rocklin, CA service center.
Aug 2017 MS AP2.0, MCU1 -> AP3, MCU2.
Dropped off the car at 8:30am and got a call that it was done at 12:30pm. 4 hours. I was told this was their first AP2.0 upgrade. My results are the same as @chillaban above. Just need the new navigation database to finish downloading so I can try out the new Stop Light Beta.
 
Had my upgrade performed today at the Rocklin, CA service center.
Aug 2017 MS AP2.0, MCU1 -> AP3, MCU2.
Dropped off the car at 8:30am and got a call that it was done at 12:30pm. 4 hours. I was told this was their first AP2.0 upgrade. My results are the same as @chillaban above. Just need the new navigation database to finish downloading so I can try out the new Stop Light Beta.

Nice! Yeah FWIW if it helps you: My car actually had 2020.12 nav loaded on from the UI and it said there were no updates. But after a MCU2 reboot and letting the car sit there for about an hour, I went back in and it said the traffic lights were ready!
 
Had my upgrade performed today at the Rocklin, CA service center.
Aug 2017 MS AP2.0, MCU1 -> AP3, MCU2.
Dropped off the car at 8:30am and got a call that it was done at 12:30pm. 4 hours. I was told this was their first AP2.0 upgrade. My results are the same as @chillaban above. Just need the new navigation database to finish downloading so I can try out the new Stop Light Beta.

Does your invoice have this part number: 9874562-00-A ?
 
Had my upgrade performed today at the Rocklin, CA service center.
Aug 2017 MS AP2.0, MCU1 -> AP3, MCU2.
Dropped off the car at 8:30am and got a call that it was done at 12:30pm. 4 hours. I was told this was their first AP2.0 upgrade. My results are the same as @chillaban above. Just need the new navigation database to finish downloading so I can try out the new Stop Light Beta.
Does the upgrade you had enables one pedal driving? Thanks.