Tesla Begins Equipping Vehicles With Upgraded Autopilot Hardware

Tesla has quietly begun equipping its vehicles with an upgraded Autopilot hardware suite that reportedly includes a more powerful onboard computer.

According to several sources who spoke to Electrek, the upgraded hardware is internally known as “HW 2.5” and it includes a second Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).

When reached for comment, a Tesla spokesperson downplayed the news by stating “The internal name HW 2.5 is an overstatement, and instead it should be called something more like HW 2.1." The spokesperson also seemed to dismiss rumors of a second GPU by saying "This hardware set has some added computing and wiring redundancy, which very slightly improves reliability, but it does not have an additional Pascal GPU.”

Regardless, the representative confirmed the updated hardware is being installed on all new Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles.

The updated hardware could enable Tesla to reach higher levels of autonomy. However, current owners might not have to worry about missing out on the upgraded hardware as the spokesperson reportedly said "We still expect to achieve full self-driving capability, with safety more than twice as good as the average human driver, without making any hardware changes to HW 2.0. If this does not turn out to be the case, which we think is highly unlikely, we will upgrade customers to the 2.5 computer at no cost.”