Tesla bringing its latest self-driving tech to older cars in Australia, with a catch

Tesla owners in Australia running the older Hardware 3 (HW3) may soon be able to utilise a version of the brand’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.

The company currently offers its FSD (Supervised) only on vehicles with what it calls Hardware 4, leaving owners with the older HW3 – featured on, for example, pre-facelift examples of the Model 3 and Model Y – without any access to the feature.

However, the company has confirmed to owners of HW3-equipped vehicles that it’s working on a solution.

“We’re currently rolling out FSD (Supervised) v14 Lite to users in North America and South Korea, with active development underway for Australia and New Zealand,” reads an email sent to Tesla owner sam_mz20, who reshared it on X.

“This represents meaningful progress toward bringing the FSD (Supervised) feature to Hardware 3 vehicles; something we remain committed and dedicated to delivering.

“FSD (Supervised) v14 Lite is designed to work effectively within Hardware 3’s capabilities while delivering v14 features and maintaining safety and performance standards.”

The company stopped short of confirming when it will roll out FSD v14 Lite to Australian customers with HW3-equipped vehicles.

In July, it reached select customers in South Korea, the first market outside of North America to receive the system.

Tesla describes v14 Lite as a “distilled version” of the v14 software released for HW4-equipped vehicles, and includes many of its capabilities.

Unlike Autopilot, with FSD Supervised v14 Lite you can start your journey from park, with the vehicle reversing or un-parking itself. It can in turn negotiate intersections, traffic lights, lane changes and roundabouts, and then park at your selected destination.

While FSD (Supervised) is available in the US and was introduced to Australia late last year, Tesla intends to roll out an Unsupervised version in the US for use in more than just its driverless vehicles.

Again, though, this won’t be supported by HW3-equipped vehicles.

“Unfortunately, Hardware 3 – I wish it were otherwise, but Hardware 3 simply does not have the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at an earnings call in April.

“We did think at one point it would have that, but relative to Hardware 4, it has only one eighth of the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4. And memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD. It's just generally a thing that's needed for AI.

“So for customers that have bought FSD, what we're offering is essentially a trade-in – like a discounted trade-in for cars that have [HW4], and we'll also be offering the ability to upgrade the car, to replace the computer. And you also need to replace the cameras, unfortunately, to go to Hardware 4.

“So to do this efficiently, we're going to have to set up like kind of micro factories or small factories in major metropolitan areas in order to do it efficiently.

“And I do think, over time, it's going to make sense for us to convert all Hardware 3 cars to Hardware 4 because that's what enables them to enter the Robotaxi fleet and have unsupervised FSD.”

An Unsupervised version of FSD is effectively barred from being offered in Australia while the federal government works on its Automated Vehicle Safety Law, a framework for autonomous vehicles.

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