In recent years, Tesla’s cars have gradually started to switch to HW 4.0 chip hardware to optimize automatic assisted driving technology and driving safety. At the 2024 Annual Shareholders Meeting held last Friday, Tesla also announced the launch of the new HW 5.0, claiming that the performance will be several times stronger than the current HW 4.0, and it is expected to be officially launched in 2025.
According to Musk, HW 5.0 will be called “AI 5.0” and is expected to be launched in about 18 months, around December 2025.
Musk said that the performance of HW 5.0/AI 5.0 will be 10 times that of HW 4.0, and the performance of HW 4.0 is already 5 times higher than that of HW 3.0. However, Musk also mentioned that the power consumption of HW 5.0/AI 5.0 will be much higher, reaching about 800 W, while the power consumption of HW 3.0 and HW 4.0 is about 200 W.
Musk said that HW 3.0, which is installed in older models, will be phased out in the future. However, Tesla will still optimize HW 3.0, but also reiterated that it does not plan to provide services to upgrade HW 3.0 to HW 4.0.
Tesla’s current models include Model S, Model X, Model 3 Refresh Edition, Model Y and Cybertruck, all of which have been equipped with HW 4.0 chips in recent years. Officials say that the performance is five times better than HW 3.0, and the high-definition camera lens around the car body can see more clearly (the maximum detection distance can reach 424 meters), which can more accurately predict and quickly respond to complex road conditions.
It is worth noting that Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory, which was responsible for supplying Model Y to some markets, has not yet started to switch to HW 4.0. Therefore, for example, the Model Y available in the Taiwan market is still equipped with HW 3.0.
Although there are reports that the German-made Model Y that the Berlin factory has recently started to produce is equipped with HW 4.0, not all German-made Model Ys have been fully converted to HW 4.0. It is said that the initial stage is still mainly Model Y Performance. So it is not yet confirmed when the Model Y sold in some markets will start to be equipped with HW 4.0.
But no matter what, whether it is HW4.0 currently installed in Tesla’s vehicles or HW5.0 next year, it still requires a powerful computing center equipped with Nvidia H100 chips.
According to previous reports, Musk revealed that he had stockpiled a large number of Nvidia H100 series chips, and these investments were mainly in preparation for the Robotaxi fully automatic driverless taxi on August 8.
Therefore, more news about HW5.0 hardware should be revealed in the future, and we will continue to pay attention.