Teslas continue to improve for several years after purchase, especially in the software department. In the latest upgrade, the Austin-headquartered brand has improved the camera quality on its Hardware 3 (HW3) cars, as pointed out by an owner on X last month, and officially confirmed by the brand this week.
Tesla owner @efieber_andre posted the upgrade on X, claiming that the 2023.32.4 software upgrade was a “game changer.” In the side-by-side comparison demonstrated below, the feed from the previous version appears overly saturated, has a red tint, and is blurred on the edges in low lighting conditions.
Those issues have been solved in the latest upgrade, as the camera quality appears crisp, the colors are more natural, and the blur has vanished.
Why is camera quality crucial? Not only do the cameras enable Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) features, but they also gather data to train the automaker’s deep neural network – advanced computer brains that analyze what the cameras see, make sense of it, and help the car drive by learning from lots of real-world footage.
Some FSD beta testers driving HW3 cars noticed an improvement in the side-repeater camera quality last month, and now the upgrade appears to be rolling out via over-the-air upgrades on a larger scale. Tesla didn’t mention which models were getting the upgrades and it’s unclear when the rollout will be complete.
Although some Model X and Model 3 owners confirmed getting the OTA upgrade on X. We have reached out to Tesla for more details.
That said, vehicles with the latest Hardware 4 (HW4) began shipping early this year. HW4 has a more powerful Samsung Exynos processor, improved 5-megapixel cameras compared to 1.2-megapixel units on HW3, and a new radar module.
Although CEO Elon Musk stated in August 2023 that HW4 is at least six months behind HW3, indicating that newer Teslas won’t be immediately at par with older models in terms of driving assistance capability. Musk also tested the upcoming AI-powered FSD V12 recently on roads around Palo Alto in California, and the system appeared promising.