Is this the Twilight Zone? I come with shocking news: Elon Musk has decided to be raw, candid, and honest. In the recent Q1 2026 earnings call, Tesla’s CEO admitted that HW3 does not have the capability to be fully autonomous.
Tesla has become quite the divisive company over the past few years, with passionate fanboys and skeptical haters alike dissecting Musk’s claims and the capabilities of Full Self-Driving mode. On social media, Tesla has been sharing posts featuring blind and elderly people who rely on FSD to get around, claiming it can guide them through even the most extreme weather. But the haters have pointed out the dangers of making such claims, with Tesla currently being sued over Musk’s exaggerated boasting that allegedly led a father and son to confidently rely on FSD, only to end up in a fiery crash. FSD is currently under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) because it continues to not perform as intended.
Then someone dug up an old, since-deleted blog post from 2016 in which Tesla claimed that HW2.5 and HW3 were capable of autonomous driving. The blog post read: “We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory — including Model 3 — will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.” This continued the hostility between the fans and haters, who continued to debate whether Musk was lying about FSD and whether he should be allowed to say such misleading things.
Now, Musk himself has cleared up the debate.
Elon Musk tells the truth about HW3
During the Q1 2026 earnings call, Tesla went over a lot of hot topics, including the final non-autonomous vehicle: the delayed Roadster [LINK TO OTHER ARTICLE]. However, one statement caught the attention of the car community over on X (formerly Twitter). While speaking about the latest Full Self-Driving hardware, Musk stated: “Unfortunately, HW3, I wish it were otherwise, but HW3 simply does not have the capability to achieve Unsupervised FSD. We did think at one point it would have that, but relative to HW4 — it has only 1/8th the memory bandwidth of HW4, and memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for Unsupervised FSD, and it’s just generally a thing that’s needed for Al.”
Now, Tesla will be offering a discounted trade-in for cars with AI4 hardware, along with the ability to upgrade the car to replace its computer. Since the upgrade requires replacing the cameras as well, Musk claims they will set up “micro-factories” in cities throughout the United States to serve each customer as efficiently as possible. This basically means Tesla drivers who purchased HW3 (under false promises) can buy a new car with the newer hardware at a big discount, or they can bring their car into one of these “micro-factories” to get the new technology installed.
I mean, that all sounds great, but I’d need to see it in practice. It’s easy for Musk to mention grandiose plans, like a floating Cybertruck or fully autonomous Cybercab, but this seems like a pretty massive and costly undertaking for Tesla. Still, after admitting that HW3 doesn’t do what they said it would, Tesla has to promise something to soothe frustrated customers. There are some Tesla fans defending Musk by claiming he’s been making “forward-looking statement” this entire time while making his outlandish claims.
But even before the call, Tesla owners have been demanding answers. One X user said she spent $15,000 on Full Self-Driving mode after Tesla and Musk promised unsupervised driving. She said: “That was the expectation. But that’s not what we have. Years later, we’re still sitting in the driver’s seat, still fully responsible, still waiting.”
Someone replied: “This wasn’t just a promise, it was a straight-up contract. A promise would’ve been ‘we have the hardware, we’ll sell FSD someday when it’s ready.’ Instead, you and thousands of others paid $15k upfront and in full for unsupervised autonomy! No hands, no supervision, exactly as promised by Tesla, the board, and Elon. That money was taken years ago for a delivered product, not endless delays. Drivers are still fully responsible. This is a broken deal, not just a late delivery. Early owners deserve real accountability.”
While Musk’s fans have been fine with him selling potential, many owners are enraged that they spent money on HW3 only for it to never reach the level of autonomous driving promised to them. Even if we did assume Musk was just making “forward-looking statements” and not speaking on the present, it never happened. The “he meant it will happen later” crowd will have a tough time at this point, since Musk has literally just stated HW3 never got there and has no ability to get there.
I don’t really think these micro-factories will happen and doubt Tesla will offer super cheap new cars if you trade in your old models with HW3. But I will at least commend Musk for finally telling us what we already knew: Tesla is nowhere near ready for autonomous driving.
V14 Lite will roll out in June, including all the major features available in V14. This “distilled” version of V14 aims to bring HW3 vehicles up to speed. This could include options like reversing and destination parking. But not fully autonomous driving. Not even close.
