Tesla HW4

According to NotATeslaApp, Tesla's next-generation fully autonomous driving (FSD) chip "AI5/HW5" has officially entered the mass production stage, with a computing power of 2000 to 2500TOPS (trillion operations per second), 5 times higher than the current HW4 chip, marking Tesla's entry into a new stage in the field of autonomous driving hardware.

Core performance breakthrough: computing power soars, supporting unsupervised learning

HW5 chip is jointly manufactured by TSMC and Samsung, of which TSMC uses 3nm N3P process to mass produce the main chip, and Samsung is used as a backup foundry. It is expected to be used when Tesla mass-produces models equipped with HW5 in 2026. The chip's computing power ranges from 2000 to 2500TOPS, far exceeding the 400 to 500TOPS of the current HW4 chip, and can support more complex unsupervised FSD algorithms, providing a hardware foundation for Tesla to achieve an "end-to-end" autonomous driving model.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has publicly stated that the model reasoning performance of the HW5 chip is 10 times that of the HW4, but the mass-produced version has been adjusted to 5 times due to power consumption control. Despite this, this computing power still makes Tesla the "computing power king" in the global autonomous driving chip field, far exceeding its competitors.

Hardware upgrade: weatherproof camera + super hydrophobic coating

In addition to the chip, Tesla has equipped the HW5 hardware kit with a newly upgraded FSD camera.

Among them, the "weatherproof lens" provided by Samsung has a built-in heating element that can melt ice and snow within 1 minute and reduce image distortion; the lens coating strength is 6 times that of the current Model Y camera, with super hydrophobic properties, which can quickly remove melted snow or ice water, significantly improving perception capabilities in low temperature environments. This design solves the reliability pain point of the autonomous driving system in extreme weather and further strengthens Tesla's technological advantages.

Robotaxi pilot project first, large-scale vehicle installation in 2026

Tesla plans to launch the unmanned Robotaxi pilot project in Austin on June 21, with the first batch of 12 Model Ys equipped with HW4 hardware for fully unmanned driving tests.

Although the HW5 chip has been mass-produced, the initial models are still mainly HW4. It is expected that Tesla will launch a new model equipped with HW5 chips in 2026 and gradually provide hardware upgrade services to existing models.

It is worth noting that Tesla has previously stated that it will not provide HW3 models with upgrade services to HW4, but the mass production of HW5 may change the strategy. Industry analysts believe that Tesla may promote old users to migrate to the HW5 platform through paid upgrades or exchange plans.

Tesla VS Huawei, the second battle of autonomous driving is imminent

The mass production of HW5 chips will intensify the competition between Tesla and Huawei in the field of autonomous driving. Huawei's ADS system has a pass rate of over 96% in complex road conditions in the Chinese market, thanks to its laser radar and multi-sensor fusion solutions, while Tesla's FSD V12 version has a pass rate of only 60% in complex intersections in the United States. Although the HW5 chip has greatly improved computing power, Tesla still needs to solve the problem of algorithm localization to adapt to the special road conditions in the Chinese market.

In addition, Tesla's Dojo supercomputing cluster can accelerate the training speed of the FSD system through low-latency, high-bandwidth on-chip interconnection technology, while Huawei relies on the country's huge data resources to optimize algorithms. This "computing power VS data" competition may redefine the global autonomous driving technology landscape.