Image: Tesla
One of the biggest concerns among longtime Tesla owners has always been hardware obsolescence. Buy a vehicle marketed as “Full Self-Driving capable,” and a few years later, a new computer arrives that seems to leave your car behind. A newly published Tesla patent suggests the company may have found a way to extend the life of older Hardware 3 (HW3/AI3) vehicles — without swapping out a single chip.
Earlier this week, Tesla published patent US20260017503A1, titled Bit-Augmented Arithmetic Convolution, first spotted and broken down by longtime industry watcher @tslaming. The core idea is surprisingly simple: allow modern, high-precision AI models to run on older, lower-precision hardware using clever math and software techniques instead of requiring brand-new silicon.
As @tslaming explains, Tesla has effectively patented a “mixed-precision bridge” that lets inexpensive 8-bit hardware perform tasks typically reserved for power-hungry 32-bit systems. This approach allows advanced neural networks — the kind used for Full Self-Driving and Tesla’s Optimus robot — to maintain high spatial and temporal accuracy without melting circuits or draining range.
In practical terms, Tesla splits higher-precision numbers into smaller chunks that HW3 can handle. A 16-bit value becomes two 8-bit parts, processed separately by the existing neural network accelerator and then recombined. The result is behavior closer to a 16-bit or even 32-bit system, achieved entirely through software and math tricks rather than new hardware.
Why does this matter? Tesla introduced HW3 back in 2019, when most AI workloads were designed around simple 8-bit math. Today’s Full Self-Driving models increasingly benefit from higher precision, especially for long-context memory — like remembering a stop sign that’s been out of view for 30 seconds — and stable object tracking. Traditionally, automakers would either downgrade the software or force owners into costly hardware upgrades.
This patent points to a third path. Tesla could run newer, more capable FSD models across AI3, AI4, and future AI5 systems, simply scaling efficiency rather than functionality. That’s especially relevant as Tesla has already confirmed a “FSD v14 Lite” release for HW3 cars later this year, and this breakthrough could help squeeze even more capability out of aging hardware.
There are trade-offs, including slightly higher latency and power usage, and camera limitations still apply. But the upside is significant: millions of Teslas could continue receiving FSD updates instead of aging out — buying owners more time before an upgrade becomes unavoidable.
