The Support Page Names Computer 3.0. The Letters Name AI3, AI4, AI5, and AI6.

The computer in the car is not one name. A support page says computer 2.0, computer 2.5, and Full Self-Driving computer 3.0. Shareholder updates say AI3, AI4, AI5, and AI6. This page does not treat those strings as synonyms. The supervised product those computers are supposed to run is FSD (Supervised).

What’s confirmed

What the support page calls the upgrade

Tesla’s AI computer page, fetched October 21, 2026, says vehicles “require active driver supervision and are not fully autonomous today.” It says that with the AI computer and the purchase of Full Self-Driving (FSD) (Supervised), additional features come through future software updates.

If the buyer purchased FSD (Supervised) and has computer 2.0 or 2.5, the page says the buyer is eligible for a complimentary upgrade to Full Self-Driving computer 3.0. It says a complimentary hardware upgrade “is not available for FSD (Supervised) subscriptions,” and that a buyer may be eligible to upgrade at their cost. The eligibility answer prints the paid figure: $1,000.00 plus applicable tax, including installation.

The page says the complimentary upgrade “is now available.” It says installation “will typically take about an hour.” It says the upgrade “does not” make the vehicle fully autonomous. The heading of that answer is “Not yet.” It says activation depends on “reliability far in excess of human drivers, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions.”

To check the computer, the page says: Controls, then Software, confirm the AI computer type, then Additional Vehicle Information.

The page does not print HW3, HW4, AI3, AI4, AI5, or AI6.

Label: Support page on the day fetched. Computer 3.0 is the name of the complimentary upgrade from 2.0 or 2.5 for a purchase of FSD (Supervised). $1,000.00 plus tax is the subscription path, not the purchase path. “Not yet” is the page’s answer on full autonomy. “Now available” is the page’s answer on the complimentary upgrade. It does not name a vehicle year.

What the letters call the chips

The Q3 2025 update says: “Every Tesla vehicle delivered today is designed for autonomy.” The same paragraph says the focus is scaling the hardware business so the products “will deliver increasing value” through services powered by AI. “Designed for autonomy” is that sentence. It does not name a computer generation.

The Q4 and full-year 2025 update says development of in-house AI5 and AI6 inference chips “progressed during the quarter, with production planned for 2027 and 2028, respectively.” It says the company is “targeting a 50x improvement in performance for AI5 relative to AI4 thanks to 10x raw compute, 9x memory capacity and 5x hardened block quantization and softmax function.” A footnote on the FSD miles chart says active driver supervision is required and that the feature “does not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Label: Targets in a shareholder update. “Targeting” and “planned for” are the letter’s words. 50x, 10x, 9x, and 5x are the letter’s factors. They are not a benchmark this desk ran. The letter does not say AI4 is computer 3.0.

The Q1 2026 update says that in April the company completed “the final chip design” of the AI5 inference processor. It says a Spring Update includes a new in-vehicle Self-Driving App for "(AI4 vehicles)." It says architectural work will “help accelerate our efforts to eventually deploy unsupervised autonomy” on the Robotaxi fleet and on customer-owned vehicles. The same footnote says supervision is required and that the feature does not make the vehicle autonomous.

Label: “Final chip design” in April is not the Q4 letter’s “production planned for 2027.” “Eventually” is not a date. “(AI4 vehicles)” is the letter’s parenthesis on who gets that app. It does not define AI4.

The Q2 2026 update says the company began delivering FSD v14 lite to customers in the U.S. and South Korea, the latter in July, with AI3 hardware. It says: “This software build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configuration of AI3.” It lists destination options and speed profiles as part of that build.

Label: The Q2 letter’s own distinction. AI3 and AI4 are different configurations in that sentence. “Distills” is the letter’s verb. It is not a claim that the two builds are the same software. v14 lite on AI3 is not the Q1 letter’s app for AI4 vehicles. South Korea “in July” is the letter’s timing for that market. The U.S. timing is “began delivering,” without a day.

What this page does not merge

HW3 and HW4 are names enthusiasts use. They are not printed on the support page fetched October 21, 2026, and they are not printed in the four updates read here. Computer 3.0, on the support page, is an upgrade from 2.0 or 2.5. AI3, in the Q2 letter, is a camera and compute configuration that received v14 lite. Those can be the same part. These documents do not say so. This page does not say so.

AI5’s “production planned for 2027” is the Q4 2025 letter. “Final chip design” in April is the Q1 2026 letter. A finished design is not a car with the chip in it.

“Designed for autonomy” in the Q3 2025 update is not the older marketing line that every car already had the hardware for unsupervised driving. That older line was not in the updates read here.

Claims and open questions

A July 2026 account of the earnings call, in which Mr. Musk is reported to have discussed upgrades for cars with less than Hardware 4, was not opened. No sentence that Hardware 3 “cannot” run unsupervised FSD is on this page.

The support page does not say whether a computer 3.0 car can run the Q2 letter’s v14 lite, or the Q1 letter’s AI4 app. The menu path tells an owner how to look. It does not publish a fleet count.

Unsupervised driving, in the Q1 letter, is an effort “to eventually deploy.” The Robotaxi page is the service record. It is not a hardware generation.

On the map

FSD (Supervised) is the product name, including the October 18 reply about a larger font. Robotaxi is the service. The October 21 financial report, which is not out, is the Q3 preview. The company is Tesla.

Sources

Checked October 21, 2026.