Tesla offered 100 of its employees a chance to test the Hardware 2 autonomous driving system in September, allowing them to get the final version installed in their Tesla vehicles free once it was ready. In return, employees had to provide 300 hours of feedback to the company. Recently, Tesla sent out an email to recruit a few hundred more beta-testers for internally testing the new autopilot hardware – Hardware 3, successor to the HW2.
The HW 3 is a neural network computer that allows Tesla cars to function with full self-driving capabilities and is said to have 1000 percent greater capacity than the previous HW2.
Employees who choose to avail the offer will receive the Full Self Driving (FSD) Autopilot hardware and software package installed in their Tesla cars for free – the $8,000 price for the FSD will be waived.
One obstacle in finding enough employees to volunteer for testing the HW3 is that not many employees of the company own Tesla vehicles since only the premium interior option is compatible with the new autopilot hardware.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also revealed in another email that employees volunteering will not have to pay the additional $5,000 price for the premium interior option either. By doing this, Musk aims to receive enough feedback to better develop the autonomous driving system and add in features that will help vehicles reach full autonomy, as well as start production of the system by December 2019.