- The Model S and Model X will receive major upgrades, with the long-awaited FSD v14 Lite on the horizon.
- Elluswamy indicated the upgrades were supposed to launch last week, leaving owners eagerly anticipating new features.
- HW3-equipped Model S and Model X vehicles will receive v14 Lite, but they won't support unsupervised self-driving capabilities.
- The list of new features has frustrated owners, as many of them are not being delivered immediately.
Tesla's recently discontinued flagship models, the Model S and Model X, are set to receive significant upgrades. According to the company's AI chief, Ashok Elluswamy, the older Hardware 3 versions of the Model S and Model X vehicles have been the last major models awaiting the rollout of Tesla's Full Self-Driving v14 Lite, and this wait appears to be coming to an end.
Anticipation for the Upgrade Timing
During Tesla's Cybertruck event, Elluswamy told Ryan McCaffrey that he believed the upgrades for these two models "should have been out last week." Evidently, Elluswamy expects the features to be pushed to these HW3 Model S and Model X vehicles soon. "For my @Tesla friends, especially those with HW3 Model S and X, who are waiting for FSD v14 Lite, I spoke with @aelluswamy at the Cybertruck event, and when I asked about the v14 Lite rollout for S/X owners,
he said, 'Oh, I thought that was supposed to be out last week.' So: it's coming soon!"
These models are not the current Model S and Model X, which now come with Hardware 4. They are the pre-refresh flagship models built on Tesla's older Autopilot computer, commonly referred to as HW3 or AI3. Tesla stopped using this computer in new vehicles years ago, which is why owners consider these S and X vehicles a closed generation. Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with the same computer began receiving v14 Lite at the end of June 2026 and saw a wider rollout in North America in July.
South Korea followed as an early international market. The S and X versions with the same software, however, were not part of this wave of updates.
Features of FSD v14 Lite
v14 Lite is Tesla's way of compressing the current v14 driving stack to run on hardware incapable of running the full AI 4 model. The company describes this process as distillation: behaviors learned on newer computers, including reinforcement learning and offline models, are compressed so that older chips and cameras can serve as guidance. Early descriptions indicate that the distilled network is about 15% of the original size. The end result is still supervised Level 2 driving. Tesla has made it clear that HW3 cannot support unsupervised Full Self-Driving or Robotaxi operations due to its limited memory and bandwidth.
The list of new features has made the wait for S and X owners particularly frustrating, as many of the new features are being rolled out with it.
The first Lite version's official release notes, firmware version 2026.20.5.1, added parking, leaving parking, and reversing capabilities; arrival options for parking lots, streets, lanes, or curbs; always-available speed configurations; and the ability to engage from a parking state. Tesla also claims improved handling of merges, forks, pedestrians, traffic signals, and cut-ins, along with reduced phantom braking and smoother lane-centering control. A subsequent version, 2026.20.6.10, released in mid-July, added more Hardware 4 interface elements, including a standalone self-driving app and the ability to start a trip from a parking state without brake pedal confirmation.
Elluswamy called this version "the most likely to see a wide release." The wide release has already covered most other HW3 vehicles in the United States and Canada. International timing still depends on regional validation and regulatory approval.
For S and X owners, the remaining work seems to be model-specific validation rather than a new software stack. There are no official Tesla release notes or version numbers for these two models yet, only Elluswamy's offhand timeline. Some HW3 owners who have received Lite report significant gains compared to v12.6; others describe new hesitations or phantom braking. The next test will be to see if the same software can run smoothly on these old flagship models, which have waited the longest.
The Significance of Upgrading Model S and Model X
Tesla's major upgrades to the Model S and Model X demonstrate the company's ongoing support for older models. Although these models have been discontinued, the upgrades can enhance the user experience for owners and extend the market life of these vehicles. The rollout of FSD v14 Lite, while not enabling full self-driving, still provides new driver-assistance features for owners, which is significant for boosting Tesla's brand image and customer satisfaction. The gap between the expectations of new features and the actual delivery may affect owners' trust and loyalty toward Tesla.