Tesla Model Y HW4 downgrades seal the casket on Steam gaming in Model 3 and Model Y

There has been much buzzing in the online Tesla community about the Tesla Model Y's upgrade to the Hardware 4.0 platform. While previous analysis of the HW4 computer showed that it wouldn't be a drop-in upgrade from HW 3.0, but a new Model Y Hardware 4.0 teardown has provided more details about the upgrade — or, rather, downgrade, as it were.

Tesla's Hardware 4 computer systems have been in Model S and X vehicles for some time now, but only recently did the company start rolling out the update to its Model Y platform. @greentheonly on Twitter tore down the Model Y's HW4 infotainment system and found that there are a number of exclusions on the Model 3/Y platform, compared to the Model S/X vehicles.

Apart from the Model S and X having radar sensors that the Model 3 and Y don't have, the Model 3 and Y also appear to have half as much RAM and storage as their more premium cousins. The Model Y that @greentheonly got an inside look at only had 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, which would make Steam technically incompatible on any Model 3 or Model Y running the HW4 infotainment processor due to its 16 GB minimum RAM requirement. 

Not that the Model 3 or Y supported Steam installation, to begin with, reportedly due to GPU restrictions, as the HW4 Model Y also runs on integrated graphics as opposed to the Model S/X's RDNA 2 GPU. The changes to the storage and RAM configurations in the Model Y and future Model 3 Hardware 4 infotainment system have basically sealed the deal on Steam gaming while charging either of Tesla's cheaper vehicles.

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