On 11 Aug 2016, Electrek published the following:
A month later, on 11 Sep 2016, Tesla published this article:
Upgrading Autopilot: Seeing the World in Radar
The entire article about the new radar software adds credibility to the rumor a month ago. It sounds like Electrek's anonymous source was correct about multiple radars (potentially 5 radars). Therefore it is likely that the source is also correct about 3 cameras. My best guess is, Tesla has actually built a test vehicle with 5 radars and 3 cameras and this person saw that vehicle. Elon said what they have been working on blows his mind and it will blow other people's mind too. Elon must be driving this test vehicle.
In the conference call on 11 Sep 2016, Elon said the following:
It sounds like they built the test vehicle in late 2015 and they have been working on it since then but only managed to make the radars paint a picture in June 2016 after Bosch provided a new firmware that enables access to raw data. What Elon mentions as Tesla vision must be the work they have been doing on this 3 camera setup.
I think initially Elon was not planning to release Autopilot 8.0 firmware update but after the fatal accident he asked the team if they could adapt the new radar software to Autopilot 1.0 hardware as well and they managed to do that because they already had this working for last few months in their Autopilot 2.0 test car.
My prediction hasn't changed. I still think January 2017 is likely for new hardware. February is also a close contender. I just wanted to add some more context why I think so. I can't imagine Tesla postponing Autopilot 2.0 any further than Feb 2017 because it is getting too close to Model 3 preparation time. They will be very busy with all sorts of Model 3 related stuff.