Tesla rolls out Holiday Update: Inner City FSD visuals, Camp Mode, new games, and more

Joey Klender

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Posted on December 23, 2019

Three days ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased that a holiday update featuring a sneak preview of Full Self Driving, new games like Stardew Valley and Lost Backgammon, and “a few other things” will be coming soon. Today, Tesla has rolled out software version 2019.40.50, and it appears to be the update that the Tesla CEO recently teased.

Reports from members of the Tesla community who have received the update have confirmed that it includes new titles for the Tesla Arcade, such as Stardew Valley and Lost Backgammon. This recent update also includes TRAX v0.1, a new app that allows Tesla users to create music in their cars. One of Tesla’s most fun Easter Eggs allows owners to draw images in their cars using a Sketchpad app. With TRAX, owners can now create music from their cars, too.

But these only scratch the surface of 2019.40.50. Apart from these fun-focused features, a number of more functional upgrades have been rolled out by the electric car maker as well, particularly for owners who have vehicles equipped with Hardware 3. The following are the most interesting features included in the recent update.

(Apparent) Inner-City FSD Visuals

Tesla has released several improvements to its Driving Visualizations in the past. This most recent update, true to Elon Musk’s words, now renders things like stoplights, stop signs, and other markings on the road. Following are the release notes for Tesla’s updated driving visuals say:

The driving visualization can now display additional objects which include stop lights, stop signs and select road markings. The stop sign and stop light visualizations are not a substitute for an attentive driver and will not stop the car. To see these additional objects in your driving visualization, tap Controls > Autopilot > Full Self-Driving Visualization preview.

While it remains to be seen if a “feature-complete” version of FSD will indeed be sampled to an initial batch of owners from Tesla’s Early Access Program before the end of the year, every vehicle equipped with Hardware 3 will have access to the company’s updated visuals. These details may seem pretty superficial for now, but they do hint that Tesla’s Neural Network is already recognizing and reacting to more structures and items that are found in inner-city streets. This recognition and reaction are invaluable for true autonomous driving.

Voice Commands

Voice commands are a feature that have been present on Tesla vehicles for a long time. Elon Musk promised that Model 3 owners would be able to do pretty much “anything” via voice commands in the past. For this update, the company has added a plethora of new commands that will allow drivers to focus on the road by controlling additional functions of their vehicles through voice input. The release notes state the following:

Voice commands have been rebuilt to understand natural language. For this initial release, we focused on commands that minimize having to touch the screen so you can keep your eyes on the road. A few areas and examples of what you can say are:

– Climate: “Set the temperature to 70”, “Turn on the passenger seat heater”
– Vehicle: “Adjust my right mirror”, “Open the Glovebox”
– Navigation: “Let’s go to work”, “Where are the nearby Supercharging Stations”
– Media: “Play the Beatles”, “Search for Joe Rogan podcast”
– Communication: “Call David Lewis”, “Send a text message to Evan”

The addition of these voice commands are aimed towards creating a safer driving environment for everyone on the road. Texting and driving is a dangerous habit that many drivers are guilty of. Among the biggest complaints of the Model 3’s critics involve its touch controls, as they require a driver to briefly take their eyes off the road to make adjustments. With more voice commands, these criticisms are addressed.

Phone Improvements

The additional phone improvements include having a text message read aloud by the vehicle and having the ability to respond by speaking to the car. This is another feature that will increase safety and limit a driver’s need to look at their mobile devices during trips.

You can now read and respond to text messages using your right scroll wheel button. When a message is received press the right scroll wheel button to have your text message read out loud and press again to respond by speaking out loud. You will also be able to view messages as they come in via the “Cards” section of the touchscreen.

To view messages that have been received while your phone is connected via Bluetooth, tap the Application Launcher > Call > Messages. You can read and reply to a message by tapping an entry in the Messages list. To enable this feature, tap the Bluetooth icon on the top of the display, and enable “Sync Messages”. Once enabled you can also choose to play a chime whenever a new text message is received by enabling “Chime on New Message”.

Additionally, if you have favorite phone contacts on your device, you can now easily access them from the Favorites tab of the Phone app.

Note: Notifications need to be enabled on your device from the phone’s Bluetooth settings to send and receive text messages. Due to the limitations of Bluetooth support from your device, you will not be able to send group messages. As usual, Bluetooth behavior may depend on make and model of your device.

Camp Mode

Tesla’s new “Camp Mode” is perfect for owners who spend extensive amounts of time in their cars. Essentially a boosted version of Tesla’s “Keep Climate On” feature, Camp Mode allows a vehicle to maintain its temperature and infotainment systems while its operators rest or even sleep. Camp Mode pairs perfectly with Tesla Theater, essentially making the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 as mobile hotel rooms.

“Your car can now maintain airflow, temperature, interior lighting, as well as play music, and power devices when Camp Mode is enabled. To enable Camp Mode, tap the fan icon at the bottom of the touchscreen and set Keep Climate On to CAMP while your car is in PARK.”

Save Dashcam Clips on Honk

Tesla’s built-in dashcam allows owners to save video clips recorded by the vehicle just by honking the horn. This should prevent any untoward incidents from becoming overwritten by a vehicle, which, in turn, increases safety and peace of mind on the road.

Conclusion

The new features added with this update are focused on creating a safer and more fun experience for Tesla drivers and passengers. The company seems to have a strong focus on increasing safety at stop signs and stoplights with the addition of renderings to its driving visualization feature. Elon Musk has stated that he aims to make the company’s vehicles the safest and most fun machines on the road. Considering the contents of the company’s holiday update, it appears that Tesla is dead-set on making Elon Musk’s wishes true.

H/T Tesla Raj, 3rd Row Tesla/Twitter

Tesla rolls out Holiday Update: Inner City FSD visuals, Camp Mode, new games, and more

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Tesla Autopilot adapts to makeshift construction lane flanked by barriers on both side

Joey Klender

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Posted on December 22, 2019

A Tesla Model 3 owner has demonstrated the vehicle’s Autopilot system adapt to a busy construction zone with no lane markings.

YouTuber and Tesla enthusiast Cf Tesla took his Model 3 out while chronicling a ride for his “Rate this Drive” series. When approaching a section of the road currently under construction, Cf Tesla was curious to see if the Model 3 would steer away from the numerous barriers set up by crews working on the site. The vehicle recognized a series of cones according to the dash’s Driving Visualization feature and alerted the driver of the oncoming lane shift.

Cf Tesla noted he did not initially recognize the Model 3 shifting away from the construction barriers, but soon realized that the vehicle began maneuvering through a makeshift lane that was flanked by onstruction cones on both sides.

“It’s rerouting itself because of the cones. The road did not just go there…This is not the normal road that we drive on, guys. This is something entirely new and it is figuring it out right now on its own. There’s no lines, it’s using the cones as the “sideline” for this road,” Cf Tesla said.

In October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the Driving Visualization feature on a vehicle’s dash screen would soon begin to recognize and render traffic cones as an extra safety precaution. The addition of traffic cones and barriers would increase driver awareness by illustrating the barriers that are present on the road on the screen of the car. This is an especially helpful feature at night when visibility is limited to only reflective tape on the cones. This feature was introduced in early November upon the release of Software Update 2019.36.1.

Perhaps the vehicle also recognized that it was traveling within a construction zone due to the multiple cones it rendered on the screen. As a result of this, Cf Tesla was unable to adjust the speed of his vehicle by using the right scroll wheel. This feature is beneficial to pedestrians and workers inside a construction zone. The speed limit inside a construction zone varies from state to state, but the car seemed to recognize that 25 MPH was the maximum speed in the area he was traveling.

Tesla’s Full Self Driving suite was designed to make traveling in a car safer for everyone. Judging upon what took place in this video, it is safe to say the software’s continuous improvements are increasing the reliability and safety of the Full Self Driving capability available to Tesla owners. Including the recognition of construction cones as lane barriers and taking away the freedom to go above the speed limit within a road work zone increases safety for drivers, pedestrians, and workers alike.

You can watch Cf Tesla’s video of his Model 3 recognizing a construction zone and adapting to lane shifts below.

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Tesla Autopilot adapts to makeshift construction lane flanked by barriers on both side

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Tesla owner drag battles Model 3 friend after Acceleration Boost upgrade

Simon Alvarez

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Posted on December 21, 2019

If there is one thing that Tesla never misses the mark on, it is its vehicles’ performance. If Elon Musk states that a car will go from 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds, there is almost a certainty that the vehicle definitely will. The car may end up entering the market later than expected, but when it does, one can be sure that it would go as quick, or perhaps even quicker, than Tesla’s initial estimates. 

This is why the company’s recently-announced paid Acceleration Boost Upgrade is so interesting. The upgrade costs $2,000, the first of its kind considering that all prior updates (including performance-oriented ones) have been free thus far. But this particular update is not the usual run-of-the-mill over-the-air optimization that Tesla has rolled out in the past. This paid Acceleration Boost Upgrade promises to cut a vehicle’s 0-60 mph time by half a second. 

A 0.5-second reduction in 0-60 time is no joke. In a recent tweet, ARK Invest analyst Sam Korus noted that a half-second improvement in 0-60 mph times likely represents a boost of about 85 hp. According to the analyst, a comparable performance upgrade in an ICE car will likely cost over $4,000. It would also take a longer period of time considering the complexity of an internal combustion engine. In Tesla’s case, Model 3 Dual Motor AWD owners simply paid for the Acceleration Boost and the update was downloaded and installed on their vehicle. 

Tesla Model 3 owner-enthusiast Chris of YouTube’s Dirty Tesla channel owns a Dual Motor AWD variant of the company’s all-electric midsize sedan. In a recent video, the YouTube host opted to test his car, which does not have the Acceleration Boost Upgrade, against another Dual Motor AWD Model 3 that has the performance-oriented update installed. The Model 3 owner met with a friend for some informal tests, and the results were very telling. 

Initial 0-60 runs in the upgraded vehicle already showed an improvement in Tesla’s original rated times for Model 3 Dual Motor AWD. During one test, the boosted Model 3 even hit 60 mph in just 3.89 seconds. A similar run in the stock Model 3 resulted in a 4.5-second 0-60 time. That’s right around Tesla’s estimates, that’s with the test being conducted in the cold, and at a location that’s less than optimal. A drag race between the two Model 3s showed a dramatic improvement in performance for the upgraded vehicle. 

It’s pretty impressive how Tesla is able to provide a significant boost to its vehicles through a simple software update. But in a way, the paid Acceleration Boost Upgrade for the Model 3 may very well be the first of many. Such updates, after all, would likely give Tesla a good amount of revenue, especially since it costs the company very little to release it to paying customers. Eventually, paid upgrades for other services such as premium games or streaming services may be introduced as well, helping Tesla’s bottom line. 

Watch Dirty Tesla‘s Acceleration Boost Upgrade test in the video below. 

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Tesla owner drag battles Model 3 friend after Acceleration Boost upgrade

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