- A new Tesla Holiday Update has brought a whole host of new features
- The new Apple Watch app allows vehicles to be unlocked from the wrist
- Major updates to autonomous driving features are also available
Tesla is getting into the festive spirit early with an over-the-air update to its fleet, which will introduce a host of new software features.
Perhaps the biggest news is the introduction of a tailor-made app for Apple Watch owners, allowing them to use the smartwatch as a key to remotely lock and unlock the vehicle, view battery charge, turn on and off the climate control to fit. and open the ‘frunk’ remotely.
A number of improvements have also been made to the mapping, allowing drivers to set a desired energy level upon arrival, with the route planner able to add or remove charging stops during the journey depending on the desired level.
Estimated diversion times have also been introduced for the first time, with the mapping system intelligently adding time to the ETA if the user chooses to stop for coffee or a quick charge. In addition, a precipitation overlay has been added to the maps, which records live weather data and neatly visualizes it at the destination point in the form of a rain radar.
Just in time for the holidays, Tesla has also added a few festive treats, including the ability to transform the Cybertruck avatar into Santa’s sleigh, with reindeer, elves and more. Unfortunately, this feature is only for Cybertruck owners.
If Santa isn’t your thing, Tesla now also allows custom wraps for the Cybertruck avatar displayed on the screen, with the option to choose from a number of pre-loaded designs or custom creations. A post on X states that details about the template and instructions will be published via Github at a later date.
Not ones that exclude owners of Model 3, Model Y and Model
Similar to Rivian’s Halloween japes, this allows owners and passersby to “enjoy” a thematic flashing of the vehicle’s front and rear lights when the vehicle is parked.
Finally, Tesla’s fart sounds have also been improved with a new ‘bum detection’ Fart on Contact feature that essentially turns every seat in a Tesla into a virtual whoopee cushion.
It will join the Fart on Demand and Fart on Turn Signal features when the software update rolls out to owners in the coming weeks.
Fully self-driving shifts into gear
In addition to the new features bundled in the upcoming Holiday 2024 update, Tesla is also slowly releasing FSD V13.2 to a handful of its trusted early testers, with the intention of rolling it out to the rest of the world before the new year. fleet.
While we’re still a long way from Musk’s much-promised Unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD), the update adds a slew of serious features that will drastically reduce the number of interventions – or instances where the driver has to take over driving duties.
After the OTA update, any vehicle – except the Cybertruck – with Tesla Hardware 4 (called A14 and introduced on 2023 or later models) can run FSD from ‘parked to parked’.
This means users can set their destination while the vehicle is stationary and select FSD mode. The vehicle will now autonomously shift from park to drive or reverse to reach its destination.
The update also means that vehicles can essentially perform three-point turns and other tricky maneuvers without driver intervention, while being able to hunt for the best parking spaces at a chosen destination and position themselves without user intervention.
Tesla has long hyped a fully autonomous future, with Musk suggesting Unsupervised Full Self-Driving will happen in the second quarter of 2025, but many believe these targets are still ambitious given the current patchy performance of the FSD software.
That said, the latest software update means that some owners will in theory be able to travel from a parked position in a driveway or in a garage to a parking space at a chosen destination without having to lift a finger – just to sit behind the wheel and pay attention to the road in case the system requires user intervention.
Yes, Tesla’s system still requires eyes on the road for both safety and legal reasons, but the updates feel like big steps toward a fully autonomous future.